done by the servant, as if
that were cheaper!

"Verging upon avarice," sure enough: but, unless we are unjust and
unkind, he can by no means be described as a MISER King. He collects
what is his; gives you accurately what is yours. For wages paid he will
see work done; he will ascertain more and more that the work done be
work needful for him; and strike it off, if not. A Spartan man, as we
said,--though probably he knew as little of the Spartans as the Spartans
did of him. But Nature is still capable of such products: if in Hellas
long ages since, why not in Brandenburg now?

Chapter V. -- FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S ONE WAR.

One of Fritz's earliest strong impressions from the outer world chanced
to be of War,--so it chanced, though he had shown too little taste that
way, and could not, as yet, understand such phenomena;--and there must
have been much semi-articulate questioning and dialoguing with Dame de
Roucoulles, on his part, about the matter now going on.

In the year 1715, little Fritz's third year, came grand doings, not of
drill only, but of actual war and fighting: the "Stralsund Expedition,"
Friedrich Wilhelm's one feat in that kind. Huge rumor of which fills
naturally the maternal heart, the Berlin Palace drawing-rooms; and
occupies, with new vivid interests, all imaginations young and old.
For the actual battledrums are now beating, the big cannon-wains are
creaking under way; and military men take farewell, and march, tramp,
tramp; Majesty in grenadier-guard uniform at their head: horse, foot and
artillery; northward to Stralsund on the Baltic shore, where a terrible
human Lion has taken up his lair lately. Charles XII. of Sweden, namely;
he has broken out of Turkish Bender or Demotica, and ended his obstinate
torpor, at last; has ridden fourteen or sixteen days, he and a groom or
two, through desolate steppes and mountain wildernesses, through crowded
dangerous cities;--"came by Vienna and by Cassel, then through Pommern;"
leaving his "royal train of two thousand persons" to follow at its
leisure. He, for his part, has ridden without pause, forward, ever
forward, in darkest incognito, the indefatigable man;--and finally,
on Old-Hallowmas Eve (22d-11th November, 1714), far in the night, a
Horseman, with two others still following him, travel-splashed, and
"white with snow," drew bridle at the gate of Stralsund; and, to the
surprise of the Swedish sentinel there, demanded instant admission
to the Gover