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been drawn aside, without relaxation of hold on the main theme, to the more 
ominous and ghastly problems of heredity. Frederick, himself the son of a 
sovereign who was little better than a murderous lunatic, has been the progenitor 
of at least one man beside whose extravagances in evil the records of criminal 
maniacs fade into ludicrous insignificance. The bandit seizure of Silesia in 
the 18th century, by the virtual founder of the Hohenzollern dynasty, has been 
repeated in Belgium, nearly two hundred years later, with equally atrocious 
hardihood, but with an unrivalled accumulation of horrors, by another scion of 
the house. From the statesman and warrior who might be held up, with certain 
limitations, as the Caesar of Prussia, has been developed a monarch who dis- 
plays in his one person powers of unconfinable vice not surpassed by the united 
infamies of the imperial monsters whose rule commenced with that of Caligula. 
The second Lecture, given by Mr. J. Mentcith Graham, dealt with the 
somewhat romantic career of one who is perhaps the greatest writer that ever 
lived on the exclusive branch of military science—Karl von Clausewitz. A 
sketch of the early days of Clausewitz, a descendant of an ancient family of 
Polish warriors and nobles, included his first experience in the field when 
twelve years old, his entrance on garrison life as a sub-lieutenant in his 
fifteenth year, his transference as a student to the chief military school of 
Berlin under the direct supervision of the famous General Scharnhorst, whom 
he afterwards with reverent affection described as “the father of his soul.”’ 
and whose life he eventually wrote. Through the influence of Scharnhorst he 
became a frequenter of the first society in the Prussian capital, and received a 
memorable introduction to the lady whom he was afterwards to marry—the 
Countess von Briihl, daughter of a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and 
grand-daughter, on the maternal side, of a British Ambassador to the Court cf 
Russia. His active war service was limited, but not wholly insignificant. In 
the capacity of Adjutant to Prince August, of the Prussian Royal family, he 
was present at the battle of Jena, where, in the general rout, he was taken 
prisoner, after a fierce resistance. As a protest against his King’s alliance with 
Napoleon he withdrew from the North German Army, and in the great year 
1812 entered the service of Russia. Here, though not called upon for any 
conspicuous work, he kept his eyes and ears well open. Early in 1813 he went 
to Konigsberg on the invitation of Scharnhorst, to whom he afforded most 
valuable help in the organization of the Landwehr. And again, in continuous 
and intimate association with such men as Bliicher, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau, 
he vastly enlarged his military experience. In 1814 he rejoined the Prussian 
army with the rank of Colonel and chief of the general staff to Thielmann, 
Commander of the Third Army Corps. In June, 1815, he was present with 
Thielmann at the head of the German rear-guard during the Waterloo 
campaign. And at Wavre, on the epoch-making 18th of June, he rendered the 
vital service of arranging the dispositions by which the abjectly inept Grouchy 
was kept back from interfering with the junction of Bliicher and Wellington. 
On that 18th of June, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, Clausewitz may 
be said to have closed his active military career. Three years later, with the 
rank of Major-General, he was appointed Director of the great Berlin War 
School, where he had once been a pupil under Scharnhorst. And here at last, 
no more to be severed from the company of the wife so deeply loved by him, 
he began the writing of those works which, in the eyes of all intellectual 
soldiers, remain entirely unapproached in military literature. It was the 
object of the lecturer to show that Clausewitz, whether for good or evil, has 
been the inspirer of the German military system. Clausewitz, in his private 
relations, and in his vocation as writer and soldier, seems to divide himself 
into two distinct personalities. Happiest of men in the domestic and social 
sphere, a devoted son, an affectionate brother, a loyal, noble, sincere friend, a 
most loving husband—when he enters upon the business of war he seems like 
the fallen angel who has left Paradise behind. One might think of him as 
bidding farewell to the “happy fields where joy for ever dwells,” and as 
exclaiming, in the gloom of an eternal despair, ‘‘ Hail, horrors, hail, infernal 
world; and thou, profoundest hell, Receive thy new possessor.’ Yet, through 
all the severities of conflict countenanced by Clausewitz he was rigorously and 
