t keep him uncertain as to how you will attack;
then do on a sudden march up, not parallel to him, but oblique, at an
angle of 45 degrees,--swift, vehement, in overpowering numbers, on the
wing you have chosen. Roll that wing together, ruined, in upon its own
line, you may roll the whole five miles of line into disorder and ruin,
and always be in overpowering number at the point of dispute. Provided,
only, you are swift enough about it, sharp enough! But extraordinary
swiftness, sharpness, precision is the indispensable condition;--by no
means try it otherwise; none but Prussians, drilled by an Old Dessauer,
capable of doing it. This is the SCHRAGE ORDNUNG, about which there has
been such commentating and controversying among military people: whether
Friedrich invented it, whether Caesar did it, how Epaminondas, how
Alexander at Arbela; how"--Which shall not in the least concern us on
this occasion.

The four columns rustled themselves into two, and turned southward on
the two sides of Borne;--southward henceforth, for about two hours; as
if straight towards the Magic Mountain, the Zobtenberg, far off, which
is conspicuous over all that region. Their steadiness, their swiftness
and exactitude were unsurpassable. "It was a beautiful sight," says
Tempelhof, an eye-witness: "The heads of the columns were constantly on
the same level, and at the distance necessary for forming; all flowed
on exact, as if in a review. And you could read in the eyes of our brave
troops the noble temper they were in." [Tempelhof, i. 288, 287.] I know
not at what point of their course, or for how long, but it was from
the column nearest him, which is to be first line, that the King heard,
borne on the winds amid their field-music, as they marched there, the
sound of Psalms,--many-voiced melody of a Church Hymn, well known to
him; which had broken out, band accompanying, among those otherwise
silent men. The fact is very certain, very strange to me: details not
very precise, except that here, as specimen, is a verse of their Hymn:--

"Grant that with zeal and skill, this day, I do
What me to do behooves, what thou command'st me to;
Grant that I do it sharp, at point of moment fit,
And when I do it, grant me good success in it."

"Gieb dass ich thu' mit Fleiss was mir zu thun gebuhret,
Wozu mich dein Befehl in meinem Stande fuhret,
Gieb dass ich's thue bald, zu der Zeit da ich's soll;
Und wenn ich's