51.] Already meaning, it is thought, or contemplating as possible a certain Siege, which surprised everybody before long! A most inventive, enterprising being; no end to his contrivances and unexpected outbreaks; especially when you have him jammed into a corner, and fancy it is all over with him! "To no other General," says Tempelhof, "would such a notion of besieging Dresden have occurred; or if it had suggested itself, the hideous difficulties would at once have banished it again, or left it only as a pious wish.

But it is strokes of this kind that characterize the great man.

Often enough they have succeeded, been decisive of great campaigns and wars, and become splendid in the eyes of all mankind; sometimes, as in this case, they have only deserved to succeed, and to be splendid in the eyes of judges.

How get these masses of enemies lured away, so that you could try such a thing?
There lay the difficulty; insuperable altogether, except by the most fine and appropriate treatment.

Of a truth, it required a connected series of the wisest measures and most secret artifices of war;--and withal, that you should throw over them such a veil as would lead your enemy to see in them precisely the reverse of what they meant.