Directly on the rear of these fine visitors, came, by invitation, a pair of the Korn's-Hotel people; Masonic friends; one of whom was Bielfeld, whose dainty Installation Speech and ways of procedure had been of promise to the Prince on that occasion.
"Baron von Oberg" was the other:--Hanoverian Baron: the same who went into the Wars, and was a "General von Oberg" twenty years hence? The same or another, it does not much concern us. Nor does the visit much, or at all; except that Bielfeld, being of writing nature, professes to give ocular account of it. Honest transcript of what a human creature actually saw at Reinsberg, and in the Berlin environment at that date, would have had a value to mankind: but Bielfeld has adopted the fictitious form; and pretty much ruined for us any transcript there is. Exaggeration, gesticulation, fantastic uncertainty afflict the reader;and prevent comfortable belief, except where there is other evidence than Bielfeld's.
At Berlin the beautiful straight streets, Linden Avenues (perhaps a better sample than those of our day), were notable to Bielfeld;bridges, statues very fine; grand esplanades, and such military drilling and parading as was never seen. He had dinner-invitations, too, in quantity; likes this one and that (all in prudent asterisks),---likes Truchsess von Waldburg very much, and his strange mode of bachelor housekeeping, and the way he dines and talks among his fellow-creatures, or sits studious among his Military Books and Paper-litters. But all is loose far-off sketching, in the style of <italic> Anacharsis the Younger; <end italic> and makes no solid impression.
Getting to Reinsberg, to the Town, to the Schloss, he crosses the esplanade, the moat; sees what we know, beautiful square Mansion among its woods and waters;--and almost nothing that we do not know, except the way the moat-bridge is lighted: "Bridge furnished," he says, "with seven Statues representing the seven Planets, each holding in her hand a glass lamp in the form of a globe;"--which is a pretty object in the night-time. The House is now finished; Knobelsdorf rejoicing in his success; Pesne and others giving the last touch to some ceilings of a sublime nature.
On the lintel of the gate is inscribed FREDERICO TRANQUILLITATEMCOLENTI (To Friedrich courting Tranquillity). The gardens, walks, hermitages, grottos, are very spacious, fine: not yet completed,--perhaps will never be. A Temple of Bacchus is just now on hand, somewhere in those labyrinthic woods: "twelve gigantic Satyrs as caryatides, crowned by an inverted Punch-bowl for dome;" that is the ingenious Knobelsdorf's idea, pleasant to the mind.
Knobelsdorf is of austere aspect; austere, yet benevolent and full of honest sagacity; the very picture of sound sense, thinks Bielfeld. M. Jordan is handsome, though of small stature;agreeable expression of face; eye extremely vivid; brown complexion, bushy eyebrows as well as beard are black. [Bielfeld (abridged), i. 45.]
Or did the reader ever hear of "M. Fredersdorf," Head Valet at this time? Fredersdorf will become, as it were, Privy-Purse, House-Friend, and domestic Factotum, and play a great part in coming years. "A tall handsome man;" much "silent sense, civility, dexterity;" something "magnificently clever in him," thinks Bielfeld (now, or else twenty years afterwards); whom we can believe. [Ib. p. 49.] He was a gift from General Schwerin, this Fredersdorf; once a Private in Schwerin's regiment, at Frankfurt-on-Oder,--excellent on the flute, for one quality. Schwerin, who had an eye for men, sent him to Friedrich, in the Custrin time;hoping he might suit in fluting and otherwise. Which he conspicuously did. Bielfeld's account, we must candidly say, appears to be an afterthought; but readers can make their profit of it, all the same.
As to the Crown-Prince and Princess, words fail to express their gracious perfections, their affabilities, polite ingenuities:--Bielfeld's words do give us some pleasant shadowy conceivability of the Crown-Princess:--"Tall, and perfect in shape; bust such as a sculptor might copy;complexion of the finest; features ditto; nose, I confess, smallish and pointed, but excellent of that kind; hair of the supremest flaxen, 'shining' like a flood of sunbeams, when the powder is off it. A humane ingenuous Princess; little negligences in toilet or the like, if such occur, even these set her off, so ingenuous are they. Speaks little; but always to the purpose, in a ******, cheerful and wise way. Dances beautifully; heart (her soubrette assures me) is heavenly;--and 'perhaps no Princess living has a finer set of diaonds.'"Of the Crown-Princess there is some pleasant shadow traced as on cobweb, to this effect. But of the Crown-Prince there is no forming the least conception from what he says:--this is mere cobweb with Nothing elaborately painted on it. Nor do the portraits of the others attract by their verisimilitude. Here is Colonel Keyserling, for instance; the witty Courlander, famous enough in the Friedrich circle; who went on embassy to Cirey, and much else: he "whirls in with uproar (FRACAS) like Boreas in the Ballet;" fowling-piece on shoulder, and in his "dressing-gown"withal, which is still stranger; snatches off Bielfeld, unknown till that moment, to sit by him while dressing; and there, with much capering, pirouetting, and indeed almost ground-and-lofty tumbling, for accompaniment, "talks of Horses, Mathematics, Painting, Architecture, Literature, and the Art of War," while he dresses. This gentleman was once Colonel in Friedrich Wilhelm's Army; is now fairly turned of forty, and has been in troubles: