Finkenstein or the others fall,--no doubt his Royal Highness
knows it. In the TABAKS-COLLEGIUM, there also, driven by duty, he
sometimes appears; but, like Seckendorf and some others, he only
affects to smoke, and his pipe is mere white clay. Nor is the
social element, any more than the narcotic vapor which prevails
there, attractive to the young Prince,--though he had better hide
his feelings on the subject.

Out at Potsdam, again, life goes very heavy; the winged Psyche
much imprisoned in that pipe-clay element, a prey to vacancy and
many tediums and longings. Daily return the giant drill-duties;
and daily, to the uttermost of rigorous perfection, they must be
done:--"This, then, is the sum of one's existence, this?"
Patience, young "man of genius," as the Newspapers would now call
you; it is indispensably beneficial nevertheless! To swallow one's
disgusts, and do faithfully the ugly commanded work, taking no
council with flesh and blood: know that "genius," everywhere in
Nature, means this first of all; that without this, it means
nothing, generally even less. And be thankful for your Potsdam
grenadiers and their pipe-clay!--

Happily he has his Books about him; his flute: Duhan, too, is
here, still more or less didactic in some branches;
always instructive and companionable, to him.
The Crown-Prince reads a great deal; very many French Books, new
and old, he reads; among the new, we need not doubt, the
Henriade of M. Arouet Junior (who now calls himself
VOLTAIRE), which has risen like a star of the first magnitude in
these years. [London, 1723, in surreptitious incomplete state,
La Ligue the title; then at length, London,