An eager and impressionable boy with warm affections, acute intelligence, and a strong sense of justice had been subjected to inhuman barbarities in his own home. In his heart-hunger he turned to pursuits for which he had a passionate love, and was nourished in secret upon a poisonous diet. A nature which in the fire of his youth had been full of generous enthusiasms was embittered by suffering, and then became cold and cynical under the teachings of Voltaire. So fascinated had he become with this man that he regarded him as the most exalted of beings, and his friendship a treasure above all others. Faith, hope, love, and filial respect were, through this influence, destroyed in the germ before they had time to unfold; and in the place of everything sacred was a cynical cold-blooded search after what these philosophers of the eighteenth century were pleased to call--_truth_. And the way to discover this truth was to analyze, dissect, and then to demolish! So there had been created a strangely composite man, compounded of elements native to himself, to that undeveloped barbarian Frederick William, and to Voltaire! Joined to a strong practical common sense in the management of affairs was a passion for insincere, unsound, and shallow French ideals. And combined with the most despotic and arbitrary of wills, was an inflexible regard for the right of the humblest. While he despised the beliefs of Protestant and Catholic alike, he declared "I mean that every man in my kingdom shall have the right to be saved in his own way." And he secured that right for his people, too! His rule was a despotism, but it was a despotism of intelligence and justice. He called himself the first official servant of the state, and no clerk in his kingdom gave such faithful service as he. He arose at four o'clock in the morning. He made himself personally acquainted with every village and landed estate in his kingdom, which he treated as if it were a great private enterprise and interest, for which he was responsible. He was a reformer without heart; a King intent upon the well-being of his people, without tenderness; a leader prepared, if need be, not to lead, but to drag Prussia with a rough hand up the rugged path of virtue and prosperity; and determined to make his nation great, whether it wanted to be or not! There were many pleasanter companions and gentler fathers in his day. There were sovereigns who did not terrify wrong-doers and children on the street with uplifted canes. But this Frederick, with character scarred and distorted, was the one man in Europe who was converting a kingdom into a POWER, and the one man of his age whom history would call GREAT!