Jordan's parents were wealthy religious persons, in trade at Berlin; this Jordan (Charles Etienne, age now thirty-six) was their eldest son. It seems they had destined him from birth, consulting their own pious feelings merely, to be a Preacher of the Gospel; the other sons, all of them reckoned clever too, were brought up to secular employments. And preach he, this poor Charles Etienne, accordingly did; what best Gospel he had; in an honest manner, all say,--though never with other than a kind of reluctance on the part of Nature, forced out of her course. He had wedded, been clergyman in two successive country places; when his wife died, leaving him one little daughter, and a heart much overset by that event. Friends, wealthy Brothers probably, had pushed him out into the free air, in these circumstances: "Take a Tour; Holland, England; feel the winds blowing, see the sun shining, as in times past: it will do you good!"Jordan, in the course of his Tour, came to composure on several points. He found that, by frugality, by wise management of some peculium already his, his little Daughter and he might have quietness at Berlin, and the necessary food and raiment;--and, on the whole, that he would altogether cease preaching, and settle down there, among his Books, in a frugal manner. Which he did;--and was living so, when the Prince, searching for that kind of person, got tidings of him. And here he is at Reinsberg; bustling about, in a brisk, modestly frank and cheerful manner: well liked by everybody; by his Master very well and ever better, who grew into real regard, esteem and even friendship for him, and has much Correspondence, of a freer kind than is common to him, with little Jordan, so long as they lived together. Jordan's death, ten years hence, was probably the one considerable pain he had ever given his neighbors, in this the ultimate section of his life.
I find him described, at Reinsberg, as a small nimble figure, of Southern-French aspect; black, uncommonly bright eyes; and a general aspect of adroitness, modesty, sense, sincerity;good prognostics, which on acquaintance with the man were pleasantly fulfilled.
For the sake of these considerations, I fished out, from the Old-Book Catalogues and sea of forgetfulness, some of the poor Books he wrote; especially a Voyage Litteraire,
[ Histoire d'un Voyage Litteraire fait, en MDCCXXXIII., en France, en Angleterre et en Hollande (2de edition, a La Haye, 1736).] Journal of that first Sanitary Excursion or Tour he took, to get the clouds blown from his mind. A LITERARY VOYAGEwhich awakens a kind of tragic feeling; being itself dead, and treating of matters which are all gone dead. So many immortal writers, Dutch chiefly, whom Jordan is enabled to report as having effloresced, or being soon to effloresce, in such and such forms, of Books important to be learned: leafy, blossomy Forest of Literature, waving glorious in the then sunlight to Jordan;--and it lies all now, to Jordan and us, not withered only, but abolished; compressed into a film of indiscriminate PEAT.
Consider what that peat is made of, O celebrated or uncelebrated reader, and take a moral from Jordan's Book! Other merit, except indeed clearness and commendable brevity, the Voyage Litteraire or other little Books of Jordan's have not now. A few of his Letters to Friedrich, which exist, are the only writings with the least life left in them, and this an accidental life, not momentous to him or us. Dryasdust informs me, "Abbe Jordan, alone of the Crown-Prince's cavaliers, sleeps in the Town of Reinsberg, not in the Schloss:" and if I ask, Why?--there is no answer. Probably his poor little Daughterkin was beside him there?--We have to say of Friedrich's Associates, that generally they were of intelligent type, each of them master of something or other, and capable of rational discourse upon that at least. Integrity, loyalty of character, was indispensable; good humor, wit if it could be had, were much in request. There was no man of shining distinction there; but they were the best that could be had, and that is saying all. Friedrich cannot be said, either as Prince or as King, to have been superlatively successful in his choice of associates. With one single exception, to be noticed shortly, there is not one of them whom we should now remember except for Friedrich's sake;--uniformly they are men whom it is now a weariness to hear of, except in a cursory manner. One man of shining parts he had, and one only; no man ever of really high and great mind. The latter sort are not so easy to get; rarely producible on the soil of this Earth! Nor is it certain how Friedrich might have managed with one of this sort, or he with Friedrich;--though Friedrich unquestionably would have tried, had the chance offered. For he loved intellect as few men on the throne, or off it, ever did; and the little he could gather of it round him often seems to me a fact tragical rather than otherwise.
With the outer Berlin social world, acting and reacting, Friedrich has his connections, which obscurely emerge on us now and then.
Literary Eminences, who are generally of Theological vesture;any follower of Philosophy, especially if he be of refined manners withal, or known in fashionable life, is sure to attract him;and gains ample recognition at Reinsberg or on Town-visits.
But the Berlin Theological or Literary world at that time, still more the Berlin Social, like a sunk extinct object, continues very dim in those old records; and to say truth, what features we have of it do not invite to miraculous efforts for farther acquaintance. Venerable Beausobre, with his History of the Manicheans, [ Histoire critique de Manichee et du Manicheisme: wrote also
Remarques &c. sur le Nouveau Testament, which were once famous; Histoire de la Reformation; &c.
