ing view of life and its duties might well offer him
protection against those deceptions which oftener annoy an
imaginative prince, who gives his confidence, than a private
individual. His acuteness, however, showed itself also in savage moods
as unsparingly, sarcastically, and maliciously destructive. Where did
he get this disposition? Was it Brandenburg blood? Was it an
inheritance from his great-grandmother, the Electress Sophia of
Hanover, and his grandmother, Queen Sophia Charlotte, those
intellectual women with whom Leibniz had discussed the eternal harmony
of the universe? The harsh school of his youth certainly had had
something to do with it. His insight into the foibles of others was
keen. Wherever he saw a weak point, wherever any one's manners annoyed
or provoked him, his ready tongue was busy. His gibes fell unsparingly
upon friend and foe alike; and even where silence and patience were
demanded by every consideration of prudence, he could not control
himself. At such times his soul seemed to suffer some strange
transformation. With merciless exaggeration he distorted the picture
of his victim into a caricature. On closer examination the principal
motive here also appears to be pleasure in intellectual production. He
frees himself from an unpleasant impression by improvising against his
victim. He makes a grotesque picture with inner satisfaction and is
astonished if the victim, deeply offended, in turn takes up arms
against him. His resemblance to Luther in this respect is very
striking. Neither the king nor the reformer cared whether his behavior
was dignified or seemly, for both of them, excited like men on the
hunting field, entirely forgot the consequences in the joy of the
fight. Both did themselves and their great causes serious injury in
this way, and were honestly surprised when they discovered the fact.
To be sure, the blows with the cudgel or the whip which the great monk
of the sixteenth century dealt were far more terrible than the
pin-pricks of the great prince in the age of enlightenment. But when a
king teases and mocks and sometimes pinches maliciously, it is harder
to forgive him for his undignified behavior; for he frequently engages
in an unequal contest with his victims. The great prince treated all
his political opponents in this way, and aroused deadly enemies
against himself. He joked at the table, and put in circulation
stinging verses and pamphlets about Madame de Pompadour in Franc