Still one of my favorite quotes from Lehndorff :D well, gosh, I have so many, but I mean. That one it is sort of hard to misinterpret. Unless you are, I guess, an editor... I also love it because of the evidence Heinrich wasn't conventionally beautiful :D
If you need a future exact citation, it's December 22, 1753, page 148 in the 2007 reprint of volume 1, and it says: Prince Heinrich comes to dinner in tight riding pants and beautiful like an angel. We are very high spirited. ("Wir sind sehr vergnügt" can also be translated as "we enjoy ourselves a lot".) All the more remarkable since in the previous entry from December 21, Lehndorff reports having had a long conversation with Heinrich that makes him feel very sad. But such is Lehndorff's normal state of being in the first half of the 1750s, all but holding a daisy and going "he loves me, he loves me not". The other entry of Lehndorff's that made us feel curious back in the day before reading the entire diary is cribbed from earlier that year, May 1st and May 2nd 1753, and that's young Lehndorff at his emo best, even m ore so in the full length version of those entries. Context: first AW and then Heinrich are about to leave Berlin. Not for another country! They're just going to Oranienburg and Potsdam respectively. Schönhausen, as a reminder, is where EC resides and Lehndorff is supposed to do his job.
May 1st. The saddest day of my life. The Prince of Prussia goes to Oranienburg, where he'll stay during the King's absence. Pöllnitz visits me and shows me his new memoirs about the last four rulers of our royal house. There are many strange anecdotes. I go to have supper with Prince Heinrich, my heart heavy. Here I dine with the old Baron and Bielfeld. I find it impossible to say a word. I go with the Prince to the Queen, where we have supper. Then I hurry to be alone with this dear Prince. But what a sad meeting! I leave him without having told him a word. I see his tears fall, the dearest of the world. What a man to be worshipped! What a loss for me! Yes, I swear eternal devotion to you! I return home without consolation. I can't sleep. I write a letter to the Prince.
May 2nd. I rise early. The Prince writes a letter to me which makes me melt into tears. I jump on a horse and want to rush to him. When I see his carriage from afar, I hide behind a house; for my heart would have burst into pieces if I had seen him. I go to Schönhausen, where I walk full of sadness. I return home and write a very sad letter to another person.* I could never have believed that it is possible to be so devoted to another man. But what a man it is I have to leave! In pagan times, they would have made him a god, in our time, all who know him build altars to him in their hearts.
*Asteriks: Schmidt-Lötzen tells us older Lehndorff annotated this to say his younger self meant Countess Bentinck, who as you may recall was on a vain quest for Heinrich herself at that time.
Re: Lehndorff
If you need a future exact citation, it's December 22, 1753, page 148 in the 2007 reprint of volume 1, and it says: Prince Heinrich comes to dinner in tight riding pants and beautiful like an angel. We are very high spirited. ("Wir sind sehr vergnügt" can also be translated as "we enjoy ourselves a lot".) All the more remarkable since in the previous entry from December 21, Lehndorff reports having had a long conversation with Heinrich that makes him feel very sad. But such is Lehndorff's normal state of being in the first half of the 1750s, all but holding a daisy and going "he loves me, he loves me not". The other entry of Lehndorff's that made us feel curious back in the day before reading the entire diary is cribbed from earlier that year, May 1st and May 2nd 1753, and that's young Lehndorff at his emo best, even m ore so in the full length version of those entries. Context: first AW and then Heinrich are about to leave Berlin. Not for another country! They're just going to Oranienburg and Potsdam respectively. Schönhausen, as a reminder, is where EC resides and Lehndorff is supposed to do his job.
May 1st. The saddest day of my life. The Prince of Prussia goes to Oranienburg, where he'll stay during the King's absence. Pöllnitz visits me and shows me his new memoirs about the last four rulers of our royal house. There are many strange anecdotes. I go to have supper with Prince Heinrich, my heart heavy. Here I dine with the old Baron and Bielfeld. I find it impossible to say a word. I go with the Prince to the Queen, where we have supper. Then I hurry to be alone with this dear Prince. But what a sad meeting! I leave him without having told him a word. I see his tears fall, the dearest of the world. What a man to be worshipped! What a loss for me! Yes, I swear eternal devotion to you! I return home without consolation. I can't sleep. I write a letter to the Prince.
May 2nd. I rise early. The Prince writes a letter to me which makes me melt into tears. I jump on a horse and want to rush to him. When I see his carriage from afar, I hide behind a house; for my heart would have burst into pieces if I had seen him. I go to Schönhausen, where I walk full of sadness. I return home and write a very sad letter to another person.* I could never have believed that it is possible to be so devoted to another man. But what a man it is I have to leave! In pagan times, they would have made him a god, in our time, all who know him build altars to him in their hearts.
*Asteriks: Schmidt-Lötzen tells us older Lehndorff annotated this to say his younger self meant Countess Bentinck, who as you may recall was on a vain quest for Heinrich herself at that time.