I  like  Derfflinger  very  well  ;  and  envy  you  the
beautiful  talent  of  getting  across  a  wide  dim  wilder-
ness so  handsomely,  delineating  almost  all  that  is
visible  in  it  as  you  go  !    Your  Elector  of  Brandenburg,


228     LETTEES   WRITTEN  BY  THOMAS   CARLYLE   TO

Derfflinger's  Elector,  was  an  acquaintance  of  my
Oliver,  too  ;  this  is  a  new  point  of  union.  I  had
read  Lippe  ^  already ;  but  grudged  him  not  a  second
reading,  neither  is  this  perhaps  the  last.  I  have
known  the  man  always  since  Herder's  Biography  by
his  Widow ;  and  regarded  him  with  real  curiosity  and
interest.  A  most  tough,  original,  unsubduable  lean
man !  Those  scenes  in  the  Portuguese  War  which
stood  all  as  a  Picture  in  my  head  were  full  of  ad-
monition to  me  on  this  last  occasion.  I  said  to
myself,  '  See,  there  is  a  man  with  a  still  uglier  enter-
prise than  thine;  in  the  centre  he  too  of  infinite
human  stupidities  ;  see  how  he  moulds  them,  controuls
them,  hurls  them  asunder,  stands  like  a  piece  of
human  Valour  in  the  middle  of  them ; — see,  and  take
shame  to  thyself !  '  Many  thanks  to  you  for  this  new
Gift.  And  weary  not  to  go  on  working  with  great  or
with  small  encouragement  in  that  true  province  of
yours.  A  man  with  a  pen  in  his  hand,  with  the  gift
of  articulate  pictural  utterance,  surely  he  is  well
employed  in  painting  and  articulating  worthy  acts
and  men  that  by  the  nature  of  them  were  dumb.
