ower of the people shook its wings with
enthusiastic warmth, how did the great prince feel who was struggling
ceaselessly against his enemies? The inspiring cry of the people rang
in his ears as a feeble sound. The King heard it almost with
indifference. His heart grew calmer and colder. To be sure, passionate
hours of sorrow and heart-rending cares came to him over and over
again. He kept them hidden from his army; his calm face became harder,
his brow more deeply furrowed, and his expression more rigid. Only
before a few intimates he opened his heart from time to time, and then
for a moment the sorrow of the man who had reached the limits of human
possibilities broke forth.

Ten days after the battle of Kollin his mother died. A few weeks
afterward he drove in anger his brother August Wilhelm from the army,
because he had not been strong enough to lead it. The next year this
brother died "of sorrow," as the officer of the day announced to the
King. Shortly after he received the news of the death of his sister at
Bayreuth. One after another his generals fell by his side, or lost the
King's confidence, because they were not equal to the superhuman tasks
of this war. His veterans, the pride of his heart, hardened warriors,
seasoned in three fierce wars, who, dying, stretched out their hands
toward him and called his name, were crushed in entire companies about
him, and what came to fill the broad gaps that death incessantly
mowed in his army were young men, some good material, but many
worthless. The King made use of them as he did of others, more
sternly, more severely. His glance and his word gave courage and
devotion even to the inferior sort, but still he knew that all this
was not salvation. His criticism became brief and cutting, his praise
rare. So he lived on; five summers and winters came and went; the work
was gigantic; his thinking and scheming was inexhaustible, his eagle
eye scrutinized searchingly the most remote and petty circumstances,
and yet there was no change, and no hope anywhere. The King read and
wrote in leisure hours just as before; he composed verses and kept up
a correspondence with Voltaire and Algarotti, but he was prepared to
see all this come soon to an end--a swift and sudden one. He carried
in his pocket day and night something which could make him free from
Daun and Laudon. At times the whole affair filled him with disdain.

The letters of the man from whom Germany dates a new epoch in