History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 02 by Thomas Carlyle
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page 16 of 129 (12%)
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1739), iii. 722. Bollandus,
tom. iii (DIE 23; in Edition 1738), pp. 174-205. Voigt, the real manner of Adalbert's exit;--no doubt of the essential transaction, or that it was a very flaming one on both sides. The date given is 23d April, 997; date famous in the Romish Calendar since. He was a Czech by birth, son of a Heathen Bohemian man of rank: his name (Adalbert, A'lbert, BRIGHT-in-Nobleness) he got "at Magdeburg, whither he had gone to study" and seek baptism; where, as generally elsewhere, his fervent devout ways were admirable to his fellow-creatures. A "man of genius," we may well say: one of Heaven's bright souls, born into the muddy darkness of this world;--laid hold of by a transcendent Message, in the due transcendent degree. He entered Prag, as Bishop, not in a carriage and six, but "walking barefoot;" his contempt for earthly shadows being always extreme. Accordingly, his quarrels with the SOECULUM were constant and endless; his wanderings up and down, and vehement arguings, in this world, to little visible effect, lasted all his days. We can perceive he was short-tempered, thin of skin: a violently sensitive man. For example, once in the Bohemian solitudes, on a summer afternoon, in one of his thousand-fold pilgrimings and wayfarings, he had lain down to rest, his one or two monks and he, in some still glade, "with a stone for his pillow" (as was always his custom even in Prag), and had fallen sound asleep. A Bohemian shepherd chanced to pass that way, warbling something on his pipe, as he wended towards looking after his flock. Seeing the sleepers on their stone pillows, the |
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