Costs may be immediate; profits are remote,--remote, but sure.

Costs did indeed prove considerable, perhaps far beyond his expectation; though, I flatter myself, they never awoke much remorse in him, on that score!-- Friedrich's Enigma, towards the end of 1755 and onwards, is becoming frightfully stringent; and the solution, "What practically will be the wise course for me ?" does not lessen in abstruse intricacy, but the reverse, as it grows more pressing.

A very stormy and dubious Future, truly! Two circumstances in it will be highly determinative: one of them evident to Friedrich; the other unknown to him, and to all mortals, except two or three.

FIRST, That there will be an English-French War straightway; and that, as usual, the French, weaker at sea, will probably attack Hanover;-- that is to say, bring the War home to one's own door, and ripen into fulfilment those Austrian-Russian Plots.

This is the evident circumstance, fast coming on; visible to Friedrich and to everybody.
But that, in such event, Austria will join, not with England, but with France: this is a SECOND circumstance, guessable by nobody; known only to Kaunitz and a select one or two; but which also will greatly complicate Friedrich's position, and render his Enigma indeed astonishingly intricate, as well as stringent for solution!.