Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19

[cahn]

Yuletide nominations:

18th Century CE Federician RPF
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria
Voltaire
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff
Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
Catherine II of Russia
Hans Hermann von Katte
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)

Circle of Voltaire RPF
Emilie du Chatelet
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour)
John Hervey (1696-1743)
Marie Louise Mignot Denis
Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
Francesco Algarotti

Comments

Lord Hervey to Lady Mary

[selenak]

Just one more thing from me tonight, as I can't resist. Lady Mary has just left England to live (she thinks) with Algarotti in Italy. Hervey by now has moved past petty jealousy (helped, no doubt, by being the one who actually scored with Algarotti), they're back to being friends, he wishes her well in a letter that also illustrates how these two talked to each other.


Kensington, 3 Aug. 28/17, 1739
I recieved a Letter from you yesterday from Dijon, the third I have to thank you for since I lost one of the most agreable acquaintance I ever made, and England one of the most distinguish'd Inhabitants it ever produced ; and tho I know my Letter can not set out these four Days, yet I feel such an impatience to write to you that I can not resist indulging it. Your sending me a direction at last, makes me feel the same eagerness to write that I fancy People who have been long gag'd feel to talk ; and like those who love talking imeasurably, I fear I shall as little consider the pleasure you are likely to have in reading, as they do what their Audience has in hearing. In the first place I must for the Festivity of your first Letter; it was a sort of Insult to one who you knew was lamenting your Departure, to show you thought you had left nothing behind you worth lamenting ... [ Passage omitted ]
As to your proposing to me to follow you, unless you could give me the same motive that you have for jolting in Post- Chaises and lying in dirty Inns, I do not see I should get much by taking your Advice; if I could make myself a Bigot, I would certainly walk bare-foot, let my Beard grow , lye upon Straw by night, and wear a woollen Shirt by day. But to what purpose should I renounce my false Gods, as you call them, unless I could change them for a true one ; and may I not just as well bend my Knee to an Oinion or a Monkey where am , as put on a Turban or make a Pilgrimage to Mecca, unless I could at the same time believe the Alcoran and have Faith in Mahomet?
For You, who not only credit his Doctrine but are to enjoy his Paradise upon Earth, You are in the right to take the Pilgrim's Staff in your Hand, and travel with Shells upon your Garment; but I ,who should have nothing but the journey for my Pains, may as well stay at home, not forgetting (according to the Custom of the Country you at present inhabit) to throw upan ejaculation for the Soul of my departed Friend, and that the Purgatory you are to pass through before you enter the Gates of that Heaven your Piety deserves, may not be of long duration.

Algarotti, of course, would be God in this metaphor. Or the houri in Muslim paradise. Or the holy shrine, the goal of the pilgrimage. No pressure, Algarotti. Seriously though, I can see where Halsband got the idea about Hervey's idea of paradise from which concludes his Hervey biography, raeding this letter.

Re: Lord Hervey to Lady Mary

[mildred_of_midgard]

Algarotti, of course, would be God in this metaphor. Or the houri in Muslim paradise. Or the holy shrine, the goal of the pilgrimage. No pressure, Algarotti.

Algarotti: All in a day's work! Seriously, I get this all the time. Why do you think I'm the one you play "six degrees" with?

Seriously though, I can see where Halsband got the idea about Hervey's idea of paradise from which concludes his Hervey biography, raeding this letter.

Evidently!

Re: Lord Hervey to Lady Mary

[cahn]

Wow, that is an awesome Letter. :D Algarotti as God is really... something.

Re: Lord Hervey to Lady Mary

[mildred_of_midgard]

Also, I wish we had the Lady Mary letter with the false gods that inspired this, but I went and checked Halsband, and we don't. I suppose you would have included it if we did. ;)

Also. Halsband puts the year on the top of each page! So you don't have to flip dozens of pages to find a date, and you also don't have to flip dozens of pages back or forth to figure out what year you're in!

Re: Lord Hervey to Lady Mary

[selenak]

We have none of Lady Mary's letters to Hervey, because his son returned them to her after his death, causing her to say that Hervey was the only man she could trust everything with and her bff forever. And then the letters were destroyed, either by Lady Mary herself or by her daughter after her death. Anyway, this is why we're in luck Algarotti, being not an English gentleman, did not return Lady Mary's letters to her but evidently kept them for Byron to find in Venice decades later.

Re: Lord Hervey to Lady Mary

[cahn]

I'm sorry she burned them, but

his son returned them to her after his death, causing her to say that Hervey was the only man she could trust everything with and her bff forever.

is kind of adorable.