Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia

In Berlin the superb monument of the Great Frederick is instinct with a different spirit. Raised high above the throng, the King seems to gaze with his inscrutable mask-face at the astounding works of his successors. At the base of his lofty pedestal are stationed generals and civilians of renown, numerous enough almost to confute the Cassius who should infer of Frederick’s Prussia that there was in it but oneonly man. The statue none the less suggests the truth. Between monarch and people there was ever a great gulf fixed. Through all his life—in his counsels, in his despair, in his triumph, and in his death—Frederick, almost beyond parallel in the record of human history, was alone.