of the war; and this letter is especially characteristic, for his sister also was determined not to survive him and the downfall of his house; and he approved this decision, to which, by the way, he gave little attention in his gloomy satisfaction at his own reflections.  The two royal children had once secretly recited, in the house of their stern father, the parts of French tragedies; now their hearts beat again in the single thought of freeing themselves by a Catonian death from a life full of disappointment, confusion, and suffering.  But when the excited and nervous sister fell seriously ill, Frederick forgot all his Stoic philosophy, and clinging fast to life with a passionate tenderness, worried and mourned over her who was the dearest to him of his family.  When she died, his poignant grief was perhaps increased by the feeling that he had interfered in too tragic a manner with a tender woman’s life.  Thus, even in the greatest of all Germans born in the first half of the eighteenth century, poetic feelings, and the wish to appear beautiful and great, were strangely mingled with the serious realities of life.  Poor little Professor Semler who, while under the deepest emotion, still studied his attitudes and worked over his polite phrases, and the great King, who in cool expectation of the hour of his death, still wrote of suicide in beautifully balanced periods—­both were sons of the same age, in which pathos, which had not yet found worthy expression in art, luxuriated like climbing plants about the realities of life.  But the King was greater than his philosophy.  In reality he never lost his courage, nor the persistent, defiant vigor characteristic of the old Germans, nor the secret hope which a man needs in every difficult task.

And he held out.  The forces of his enemies grew weaker, their generals were worn out, and their armies were scattered.  Finally Russia withdrew from the coalition.  This, and the King’s last victories, turned the balance.  He had won.  He had not only conquered Silesia, but vindicated its possession for his Prussian kingdom.  But while his people rejoiced, and the loyal citizens of his capital prepared a festive reception for him, he shunned their merrymaking and withdrew silent and alone to Sans Souci.  He said that he wished to spend his remaining days in peace, living for his people.

In the first twenty-three years of his reign he had struggled and fought to maintain his power against the world.  Twenty-three years more he was destined to rule peacefully over his people as a wise, stern patriarch.  He guided his State with the greatest self-denial, though with insistence on his own ways, striving for the greatest things, but yet in full control even of the smallest.  Many of his ideas have been left behind by the advance of modern civilization—­they were the result of the experiences of his youth and early manhood.  Thought was to be free; every man to think what he pleased, but to do his duty as a