At last
the work would have killed me, and I was obliged to take to riding,
chiefly in the dark, about fourteen miles most days, plunging and
floundering on. I ought to have been younger to have undertaken such a
task. If they were to offer me all Prussia, all the solar system, I
would not write Frederick again. No bribe from God or man would tempt
me to do it."
He was re-reading his Frederick, to correct it for the stereotyped
edition. "On the whole I think it is very well done. No man perhaps in
England could have done it better. If you write a book though now, you
must just pitch it out of window and say, 'Ho! all you jackasses, come
and trample on it and trample it into mud, or go on till you are
tired.'" He laughed heartily at this explosion. His laughter struck
me--humour controlling his wrath and in a sense ABOVE it, as if the
final word were by no means hatred or contempt, even for the jackass. "
. . . No piece of news of late years has gladdened me like the victory
of the Prussians over the Austrians. It was the triumph of Prussian
over French and Napoleonic influence.
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