For I have been back as far as Pytheas who, first of speaking
creatures, beheld the Teutonic Countries; and have questioned
all manner of extinct German shadows,--who answer nothing but
mumblings. And on the whole Fritz himself is not sufficiently
divine to me, far from it; and I am getting old, and heavy of
heart;--and in short, it oftenest seems to me I shall never write
any word about that matter; and have again fairly got into the
element of the IMPOSSIBLE. Very well: could I help it? I can
at least be honestly silent; and "bear my indigence with
dignity," as you once said. The insuperable difficulty of
_Frederic_ is, that he, the genuine little ray of Veritable and
Eternal that was in him, lay imbedded in the putrid Eighteenth
Century, such an Ocean of sordid nothingness, shams, and
scandalous hypocrisies, as never weltered in the world before;
and that in everything I can find yet written or recorded of him,
he still, to all intents and purposes, most tragically _lies_
THERE;--and ought not to lie there, if any use is ever to be had
of him, or at least of _writing_ about him; for as to him, he
with his work is safe enough to us, far elsewhere.
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