For the second time he took the field to assert his claim to Silesia.  Again he was victorious.  He had already the calm confidence of a tried general.  His joy at the excellence of his troops was great.  “All that flatters me in this victory,” he wrote to Frau von Camas, “is that I could contribute by a quick decision and a bold manoeuvre to the preservation of so many good people.  I would not have the least of my soldiers wounded for vain glory, which no longer deceives me.”  But in the midst of the contest came the death of two of his dearest friends, Jordan and Kayserlingk.  His grief was touching:  “In less than three months I have lost my two most faithful friends, people with whom I had lived daily, pleasant companions, honorable men, and true friends.  It is hard for a heart that was made so sensitive as mine to restrain my deep sorrow.  When I come back to Berlin, I shall be almost a stranger in my own fatherland, lonesome in my own house.  You too have had the misfortune to lose at one time several people who were dear to you.  I admire your courage, but I cannot imitate it.  My only hope is in time, which can overcome everything in nature.  It begins by weakening the impressions on our brains, and only ceases when it destroys us utterly.  I anticipate with terror visiting all the places which call up in me sad memories of friends whom I have lost forever.”  And four weeks after their death he writes to the same friend, who tried to console him:  “Do not believe that pressure of business and danger give distraction in sadness.  I know from experience that that is a poor remedy.  Unfortunately only four weeks have passed since my tears and my sorrow began, but after the violent outbursts of the first days, I feel myself just as sad, just as little consoled, as at the beginning.”  And when his worthy tutor, Duhan, sent him at his request some French books which Jordan had left behind, the King wrote, late in the autumn of the same year:  “Tears came into my eyes when I opened the books of my poor dear Jordan.  I loved him so much, it will be hard to realize that he is no more.”  Not long after the King lost also the intimate friend to whom this letter was addressed.

The loss, in 1745, of the friends of his youth was an important turning point in the King’s mental life.  With these unselfish, honorable men almost everything died which had made him happy in his intercourse with others.  The intimacies into which he now entered as a man were all of another kind.  Even the best of the new acquaintances received perhaps his occasional confidence, but never his heartfelt friendship.  The need for stimulating intellectual intercourse remained, and became even stronger and more imperative, for in this too he was unique; he never could dispense with cheerful and confidential companions, with light, almost reckless conversation, flitting through all shades of human moods, thoughtful or frivolous, from the greatest questions of the human