holly a Forgery! (NOTE of 1868.)]

From Sans-Souci the King did appear again on horseback; rode out several
times ("Conde," a fine English horse, one of his favorites, carrying
him,--the Conde who had many years of sinecure afterwards, and was well
known to Touring people): the rides were short; once to the New Palace
to look at some new Vinery there, thence to the Gate of Potsdam,
which he was for entering; but finding masons at work, and the street
encumbered, did not, and rode home instead: this, of not above two
miles, was his longest ride of all. Selle's attendance, less and less in
esteem with the King, and less and less followed by him, did not quite
cease till June 4th; that day the King had said to Selle, or to himself,
"It is enough." That longest of his rides was in the third week after;
June 22d, Midsummer-Day. July 4th, he rode again; and it was for the
last time. About two weeks after, Conde was again brought out; but it
would not do: Adieu, my Conde; not possible, as things are!--

During all this while, and to the very end, Friedrich's Affairs, great
and small, were, in every branch and item, guided on by him, with a
perfection not surpassed in his palmiest days: he saw his Ministers, saw
all who had business with him, many who had little; and in the sore coil
of bodily miseries, as Hertzberg observed with wonder, never was the
King's intellect clearer, or his judgment more just and decisive. Of his
disease, except to the Doctors, he spoke no word to anybody. The body
of Friedrich is a ruin, but his soul is still here; and receives his
friends and his tasks as formerly. Asthma, dropsy, erysipelas, continual
want of sleep; for many months past he has not been in bed, but sits day
and night in an easy-chair, unable to get breath except in that posture.
He said one morning, to somebody entering, "If you happened to want a
night-watcher, I could suit you well."

His multifarious Military businesses come first; then his three Clerks,
with the Civil and Political. These three he latterly, instead of
calling about 6 or 7 o'clock, has had to appoint for 4 each morning:
"My situation forces me," his message said, "to give them this trouble,
which they will not have to suffer long. My life is on the decline; the
time which I still have I must employ. It belongs not to me, but to
the State." [Preuss, iv. 257 n.] About 11, business, followed by short
surgical details or dressings (sadly insisted on in those Books,