the Life of Sterling and the Cromwell. {10} Much of his fierceness is
an inverted tenderness.

His greatest book is perhaps the Frederick, the biography of a hero
reduced more than once to such extremities that apparently nothing but
some miraculous intervention could save him, and who did not yield, but
struggled on and finally emerged victorious. When we consider
Frederick's position during the last part of the Seven Years' War, we
must admit that no man was ever in such desperate circumstances or
showed such uncrushable determination. It was as if the Destinies, in
order to teach us what human nature can do, had ordained that he who had
the most fortitude should also encounter the severest trial of it. Over
and over again Frederick would have been justified in acknowledging
defeat, and we should have said that he had done all that could be
expected even of such a temper as that with which he was endowed. If
the struggle of the will with the encompassing world is the stuff of
which epics are made, then no greater epic than that of Frederick has
been written in prose or verse, and it has the important advantage of
being true. It is interesting to note how attractive this primary
virtue of which Frederick is such a remarkable representative is to
Carlyle, how MORAL it is to him; and, indeed, is it not the sum and
substance of all morality? It should be noted also that it was due to
no religious motive: that it was bare, pure humanity. At times it is
difficult not to believe that Carlyle, notwithstanding his piety, loves
it all the more on that account. It is strange that an example so
salutary and stimulating to the poorest and meanest of us should be set
by an unbelieving king, and that my humdrum existence should be secretly
supported by "Frederick II. Roi de Prusse."

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