fore you at this
hour. Johannes von Mueller, I renounce you forevermore! Germany will
accept no further services at your hands, even though you should desire
to espouse her cause again, for no one reposes confidence in the
faithless. Posterity will honor Johannes von Mueller, the historian; but
they will despise Johannes von Mueller, the man. I know you now
thoroughly. Your whole character is a strange error nature committed in
uniting intellect of extraordinary strength with one of the feeblest
souls. The many sublime thoughts, the ingenious and often profound
combinations which for many years have characterized your pen, were
apparently intended only for others; you yourself derive no benefit from
them. You are, and will ever be, the plaything of every accidental and
momentary impression. Always ready to acknowledge and embrace whatever
came near you, you were never able to feel either enduring hatred or
attachment. Your life is a mere capitulation. If the Evil One himself
should appear on earth in visible form, I could show him the way by
which he could league with you within twenty-four hours. The true source
of your inconsistency is the fact that, separated from all good and true
men, and surrounded by knaves and fools, you see and hear nothing but
what is ignoble and false. If you could have made up your mind to leave
Berlin, you would probably have been saved. Your real guilt consists in
your staying here; the remainder of your faults were only consequences
of it. Whether this judgment is more lenient or rigorous, more
mortifying or honorable, than that which you may expect at the hands of
the public, I will not decide. As for myself, it is conclusive."

"But it is not for me," exclaimed Mueller, with grave dignity. "I forgive
you the insults you have thrown into my face; and, instead of turning
away from you in silence, and in the consciousness of right, I will
address you a last word of justification; for you know full well that I
have loved you, and my heart renounces reluctantly its dream of
friendship. You have preferred serious charges against me; you have
threatened me with the judgment of posterity; but posterity will have
better ideas of justice than you, whose eyes are blinded by partisan
feelings and political hatred. It is true, I have said on every page of
my works that men ought not to shrink from sacrificing their lives for
their country, for truth, and justice; but I am unconscious of having
done