ons with women after that had little
influence on his inward feelings: even his sister of Baireuth, sickly,
nervous, and embittered by jealousy of an unfaithful husband, became,
for years, as a stranger to her brother; it was not till she had
resigned herself to her own life that this proud child of the House of
Brandenburg, aged and unhappy, again sought the heart of the brother
whose little hand had once supported her when at the feet of the stern
father. The mother also, to whom King Frederic always showed the most
marked and child-like reverence, could participate little in the
feelings of the son. His other sisters were younger, and only inclined
to make a quiet _Fronde_ in the house against him; if the King ever
condescended to show attention to a lady of the court, or a singer,
these were to the person concerned full as annoying as flattering.
Where he found beauty, grace, and womanly dignity combined, as in Frau
von Camas, the first lady of the bedchamber to his wife, the amiability
of his nature appeared by his kindly attentions to her. But, on the
whole, his life received little sunshine from his intercourse with
women, for he had experienced little of the hearty warmth of family
life; in this respect his soul was desolate. Perhaps this was fortunate
for his people, though undoubtedly fatal to his private life; the full
warmth of his manly feelings was almost exclusively reserved to his
small circle of confidants, with whom he laughed, wrote poetry,
philosophised, made plans for the future, and latterly conferred with
upon his warlike operations and dangers.

His life at Rheinsberg, after his marriage, was the best portion of his
youth. There he collected around him a number of highly-educated and
cheerful companions; the small society led a poetic life, of which an
agreeable picture has been bequeathed to us by those who partook of it.
Earnestly did Frederic labour to educate himself; easily did his
excited feelings find expression in French verse; incessantly did he
labour to acquire the delicacy of the foreign style; but his mind also
exercised itself upon more serious things. He sought ardently from the
Encyclopaedians, and of Christian Wolf, an answer to the highest
questions of man; he sat bent over maps and plans of battles; and, amid
the _roles_ of his amateur theatricals and plans of buildings, other
projects were prepared which, after a few years, were to agitate the
world.

Then came the day on wh