Sad all and soft in the moonlight of
memory--the lost Loved One all in the right as we now see,
we all in the wrong!--This, it appears, was the Son's fixed
opinion. Sever, years hence here is how Friedrich concludes
the _History_ of his Father, written with a loyal
admiration throughout: "We have left under silence the
domestic chagrins of this great Prince; readers must have
some indulgence for the faults of the children, in
consideration of the virtues of such a Father." All in
tears he sits at present, meditating these sad things. In a
little while the Old Dessauer, about to leave for Dessau,
ventures in to the Crown Prince, Crown Prince no longer;
"embraces his knees," offers weeping his condolence, his
congratulation; hopes withal that his sons and he will be
continued in their old posts, and that he the Old Dessauer
"will have the same authority as in the late reign."
Friedrich's eyes, at this last clause, flash out tearless,
strangely Olympian. "In your posts I have no thought of
making change; in your posts yes; and as to authority I
know of none there can be but what resides in the king that
is sovereign," which, as it were, struck the breath out of
the Old Dessauer; and sent him home with a painful
miscellany of feelings, astonishment not wanting among them.
At an after hour the same night Friedrich went to Berlin,
met by acclamation enough.
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