the King already irritated, grown
indisposed to it; here is the Kaiser's Seckendorf, with preternatural
Apparatus, come to maintain him in that humor. To Queen Sophie herself,
who saw only the outside of Seckendorf and his Apparatus, the matter
doubtless seemed big with difficulties; but to us, who see the interior,
the difficulties are plainly hopeless. Unless the Kaiser's mind change,
unless many fixed things change, the Double-Marriage is impossible.

One thing only is a sorrow; and this proved an immeasurable one: That
they did not, that Queen Sophie did not, in such case, frankly give
it up: Double-Marriage is not a law of Nature; it is only a project
at Hanover that has gone off again. There will be a life for our
Crown-Prince, and Princess, without a marriage with England!-It is
greatly wise to recognize the impossible, the unreasonably difficult,
when it presents itself: but who of men is there, much more who of women
that can always do it?

Queen Sophie Dorothee will have this Double-Marriage, and it shall be
possible. Pour Lady, she was very obstinate; and her Husband was very
arbitrary. A rough bear of a Husband, yet by no means an unloving one; a
Husband who might have been managed. She evidently made a great mistake
in deciding not to obey this man; as she had once vowed. By perfect
prompt obedience she might have had a very tolerable life with the
rugged Orson fallen to her lot; who was a very honest-hearted creature.
She might have done a pretty stroke of female work, withal, in taming
her Orson; might have led him by the muzzle far enough in a private
way,--by obedience.

But by disobedience, by rebellion open or secret? Friedrich Wilhelm was
a Husband; Friedrich Wilhelm was a King; and the most imperative man
then breathing. Disobedience to Friedrich Wilhelm was a thing which, in
the Prussian State, still more in the Berlin Schloss and vital heart of
said State, the laws of Heaven and of Earth had not permitted, for any
man's or any woman's sake, to be. The wide overarching sky looks down on
no more inflexible Sovereign Man than him in the red-collared blue coat
and white leggings, with the bamboo in his hand. A peaceable, capacious,
not ill-given Sovereign Man, if you will let him have his way. But
to bar his way; to tweak the nose of his sovereign royalty, and
ignominiously force him into another way: that is an enterprise no
man or devil, or body of men or devils, need attempt. Seckendorf and
Gru