“From of old, life has been infinitely contemptible to him. In death, I think, he has neither fear nor hope. Atheism, truly, he never could abide: to him, as to all of us, it was flatly inconceivable that intellect, moral emotion, could have been put into him by an Entity that had none of its own. But there, pretty much, his Theism seems to have stopped. Instinctively; too, he believed, no man more firmly, that Right alone has ultimately any strength in this world: ultimately, yes; but for him and his poor brief interests, what good was it? Hope for himself in divine Justice, in divine Providence, I think he had not practically any: that the unfathomable Demiurgus should concern himself with such a set of paltry, ill-given animalcules as one’s self and mankind are, this also, as we have often noticed, is in the main incredible to him.
“Inarticulate notions, fancies, transient aspirations, he might have, in the background of his mind. One day, sitting for a while out of doors, gazing into the sun, he was heard to murmur, ‘Perhaps I shall be nearer thee soon;’ and, indeed, nobody knows what his thoughts were in these final months. There is traceable only a complete superiority to fear and hope; in parts, too, are half glimpses of a great motionless interior lake of sorrow, sadder than any tears or complainings, which are altogether wanting to it.”
Dr. Zimmermann, whose work on Solitude had given him some renown, had been sent for to administer to the illustrious patient. His prescriptions were of no avail. On the 10th of August, 1786, Frederick wrote to his sister, the Duchess Dowager of Brunswick:
“My adorable Sister,—The Hanover doctor has wished to make himself important with you, my good sister; but the truth is, he has been of no use to me. The old must give place to the young, that each generation may find room clear for it; and life, if we examine strictly what its course is, consists in seeing one’s fellow-creatures die and be born. In the mean while, I have felt myself a little easier for the last day or two. My heart remains inviolably attached to you, my good sister. With the highest consideration, my adorable sister, your faithful brother and servant,
Frederick.”
The last letter which it is supposed that he wrote was the following cold epistle to his excellent wife, whom, through a long life, he had treated with such cruel neglect:
“Madam,—I am much obliged by the wishes you deign to form; but a heavy fever I have taken hinders me from answering you.”
Scarcely any thing can be more sad than the record of the last days and hours of this extraordinary man. Few of the children of Adam have passed a more joyless life. Few have gone down to a grave shrouded with deeper gloom. None of those Christian hopes which so often alleviate pain, and take from death its sting, cheered his dying chamber. To him the grave was but the portal to the abyss of annihilation.
Days of pain and nights of sleeplessness were his portion. A hard cough racked his frame. His strength failed him. Ulcerous sores broke out upon various parts of his body. A constant oppression at his chest rendered it impossible for him to lie down. Gout tortured him. His passage to the grave led through eighteen months of constant suffering. Dr. Zimmermann, in his diary of the 2d of August, writes:
“The king is very chilly, and is always enveloped in pelisses, and covered with feather-beds. He has not been in bed for six weeks, but sleeps in his chair for a considerable time together, and always turned to the right side. The dropsical swelling augments. He sees it, but will not perceive what it is, or at least will not appear to do so, but talks as if it were a swelling accompanying convalescence, and proceeding from previous weakness. He is determined not to die if violent remedies can save him, but to submit to punctures and incisions to draw off the water.”
Again, on the 8th, Dr. Zimmermann wrote: “The king is extraordinarily ill. On the 4th erysipelas appeared on the leg. This announces bursting and mortification. He has much oppression, and the smell of the wound is very bad.”