precision to the "present," stood for an instant as if hewn from
stone, the spiked helmets above the blond faces inclining backward at
the same angle, then precisely together fell into the old position.
The street was "Unter den Linden." The tall statue was the memorial
of Frederick the Great. The gate down the long vista was the
Brandenburger Thor, surmounted by the charioted Victory which Napoleon
carried to Paris after Jena and which came back after Waterloo. The
solid building was the palace of iron-grey old King William; and when
the clock-work sentinels went through their salute, I got my first
sight of that famous Prussian discipline, against which before
the summer was through supple France was to crush its teeth all to
fragments, like a viper that has incautiously bitten at a file.

There never was a place with aspect more military than Berlin even
in peaceful times. In many quarters towered great barracks for the
troops. The public memorials were almost exclusively in honour of
great soldiers. There were tall columns, too, to commemorate victories
or the crushing out of revolutionary spirit; rarely, indeed, in
comparison, a statue to a man of scientific or literary or artistic
eminence. Frederick sits among the tree-tops of Unter den Linden, and
about his pedestal are life-size figures of the men of his age whom
Prussia holds most worthy of honour. At the four corners ride the
Duke of Brunswick and cunning Prince Heinrich, old Ziethen and fiery
Seydlitz. Between are a score or more of soldiers of lesser note, only
soldiers, spurred and sabre-girt,--except at the very back; and there,
just where the tail of Frederick's horse droops over, stand--whom
think you?--no others than Leasing, critic and poet, most gifted and
famous; and Kant, peer of Plato and Bacon, one of the most gifted
brains of all time. Just standing room for them among the hoofs and
uniforms at the tail of Frederick's horse! Every third man one met in