ade war; in this way the
Emperor had followed up his interests against the Turks, Italians,
Germans, French, and Spaniards; in this way a great part of the
successes of the great Elector had been frustrated by others. Just
where the rights of the Hohenzollerns were the plainest, as in
Pomerania, they had been most ruthlessly curtailed, and by no one more
than by the Emperor and the Hapsburgs. Now the Hohenzollerns sought
their revenge. "Be my Cicero and prove the right of my cause, and I
will be your Caesar and carry it through," Frederick wrote to Jordan
after the invasion of Silesia. Gaily, with light step as if going to a
dance, the King entered upon the fields of his victories. There was
still cheerful enjoyment of life, sweet coquetry with verse, and
intellectual conversation with his intimates on the pleasures of the
day, on God, nature, and immortality, which he considered the spice of
life. But the great task upon which he had entered began to have its
effect upon his soul even in the early weeks, even before he had
passed through the fiery ordeal of the first great battle. And from
that time on it hammered and forged upon his soul until it turned his
hair gray and hardened his fiery heart into ringing steel. With that
wonderful clearness which was peculiar to him, he watched the
beginning of these changes. He even then viewed his own life as from
without. "You will find me more philosophical than you think," he
writes to his friend. "I have always been so--sometimes more,
sometimes less. My youth, the fire of passion, the longing for glory,
and, to tell you the whole truth, curiosity, and finally, a secret
instinct, have forced me out of the sweet peace which I enjoyed, and
the wish to see my name in the gazettes and in history has led me into
new paths. Come here to me. Philosophy will maintain her rights, and I
assure you that if I had not this cursed love of fame, I should think
only of peaceful comfort."

When the faithful Jordan actually came to him and the King saw the man
of peaceful enjoyment timid and uncomfortable in the field, he
suddenly realized that he himself had become another and a stronger
man. The guest who had been honored by him so long as the more
scholarly, and who had corrected his verses, criticized his letters,
and been far ahead of him in the knowledge of Greek philosophy, now,
in spite of all his philosophical training, gave the King the
impression of a man without courage. With bit