aire "put them in
his pocket,"--like one both stupid and sordid. Alas, the brighter your
shine, the blacker is the shadow you cast.

Friedrich, with the knowledge he already had of his yoke-fellow,--one
of the most skittish, explosive, unruly creatures in harness,--cannot
be counted wise to have plunged so heartily into such an adventure with
him. "An undoubted Courser of the Sun!" thought Friedrich;--and forgot
too much the signs of bad going he had sometimes noticed in him on the
common highways. There is no doubt he was perfectly sincere and simple
in all this high treatment of Voltaire. "The foremost, literary
spirit of the world, a man to be honored by me, and by all men; the
Trismegistus of Human Intellects, what a conquest to have made; how
cheap is a little money, a little patience and guidance, for such
solacement and ornament to one's barren Life!" He had rashly hoped that
the dreams of his youth could hereby still be a little realized; and
something of the old Reinsberg Program become a fruitful and blessed
fact. Friedrich is loyally glad over his Voltaire; eager in all ways to
content him, make him happy; and keep him here, as the Talking Bird, the
Singing Tree and the Golden Water of intelligent mankind; the glory of
one's own Court, and the envy of the world. "Will teach us the secret
of the Muses, too; French Muses, and help us in our bits of Literature!"
This latter, too, is a consideration with Friedrich, as why should it
not,--though by no means the sole or chief one, as the French give it
out to be.

On his side, Voltaire is not disloyal either; but is nothing like so
completely loyal. He has, and continued always to have, not unmixed with
fear, a real admiration for Friedrich, that terrible practical Doer,
with the cutting brilliances of mind and character, and the irrefragable
common sense; nay he has even a kind of love to him, or something like
it,--love made up of gratitude for past favors, and lively anticipation
of future. Voltaire is, by nature, an attached or attachable creature;
flinging out fond boughs to every kind of excellence, and especially
holding firm by old ties he had made. One fancies in him a mixed set of
emotions, direct and reflex,--the consciousness of safe shelter, were
there nothing more; of glory to oneself, derived and still derivable
from this high man:--in fine, a sum-total of actual desire to live
with King Friedrich, which might, surely, have almost sufficed even for