3. "And in fine, leaving all that, there is one thing undeniable:
In all human Narrative, it is the battle only, and not the victory,
that can be dwelt upon with advantage. Friedrich has now, by his
Second Silesian War, achieved Greatness: 'Friedrich the Great;'
expressly so denominated, by his People and others. The struggle
upwards is the Romance; your hero once wedded,--to GLORY, or
whoever the Bride may be,--the Romance ends. Precise critics do
object, That there may still lie difficulties, new perils and
adventures ahead:--which proves conspicuously true in this case of
ours. And accordingly, our Book not being a Romance but a History,
let us, with all fidelity, look out what these are, and how they
modify our Royal Gentleman who has got his wedding done. With all
fidelity; but with all brevity, no less. For, inasmuch as"--

Well, brevity in most cases is desirable. And, privately, it must
be owned there is another consideration of no small weight:
That, our Prussian resources falling altogether into bankruptcy
during Peace-Periods, Nature herself has so ordered it, in this
instance! Partly it is our Books (the Prussian Dryasdust reaching
his acme on those occasions), but in part too it is the Events
themselves, that are small and want importance; that have fallen
dead to us, in the huge new Time and its uproars. Events not of
flagrant notability (like battles or war-passages), to bridle
Dryasdust, and guide him in some small measure. Events rather
which, except as characteristic of one memorable Man and King, are
mostly now of no memorability whatever. Crowd all these
indiscriminately into sacks, and shake them out pell-mell on us:
that is Dryasdust's sweet way. As if the largest Marine-Stores
Establishment in all the world had suddenly, on hest of some
Necromancer or maleficent person, taken wing upon you; and were