“Y cannot leave the soil of the Fatherland, although only for a short time, 
without expressing publicly the deeply-felt gratitude in My and the Queen’s* name 
by which Our heart has been moved. It has heen produced by the innumerable 
verbal and written proofs of the love for Us which the attempt of July 26 has 
evoked — of the love which jubilantly acclaimed Us at the moment of the crime 
itself, when the hand of the Almighty cast the deadly bullet away from My breast to 
the ground. While looking upwards to the divine Saviour, I go with new courage 
about My daily work, to complete what has been begun, to carry out what has been 
prepared, to combai evil with new certainty of victory, and to be to My people what 
My high vocation imposes on Me, and My people’s love merits. 

“Erdmannsdorf, August 5, 1844 

(signed) Frederick William” * 

Immediate emotion is a bad writer. The letter which a lover 
writes in great excitement to his beloved is no model of style, but 
it is just this confusion of expression that is the clearest, most 
obvious and most moving expression of the power of love over the 
writer of the letter. The power of love over the letter-writer is the 
power of his beloved over him. That passionate unclarity and 
erratic confusion of style therefore flatters the heart of the 
beloved, since the reflected, general, and therefore untrustworthy 
nature of the language has assumed a directly individual, sensu- 
ously powerful, and hence absolutely trustworthy, character. The 
trusting faith in the truth of the love that the lover expresses for 
her, however, is the supreme joy of the loved one, her faith in 
herself. 

From these premises it follows: We perform an inestimable 
service for the Prussian people when we put the inner truth of the 

* Queen Elizabeth.— Ed. 

royal gratitude beyond all doubt. We put this truth beyond all 
doubt, however, by proving the force of the thankful feeling over 
the royal writer, and we prove the force of this feeling over the 
royal writer by demonstrating the stylistic confusion of the cabinet 
edict in expressing thanks. Hence the aim of our patriotic analysis 
will not be misinterpreted. 

“I cannot leave the soil of the Fatherland, although only for a short time, 
without expressing publicly the deeply-felt gratitude in My and the Queen’s name 
by which Our heart has been moved.” 

By the construction of the sentence, it might be thought at first 
glance that the royal bosoms were moved by their own name. If 
amazement at this peculiar movement makes one think again, one 
sees that the relative conjunction “by which our heart has been 
moved” refers not to the name, but to the more remotely situated 
gratitude. The singular “Our heart” for the heart of the king and 
the heart of the queen can be justified as poetic licence, as a 
cordial expression of the cordial unity of the cordial royal couple. 
The laconic brevity: “in My and the Queen’s name”, instead of “in 
My name and in the name of the Queen”, can easily lead to a false 
interpretation. “My and the Queen’s name” could be understood 
to mean the simple name of the king, since the name of the 
husband is the name of the husband and the wife. Now, it is true 
that it is a privilege of great men and of children to make their 
name the subject of the sentence instead of saying “I”. Thus 
Caesar could say “Caesar conquered” instead of “I conquered”. 
Thus children do not say “I want to go to the school in Vienna”, 
but “Friedrich, Karl, or Wilhelm, etc., wants to go to the school in 
Vienna”. But it would be a dangerous innovation to make one’s 
“I” the subject of the sentence and at the same time to give an 
assurance that this “I” speaks in his “own” name. Such an 
assurance could seem to contain a confession that one did not 
usually speak from one’s own inspiration. “I cannot leave the soil 
of the Fatherland, although only for a short time” is neither a 
very skilful nor a more easily intelligible rephrasing of “I cannot 
leave the soil of the Fatherland, even for a short time, without, 
etc.” The difficulty is due to the combination of three ideas: (1) 
that the king is leaving his homeland, (2) that he is leaving it only 
for a short time, (3) that he feels a need to thank the people. The 
too compressed utterance of these ideas makes it appear that the 
king expresses his gratitude only because he is leaving his home- 
land. But if the gratitude was seriously meant, if it came from the 
heart, then its utterance could not possibly be linked with such a 

Illustrations of Cabinet Style of Frederick William IV 209 

chance occurrence. Under all circumstances, the full heart speaks 
for itself. 

“It” (the gratitude) “has been produced by the innumerable verbal and written 
proofs of the love for Us which the attempt of July 26 has evoked — of the love 

which jubilantly acclaimed Us at the moment of the crime itself, when the hand of 
the Almighty cast the deadly bullet away from My breast to the ground.” 

It is not clear whether the attempt evoked the love or the proofs 
of the love, the more so because the genitive “of the love” after 
the parenthesis appears again as the governing and emphasised 
phrase in the sentence. The stylistic boldness of the repetition of 
the genitive is very noticeable. The difficulty increases when we 
examine the content of the sentence. Was it correct that the love 
which spoke and wrote was described directly as the subject which 
shouted in the street? Did not chronological truth require that one 
should begin with the love that was voiced at once in the presence 
of the occurrence and only then go on to the subsequent 
expressions of love in writing and speech? 

Should one not have avoided the suspicion that the king desires 
simultaneously to flatter both the aristocracy and the people? The 
aristocracy because their written and verbal expressions of love, 
although coming later in time than the popular expressions of 
love, nevertheless by their effect were earlier able to arouse 
gratitude in the royal heart; the people because its jubilant love is 
declared to be essentially the same as the written and verbal love, 
that is, the hereditary nobility of love is abolished? Lastly, it does 
not seem altogether appropriate to cause the “bullet” to be warded 
off directly by the hand of God, since in this way even a slight 
degree of consistent thought will arrive at the false conclusion that 
God at the same time both guided the hand of the criminal and 
diverted the bullet away from the king; for how can one presume 
a one-sided action on the part of God? 

“While looking upwards to the divine Saviour, I go with new courage about My 
daily work, to complete what has been begun, to carry out what has been prepared, 
to combat evil with [...] certainty of victory, and to be to My people what My high 
vocation imposes on Me, and My people’s love merits.” 

One cannot very well say: “I go” “to be something”. At the 
most one can go “to become something”. The motion involved in 
becoming appears at least as the result of the motion of going, 
although we would not recommend even the latter turn of phrase 
as correct. That His Majesty “goes while looking upwards to God” “to 
complete what has been begun, to carry out what has been 
prepared”, does not seem to offer a good prospect for either the 

completion or the carrying out. In order to complete what has 
been begun and to carry out what has been prepared one must 
keep one’s eyes firmly fixed on what has been. begun and 
prepared and not look away from these objects to gaze into the 
blue sky. One who truly “goes while looking upwards to God”, will 
he not be “completely absorbed by the sight of God”? Will he not lose 
all interest in worldly plans and ideas? The isolated final phrase, left 
on its own after a comma: “and My people’s love merits”, seems to 
point to an unexpressed, hidden subsequent clause, something 
like: “merits the knout of my brother-in-law Nicholas and the 
policy of our neighbour Metternich”; or also: “merits the petty 

constitution devised by the knightly Bunsen”.*”