re the elements of darkness and the elements
of light lay crowded together in such ever-deepening ambiguity, fold
within fold, the clearer the vision the greater the bewilderment, the
more impartial the judgment the profounder the doubt. But one thing at
least is certain: that spirit, whether it was admirable or whether it
was odious, was moved by a terrific force. Frederick had failed to
realise this; and indeed, though Voltaire was fifty-six when he went to
Berlin, and though his whole life had been spent in a blaze of
publicity, there was still not one of his contemporaries who understood
the true nature of his genius; it was perhaps hidden even from himself.
He had reached the threshold of old age, and his life's work was still
before him; it was not as a writer of tragedies and epics that he was to
take his place in the world. Was he, in the depths of his consciousness,
aware that this was so? Did some obscure instinct urge him forward, at
this late hour, to break with the ties of a lifetime, and rush forth
into the unknown?

What his precise motives were in embarking upon the Berlin adventure it
is very difficult to say. It is true that he was disgusted with
Paris--he was ill-received at Court, and he was pestered by endless
literary quarrels and jealousies; it would be very pleasant to show his
countrymen that he had other strings to his bow, that, if they did not
appreciate him, Frederick the Great did. It is true, too, that he
admired Frederick's intellect, and that he was flattered by his favour.
'Il avait de l'esprit,' he said afterwards, 'des graces, et, de plus, il
etait roi; ce qui fait toujours une grande seduction, attendu la
faiblesse humaine.' His vanity could not resist the prestige of a royal
intimacy; and no doubt he relished to the full even the increased
consequence which came to him with his Chamberlain's key and his
order--to say nothing of the addition of L800 to his income. Yet, on the
other hand, he was very well aware that he was exchanging freedom for
servitude, and that he was entering into a bargain with a man who would
make quite sure that he was getting his money's worth; and he knew in
his heart that he had something better to do than to play, however
successfully, the part of a courtier. Nor was he personally attached to
Frederick; he was personally attached to no one on earth. Certainly he
had never been a man of feeling, and now that he was old and hardened by
the uses of the world