The Crown of Wild Olive by John Ruskin (audio ebook reader txt) 📖
- Author: John Ruskin
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For twenty years past Brandenburg had been scoured by hostile armies, which, especially the Kaiser's part of which, committed outrages new in human history. In a year or two hence, Brandenburg became again the theatre of business, Austrian Gallas advancing thither again (1644) with intent "to shut up Torstenson and his Swedes in Jutland." Gallas could by no means do what he intended; on the contrary, he had to run from Torstenson—what feet could do; was hunted, he and his Merode Brüder (beautiful inventors of the "marauding" art), till they pretty much all died (crepirten) says Köhler. No great loss to society, the death of these artists, but we can fancy what their life, and especially what the process of their dying, may have cost poor Brandenburg again!
Friedrich Wilhelm's aim, in this as in other emergencies, was sun-clear to himself, but for most part dim to everybody else. He had to walk very warily, Sweden on one hand of him, suspicious Kaiser on the other: he had to wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words, and advance noiselessly by many circuits. More delicate operation could not be imagined. But advance he did; advance and arrive. With extraordinary talent, diligence, and felicity the young man wound himself out of this first fatal position, got those foreign armies pushed out of his country, and kept them out. His first concern had been to find some vestige of revenue, to put that upon a clear footing, and by loans or otherwise to scrape a little ready-money together. On the strength of which a small body of soldiers could be collected about him, and drilled into real ability to fight and obey. This as a basis: on this followed all manner of things, freedom from Swedish-Austrian invasions, as the first thing. He was himself, as appeared by-and-by, a fighter of the first quality, when it came to that; but never was willing to fight if he could help it. Preferred rather to shift, manœuvre, and negotiate, which he did in most vigilant, adroit, and masterly manner. But by degrees he had grown to have, and could maintain it, an army of twenty-four thousand men, among the best troops then in being.
To wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words, how is this, Mr. Carlyle? thinks perhaps the rightly thoughtful reader.
Yes, such things have to be; There are lies and lies, and there are truths and truths. Ulysses cannot ride on the ram's back, like Phryxus; but must ride under his belly. Read also this, presently following:
Shortly after which, Friedrich Wilhelm, who had shone much in the battle of Warsaw, into which he was dragged against his will, changed sides. An inconsistent, treacherous man? Perhaps not, O reader! perhaps a man advancing "in circuits," the only way he has; spirally, face now to east, now to west, with his own reasonable private aim sun-clear to him all the while?
The battle of Warsaw, three days long, fought with Gustavus, the grandfather of Charles XII., against the Poles, virtually ends the Polish power:
Old Johann Casimir, not long after that peace of Oliva, getting tired of his unruly Polish chivalry and their ways, abdicated—retired to Paris, and "and lived much with Ninon de l'Enclos and her circle," for the rest of his life. He used to complain of his Polish chivalry, that there was no solidity in them; nothing but outside glitter, with tumult and anarchic noise; fatal want of one essential talent, the talent of obeying; and has been heard to prophesy that a glorious Republic, persisting in such courses, would arrive at results which would surprise it.
Onward from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the world; public men watching his procedure; kings anxious to secure him—Dutch print-sellers sticking up his portraits for a hero-worshipping public. Fighting hero, had the public known it, was not his essential character, though he had to fight a great deal. He was essentially an industrial man; great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic heaps to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles colonies in the waste places of his dominions, cuts canals; unweariedly encourages trade and work. The Friedrich Wilhelm's Canal, which still carries tonnage from the Oder to the Spree, is a monument of his zeal in this way; creditable with the means he had. To the poor French Protestants in the Edict-of-Nantes affair, he was like an express benefit of Heaven; one helper appointed to whom the help itself was profitable. He munificently welcomed them to Brandenburg; showed really a noble piety and human pity, as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their reward. Some twenty thousand nimble French souls, evidently of the best French quality, found a home there; made "waste sands about Berlin into potherb gardens;" and in spiritual Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture which is still noticeable.
Now read carefully the description of the man, p. 352 (224-5); the story of the battle of Fehrbellin, "the Marathon of Brandenburg," p. 354 (225); and of the winter campaign of 1679, p. 356 (227), beginning with its week's marches at sixty miles a day; his wife, as always, being with him;
Louisa, honest and loving Dutch girl, aunt to our William of Orange, who trimmed up her own "Orange-burg" (country-house), twenty miles north of Berlin, into a little jewel of the Dutch type, potherb gardens, training-schools for young girls, and the like, a favorite abode of hers when she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and earnest; she was helpmate, not in name only, to an ever busy man. They were married young; a marriage of love withal. Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship; wedding in Holland; the honest, trustful walk and conversation of the two sovereign spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes, fears, and manifold vicissitudes, till death, with stern beauty, shut it in; all is human, true, and wholesome in it, interesting to look upon, and rare among sovereign persons.
Louisa died in 1667, twenty-one years before her husband, who married again—(little to his contentment)—died in 1688; and Louisa's second son, Friedrich, ten years old at his mother's death, and now therefore thirty-one, succeeds, becoming afterwards Friedrich I. of Prussia.
And here we pause on two great questions. Prussia is assuredly at this point a happier and better country than it was, when inhabited by Wends. But is Friedrich I. a happier and better man than Henry the Fowler? Have all these kings thus improved their country, but never themselves? Is this somewhat expensive and ambitious Herr, Friedrich I. buttoned in diamonds, indeed the best that Protestantism can produce, as against Fowlers, Bears, and Red Beards? Much more, Friedrich Wilhelm, orthodox on predestination; most of all, his less orthodox son;—have we, in these, the highest results which Dr. Martin Luther can produce for the present, in the first circles of society? And if not, how is it that the country, having gained so much in intelligence and strength, lies more passively in their power than the baser country did under that of nobler men?
These, and collateral questions, I mean to work out as I can, with Carlyle's good help;—but must pause for this time; in doubt, as heretofore. Only of this one thing I doubt not, that the name of all great kings, set over Christian nations, must at last be, in fufilment, the hereditary one of these German princes, "Rich in Peace;" and that their coronation will be with Wild olive, not with gold.
[142] The late Sir Herbert Edwardes.
[143] I would much rather print these passages of Carlyle in large golden letters than small black ones; but they are only here at all for unlucky people who can't read them with the context.
THE ETHICS OF THE DUST TEN LECTURES TO LITTLE HOUSEWIVES ON THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLISATION CONTENTS.ETHICS OF THE DUST.
LECTURE I. PAGE
The Valley of Diamonds 11
LECTURE II.
The Pyramid Builders 21
LECTURE III.
The Crystal Life 31
LECTURE IV.
The Crystal Orders 43
LECTURE V.
Crystal Virtues 56
LECTURE VI.
Crystal Quarrels 70
LECTURE VII.
Home Virtues 82
LECTURE VIII.
Crystal Caprice 98
LECTURE IX.
Crystal Sorrows 111
LECTURE X.
The Crystal Rest 125
Notes 143
Fiction—Fair and Foul 153
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.
LETTER I.
On First Practice 233
LETTER II.
Sketching From Nature 293
LETTER III.
On Colour and Composition 331
Appendix: Things To Be Studied 403
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.
FIGURE PAGE
1. Squares 237
2. Gradated Spaces 241
3. Outline of Letter 245
4. Outline of Bough of Tree 248
5. Charred Log 257
6. Shoot of Lilac 272
7. Leaf 274
8. Bough of Phillyrea 275
9. Spray of Phillyrea 276
10. Trunk of Tree, by Titian 284
11. Sketch from Raphael 285
12. Outlines of a Ball 287
13. Woodcut of Durer's 289
14, 15, 16. Masses of Leaves 290, 291
17, 18, 19. Curvatures in Leaves 295, 296
20. From an Etching, by Turner 297
21. Alpine Bridge 307
22. Alpine Bridge as it Appears at Various Distances 308
23. Outlines Expressive of Foliage 314
24. Shoot of Spanish Chestnut 315
25. Young Shoot of Oak 316
26, 27, 28. Woodcuts after Titian 321, 322
29. Diagram of Window 339
30. Swiss Cottage 355
31. Groups of Leave 350
32. Painting, by Turner 361
33. Sketch on Calais Sands, by Turner 365
34. Drawing of an Ideal Bridge, by Turner 369
35. Profile of the Towers of Ehrenbreitstein 370
36. Curves 371
37, 38, 39. Curves Found in Leaves 372
40. Outlines of a Tree Trunk 373
41-44. Tree Radiation 374, 375
45, 46. Woodcuts of Leaf 376
47. Leaf of Columbine 378
48. Top of an Old Tower 385
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