“Well, well! that as it may be. Nevertheless, your experience is only another inducement to me to request your assistance. Do not fear that I wish to embroil you in politics; but I hope you will not refuse, although almost a stranger, to add to the great obligations which I am already under to you, and give me the benefit of your opinion.”
“Your Highness may speak with perfect unreserve, and reckon upon my delivering my genuine sentiments.”
“You have not forgotten, I venture to believe,” said the Prince, “our short conversation of last night!”
“It was of too interesting a nature easily to escape my memory.”
“Before I can consult you on the subject which at present interests me, it is necessary that I should make you a little acquainted with the present state of public affairs here, and the characters of the principal individuals who control them.”
“So far as an account of the present state of political parties, the history of the Grand Duke’s career, and that of his Minister, Mr. Beckendorff, and their reputed characters, will form part of your Highness’s narrative, by so much may its length be curtailed and your trouble lessened; for I have at different times picked up, in casual conversation, a great deal of information on these topics. Indeed, you may address me, in this respect, as you would any German gentleman who, not being himself personally interested in public life, is, of course, not acquainted with its most secret details.”
“I did not reckon on this,” said the Prince, in a cheerful voice. “This is a great advantage, and another reason that I should no longer hesitate to develop to you a certain affair which now occupies my mind. To be short,” continued the Prince, “it is of the letter which I so mysteriously received last night, and which, as you must have remarked, very much agitated me; it is on this letter that I wish to consult you. Bearing in mind the exact position, the avowed and public position, in which I stand, as connected with the Court, and having a due acquaintance, which you state you have, with the character of Mr. Beckendorff, what think you of this letter?”
So saying, the Prince leant over the table, and handed to Vivian the following epistle:
“TO HIS HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF LITTLE LILLIPUT.
“I am commanded by his Royal Highness to inform your Highness that his Royal Highness has considered the request which was signed by your Highness and other noblemen, and presented by you to his Royal Highness in a private interview. His Royal Highness commands me to state that that request will receive his most attentive consideration. At the same time, his Royal Highness also commands me to observe that, in bringing about the completion of a result desired by all parties, it is difficult to carry on the necessary communications merely by written documents; and his Royal Highness has therefore commanded me to submit to your Highness the advisability of taking some steps in order to further the possibility of the occurrence of an oral interchange of the sentiments of the respective parties. Being aware, from the position which your Highness has thought proper at present to maintain, and from other causes which are of too delicate a nature to be noticed in any other way except by allusion, that your Highness may feel difficulty in personally communicating with his Royal Highness without consulting the wishes and opinions of the other Princes; a process to which, it must be evident to your Highness, his Royal Highness feels it impossible to submit; and, at the same time, desirous of forwarding the progress of those views which his Royal Highness and your Highness may conjunctively consider calculated to advance the well-being of the State, I have to submit to your Highness the propriety of considering the propositions contained in the enclosed paper; which, if your Highness keep unconnected with this communication, the purport of this letter will be confined to your Highness.