Sophie Charlotte was in her thirty-seventh year when she died, and at her death a great light went out. She would have been a remarkable woman under any conditions; she was doubly remarkable when we remember her time and her environment. In her large brain and generous sympathies, her love of art and letters, and her desire to raise the intellectual life of those around her the first Queen of Prussia strongly resembled one of her successors who has recently passed away--the late Empress Frederick. She resembled her also in that during her lifetime she was often misrepresented and misunderstood, and her great qualities of head and heart were not fully appreciated until after her death. FOOTNOTES TO BOOK I, CHAPTER II: [3] Leibniz to State Minister du Cros, Lützenburg, 25th October, 1704. [4] The Electress Sophia to the Raugravine Louise, Lützenburg, 21st October, 1704. [5] The Electress Sophia to the Raugravine Louise, Lützenburg, 27th October, 1704. [6] The Electress Sophia to the Raugravine Louise, Lützenburg, 1st November, 1704. [7] The Electress Sophia to Leibniz, Hanover, 22nd November, 1704. [8] Princess Caroline of Ansbach to Leibniz, Ansbach, 28th December, 1704. CHAPTER III. THE WOOING OF THE PRINCESS. 1705. The Queen of Prussia’s death was one of the great sorrows of Caroline’s life. She was at Ansbach when Sophie Charlotte died, slowly recovering from a low fever. The sad news from Hanover plunged her into the deepest grief, and seriously hindered her convalescence. Leibniz, who had also lost his best friend in the Queen, wrote to Caroline to express his grief and sympathy; he also took this opportunity to explain his views on the Divine scheme of things. “Your Serene Highness,” he writes, “having often done me the honour at Lützenburg of listening to my views on true piety, will allow me here to revert to them briefly. “I am persuaded, not by light conjecture, that everything is ruled by a Being, whose power is supreme, and whose knowledge infinite and perfect. If, in this present state, we could understand the Divine scheme of things, we should see that everything is ordered for the best, not only generally but individually, for those who have a true love of God and confidence in His goodness. The teachings of Scripture conform to reason when they say that all things work together for good to those who love God. Thus perfect love is consummated in the joy of finding perfection in the object beloved, and this is felt by those who recognise Divine perfection in all that it pleases God to do. If we had the power now to realise the marvellous beauty and harmony of things, we should reduce happiness to a science, and live in a state of perpetual blessedness. But since this beauty is hidden from our eyes, and we see around us a thousand sights that shock us, and cause temptation to the weak and ignorant, our love of God and our trust in His goodness are founded on faith, not yet lost in sight or verified by the senses.