-called 'Social Hierarchies,' and sublime gilt
Doggeries, sltcred and secular, of all Modern Countries! Let us be
silent, my friend."--

"Prussian Dryasdust," he says elsewhere, "does make a terrible job of
it; especially when he attempts to weep through his pipe-clay, or rise
with his long ears into the moral sublime. As to the German People,
I find that they dimly have not wanted sensibility to Friedrich; that
their multitudes of Anecdotes, still circulating among them in print and
VIVA VOCE, are proof of this. Thereby they have at least made a MYTH of
Friedrich's History, and given some rhythmus, life and cheerful human
substantiality to his work and him. Accept these Anecdotes as the Epic
THEY could not write of him, but were longing to hear from somebody who
could. Who has not yet appeared among mankind, nor will for some time.
Alas, my friend, on piercing through the bewildering nimbus of babble,
malignity, mendacity, which veils seven-fold the Face of Friedrich
from us, and getting to see some glimpses of the Face itself, one is
sorrowfully struck dumb once more. What a suicidal set of creatures;
commanding as with one voice, That there shall be no Heroism more among
them; that all shall be Doggery and Common-place henceforth. 'ACH,
MEIN LIEBER SULZER, you don't know that damned brood!'--Well, well.
'Solomon's Temple,' the Moslems say, 'had to be built under the chirping
of ten thousand Sparrows.' Ten thousand of them; committee of the whole
house, unanimously of the opposite view;--and could not quite hinder it.
That too is something!"--

More to our immediate purpose is this other thing: That the Austrians
have been in Council of War; and, on deliberation, have decided to
come out of their defences; to quit their strong Camp, which lies so
eligibly, ahead of Breslau and arear of Lissa and of Schweidnitz Water
yonder; to cross Schweidnitz Water, leave Lissa behind them; and meet
this offensively aggressive Friedrich in pitched fight. Several had
voted, No, why stir?--Daun especially, and others with emphasis. "No
need of fighting at all," said Daun: "we can defend Schweidnitz Water;
ruin him before he ever get across." "Defend? Be assaulted by an Army
like his?" urges Lucchesi, the other Chief General: "It is totally
unworthy of us! We have gained the game; all the honors ours; let us
have done with it. Give him battle, since he fortunately wishes it; we
finish him, and gloriously finish the War too!" So argued