blotted
out, to drain to the dregs its cup of bitterness. Forth from my agonised
breast, then; forth, long and cruel torment of a last conversation, which
alone, however, when sincere, can alleviate the pain of parting.

"This letter brings you the last farewell of your son and your brother.

"The greatest misfortune of life far any generous heart is to see the
cause of God stopped short in its developments by our fault; and the most
dishonouring infamy would be to suffer that the fine things acquired
bravely by thousands of men, and far which thousands of men have joyfully
sacrificed themselves, should be no more than a transient dream, without
real and positive consequences. The resurrection of our German life was
begun in these last twenty years, and particularly in the sacred year
1813, with a courage inspired by God. But now the house of our fathers
is shaken from the summit to the base. Forward! let us raise it, new
and fair, and such as the true temple of the true God should be.

"Small is the number of those who resist, and who wish to oppose
themselves as a dyke against the torrent of the progress of higher
humanity among the German people. Why should vast whole masses bow
beneath the yoke of a perverse minority? And why, scarcely healed,
should we fall back into a worse disease than that which we are leaving
behind?

"Many of these seducers, and those are the most infamous, are playing the
game of corruption with us; among them is Kotzebue, the most cunning and
the worst of all, a real talking machine emitting all sorts of detestable
speech and pernicious advice. His voice is skillful in removing from us
all anger and bitterness against the most unjust measures, and is just
such as kings require to put us to sleep again in that old hazy slumber
which is the death of nations. Every day he odiously betrays his country,
and nevertheless, despite his treason, remains an idol for half Germany,
which, dazzled by him, accepts unresisting the poison poured out by him
in his periodic pamphlets, wrapped up and protected as he is by the
seductive mantle of a great poetic reputation. Incited by him, the
princes of Germany, who have forgotten their promises, will allow nothing
free or good to be accomplished; or if anything of the kind is
accomplished in spite of them, they will league themselves with the
French to annihilate it. That the history of our time may not be covered
with eternal ignominy, it is nec