s unwearied in planning and combining; his eagle eye
scrutinisingly scanned what was most distant and most trivial, and yet
there was no change and no hope. The King read and wrote in his hours
of rest, just as before; he made his verses and kept up a
correspondence with Voltaire and Algarotti; but he was resolved all
this must soon come to an end, a short and quick one. He carried with
him, day and night, what would free him from Daun and Laudon. The whole
affair of life sometimes appeared to him contemptible.

The disposition of the man, from whom the intellectual life of Germany
dates its new era, deserves well to be regarded with reverence by
Germans. It is only possible to give some idea of it by the way in
which it breaks out in Frederic's letters to the Marquis d'Argens and
Frau von Camas. Thus does the great King speak of his life:--

"1757, _June_.--The only remedy for my sorrow lies in the daily work I
am obliged to do, and in the continual distractions which the number of
my enemies occasion me. If I had died at Collin, I should now be in a
haven where I should fear no more storms. Now I must navigate on a
stormy sea till I have discovered in some small corner of earth, that
good which I have never yet found in this world. For two years I have
been standing like a wall in which misfortune has made its breaches.
But do not think that I am becoming weak; one must protect oneself in
these unfortunate times by bowels of iron and a heart of bronze, in
order to lose all feeling. The next month will decide the fate of my
poor country. My calculation is, that I shall save or fall with it. You
can have no idea of the dangers in which we are, nor of the terrors
which surround us."

"1758, _December_--I am weary of this life; the Wandering Jew is less
driven about hither and thither, than I; I have lost all that I have
loved and honoured in this world; I see myself surrounded by
unfortunates whose sufferings I cannot aid. My soul is still filled
with the impression of the ruin of my best provinces, and of the
horrors which a horde of barbarians, more like unreasoning beasts than
men, have practised there. In my old age I have come down almost to be
a theatrical king; you will acknowledge that such a situation is not
sufficiently attractive to bind the soul of a philosopher to life."

"1759, _March_.--I know not what my fate will be. I will do all that
depends upon me to save myself; and if I am worsted the enemy shal