Guess how I spent my evening? I read some Fritz poetry.
You are a truly noble, self-sacrificial soul. The demon does sound like FW, but it might also just be a metaphor, especially if it's not FW but a love/proposed marriage affair which is been keeping Keyserlingk away. Maybe his first choice of wife didn't want him? (Or her parents didn't.)
Incidentally, Algarotti discussing the pros and cons of marrying a rich heiress with Keyserlingk reminds me that it's interesting Algarotti never took this way out of his job problems. Now granted, given people like Hervey, Hervey's wife and Lady Mary were ready to sponsor him without marriage, he probably saw more cons than pros - he'd have had to support a wife, after all, once her dowry was used up, and possibly children, whereas if he remained single his lovers would always be the ones supporting him - but it's still a road not taken.
The idea of friendship being a true friend not as a flatterer, but as a truth teller: well, that's hardly unique to Fritz and pretty much standard to the period. FW is beating the same drum when claiming all of Fritz' self chosen friends weren't true friends in that sense. And of course Fritz railing, in poetry or prose, against flattery is rich given he ate it up. For understandable reasons given FW's constant battery on his self esteem, but he did, whether from Suhm or Voltaire or, the way it sounds, Keysleringk, because we haven't heard yet an example of Keyserlingk saying something Fritz-critical. (Manteuffel in a more tactful way than FW also made the point when telling his anecdote about Augustus and Maecenas during a trial, and Manteuffel did at least give some non-applauding advice in the conversation about EC (i.e. that AW remains the next in line and thus a potential rallying point and alternate candidate as long as Fritz doesn't reproduce, and that he doesn't have to love EC to reproduce, if people had only sex with each other if they were in love the world would not be populated), but Manteuffel didn't remain a friend. Andrew Mitchell was slightly critical with the poetry when asked and could banter (see jest about God not demanding subsidies), but I don't believe he voiced his more serious critique of Fritz towards Fritz. (And he definitely thought Fritz was way too needy for flattery in his friends.)
Trying to think of friends who did critisize him (that we know of) and remained friends: post Silesian War Voltaire, I guess (with the first definite criticism being that remark during Silesia 1 or 2 on how during his recent illness he had one foot in the Styx and saw all the dead people Fritz and his opponents were sending there); D'Argens in how Fritz acted towards Moses Mendelssohn. Others?
Of course, it's entirely possible friends like, say, George Keith Earl Marischal were critical out of everyone's earshot and without ever mentioning this to people afterwards because they were both tactful and trustworthy and didn't boast, and since there aren't letters documenting it preserved, we don't know. But in general, I suspect that like many a monarch or powerful person, Fritz was aware that flattery was the default but needed to believe he could discern real from faked compliments and valued truth tellers, when what he really valued were people able to make him believe both that they really cared and able to make himself feel good about himself. Which is not exactly the same thing.
Back to Keyserlingk; "do not ask your Dad for him as a companion if you know what's good for you, especially not when you simultanously diss your Dad-chosen bride" was probably good advice on Hille's part, though it has to be said FW's distrust alone isn't really a reliable criterium. I mean, given FW's unerring tendency to pick teachers for his sons, plural, who were teaching just the opposite of what he thought they would.
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Re: Keyserlingk, sensational gossip, and Royal Reader request
Date: 2021-07-03 01:45 pm (UTC)You are a truly noble, self-sacrificial soul. The demon does sound like FW, but it might also just be a metaphor, especially if it's not FW but a love/proposed marriage affair which is been keeping Keyserlingk away. Maybe his first choice of wife didn't want him? (Or her parents didn't.)
Incidentally, Algarotti discussing the pros and cons of marrying a rich heiress with Keyserlingk reminds me that it's interesting Algarotti never took this way out of his job problems. Now granted, given people like Hervey, Hervey's wife and Lady Mary were ready to sponsor him without marriage, he probably saw more cons than pros - he'd have had to support a wife, after all, once her dowry was used up, and possibly children, whereas if he remained single his lovers would always be the ones supporting him - but it's still a road not taken.
The idea of friendship being a true friend not as a flatterer, but as a truth teller: well, that's hardly unique to Fritz and pretty much standard to the period. FW is beating the same drum when claiming all of Fritz' self chosen friends weren't true friends in that sense. And of course Fritz railing, in poetry or prose, against flattery is rich given he ate it up. For understandable reasons given FW's constant battery on his self esteem, but he did, whether from Suhm or Voltaire or, the way it sounds, Keysleringk, because we haven't heard yet an example of Keyserlingk saying something Fritz-critical. (Manteuffel in a more tactful way than FW also made the point when telling his anecdote about Augustus and Maecenas during a trial, and Manteuffel did at least give some non-applauding advice in the conversation about EC (i.e. that AW remains the next in line and thus a potential rallying point and alternate candidate as long as Fritz doesn't reproduce, and that he doesn't have to love EC to reproduce, if people had only sex with each other if they were in love the world would not be populated), but Manteuffel didn't remain a friend. Andrew Mitchell was slightly critical with the poetry when asked and could banter (see jest about God not demanding subsidies), but I don't believe he voiced his more serious critique of Fritz towards Fritz. (And he definitely thought Fritz was way too needy for flattery in his friends.)
Trying to think of friends who did critisize him (that we know of) and remained friends: post Silesian War Voltaire, I guess (with the first definite criticism being that remark during Silesia 1 or 2 on how during his recent illness he had one foot in the Styx and saw all the dead people Fritz and his opponents were sending there); D'Argens in how Fritz acted towards Moses Mendelssohn. Others?
Of course, it's entirely possible friends like, say, George Keith Earl Marischal were critical out of everyone's earshot and without ever mentioning this to people afterwards because they were both tactful and trustworthy and didn't boast, and since there aren't letters documenting it preserved, we don't know. But in general, I suspect that like many a monarch or powerful person, Fritz was aware that flattery was the default but needed to believe he could discern real from faked compliments and valued truth tellers, when what he really valued were people able to make him believe both that they really cared and able to make himself feel good about himself. Which is not exactly the same thing.
Back to Keyserlingk; "do not ask your Dad for him as a companion if you know what's good for you, especially not when you simultanously diss your Dad-chosen bride" was probably good advice on Hille's part, though it has to be said FW's distrust alone isn't really a reliable criterium. I mean, given FW's unerring tendency to pick teachers for his sons, plural, who were teaching just the opposite of what he thought they would.