inconsistency; I despise the
world, and I strive after honor. This proceeds from a youthful
impression of what was meant by the nobility. The only guaranty for the
world's smile is rank and genius; without one of these you do not
escape from mediocrity and sufferance. I pictured to my wife what a
grand life was led at some little court in Germany, and it became a
fixed idea in her mind. One can tear out the heart more easily than
root out from it a thought. I see the struggle coming in the New World:
courage and strength are on our side. There will be a slaughter
unparalleled; but we shall be victorious. The Southern States want
independence, and this is the only, the highest thing. I have labored
in Europe for our cause. We lived in England, in Italy, in Switzerland.
I thought, for a time, of becoming what is called a free, sober citizen
of Switzerland. But I hated Switzerland: it suffers the foreigner to be
free, so long as he is a foreigner; if he becomes a citizen of the
State, he can no longer be a free man, but must take part in all their
petty concerns. He who is not earning money, and who will not be
pious--one can do both at the same time without much trouble--he who
doesn't want to live frugally, will not do for Switzerland. No court,
no nobility, no barracks there!--nothing but church, school, and
hospital, things that are of no account to me. I didn't want to remain
in Switzerland, with inaccessible heights before my eyes; it's
oppressive, and for that reason, here on the Rhine it's cozy and
homelike. Germany is and will be the only land for free men. Here one
pays his tax, and is let alone. No one has any claim, and in his
position the nobleman is liable to no interference. I returned to
Germany, because I wished to acquire for myself and for my son a
brilliant position in society. The regard of one's neighbors, one's
fellow-men, is a fine luxury, perhaps the very finest: this, I wanted
to have too. I wanted to give my son what only the German perfectly
knows, dutiful service; and with this view there was perpetually
ringing in my ears one melody--the only sentimentalism I can reproach
myself with--a villa on the Rhine. This was the dream of my childhood,
this, of my mature life, and this has been my ruin. When I looked the
whole world over, and asked myself where life could be passed most
happily, then I had to confess, as I said before, that it is the
highest pinnacle of enjoyment to be a rich baron of som