Then the day came when his dying father laid down the reins of government and told the officer of the day to take his orders from the new commander-in-chief of Prussia.  How the Prince was judged by his political contemporaries we see from the characterization which an Austrian agent had given of him a short time before:  “He is graceful, wears his own hair, and has a somewhat careless bearing; likes the fine arts and good cooking.  He would like to begin his rule by something striking.  He is a firmer friend of the army than his father.  His religion is that of a gentleman:  he believes in God and the forgiveness of sins.  He likes splendor and things on a large scale.  He will reestablish all the court positions and bring the nobles to his court.”  This prophecy was not fully justified.  We seek to understand other sides of his nature at this time.  The new King was a man of fiery, enthusiastic temperament, he was quickly aroused, and the tears came readily to his eyes.  Like his contemporaries, he too was passionately eager to admire grandeur and to give himself up to tender feelings in a poetical mood.  He played adagios softly on his flute.  Like his worthy contemporaries, he did not easily find, in prose or poetry, the full expression of his feelings; pathetic oratory stirred him to tearful emotion.  In spite of all his French aphorisms, the essence of his nature was very German in this respect also.

Those who ascribe to him a cold heart have judged him unfairly.  It is not cold hearts in princes which give the most offense by their harshness.  Such hearts are almost always gifted with the art of satisfying those about them by uniform graciousness and tactful expression.  The strongest utterances of contempt are generally found close beside the pleasing tones of a caressing tenderness.  But in Frederick, it seems to us, there was a striking and unusual union of two totally opposite tendencies of the emotional nature, which elsewhere are engaged in an unending struggle.  He had in equal degree the need to idealize life for himself, and the impulse to destroy ideal moods without mercy in himself and in others.  This first peculiarity of his was perhaps the most beautiful, perhaps the saddest, with which a human being was ever equipped in the struggles of earth.  His was indeed a poetic nature.  He possessed to a high degree that peculiar power which endeavors to reconstruct vulgar reality according to the ideal needs of its own nature, and covers everything near with the grace and light of a new life.  It was a necessity for him to make over with the grace of his imagination the image of those dear to him, and to adorn the relation to them into which he had voluntarily entered.  In this there was always a certain kind of posing.  Even where he had the most ardent feelings, he was more in love with the glorified picture of the individual in his mind than with the real personality.  It was in such a mood that he kissed Voltaire’s