Читать книгу The Student-Life of Germany - William Howitt - Страница 21

"Our days demand a decision for the law which God has written in flaming characters in the hearts of his men. Prepare yourselves! decide for life and for death!

"Open nightly profligacy is not the corruption which rages in our blood, but vice devours around him only the more hideously under the mantle of an accustomed pious politeness: falsehood masks itself under a thousand assumed holy forms; and the condition of the people should be the blossom of so many sacrifices, and is the state of the old miserable laxity.

"Half-accomplished fools, and the stunted overwise, for ever deride the truth, which unadorned and simple, throws itself on the human mind, and they cripple and distort her use in life. The moral strength of the Germans is split on the Babel of foreign affectation, and keeps itself no longer in the house-life. The will is wanting in us for the deed. The Fatherland fails the youth. Courtiers and money-service rule, instead of that honour-firm integrity which has resigned itself to the influence of time, and is become mouldy in it.

"The virtue of the burger class bends itself servilely at the nod of the great, and rushes, with already gripped clutch, at the gold-bag. The idleness of servants devours our bones; courage and hero-mind display themselves alone in paper panoply amongst the whole people in empty vapouring; and since they glow not as pure flames in every heart, we find them not even in ourselves.

"Deep based on equally vile sentiments in the people, stands the most sensual government; and unrestrained arbitrary power needs no other protection than these;--the separation fraternal hearts by the means of jealously-guarded frontiers, of the leading-strings of strict and public surveillance; of cradle-songs, and the sermons of sloth; and it rests itself as upon very sufficient props, on the wages and the oaths of police and soldiers. Many amongst the great German people may stand far before me; but I also hate nothing more than the cowardice and effeminacy of this day. I must give an example of this. I must proclaim myself against this laxity; and I know nothing nobler to achieve than to strike down the arch-slave, and great advocate of this mercenary time, the corrupter and betrayer of my people--August von Kotzebue!

"Thou, my German People, exalt thyself, to a higher moral worth of manhood; of the free spirit of man, and his creative strength! My German People! thou hast no realler nor nobler possession; it is thy highest good. Honour, guard this faith--this thy love to God. Let thy sanctuary no more be trodden under foot.

"Man, be he born in the most miserable and abject condition, is created to become an image of God. Rely on the promised Christian freedom. Honour and trust only the free man. Detest the traitors, the slaves in soul, the false teachers, who will not have this. Hate the dastardly poets of half-measures, the preachers of cowardice, the hirelings who hold thee back from every bold enterprise. Detest and murder all those who lift themselves so high in their villanous and despotic fancies that they forget the godlike in thee, and hold and drive thee, the mad multitude, in their high-wise hands, as a complex wheel.

"Free conscience! free speech! Man shall solace himself at his own free pleasure in the divine light, of which the fountain is in him. He shall strive after the highest discoveries, and shall be able, unburdened by those of others, to prove and build up his own convictions. But man also shall verify these opinions; he shall live and act; he shall exercise his divine creative power--his will, and shall make it availing. It is for this that we have received the whole might of will--not that we may suffer others to decide what they please concerning us, as over a piece of a field, but that in every condition of life we may determine for ourselves; and therein all virtue demonstrates itself--that we, in every thing which concerns the people, shall take a lively interest, and so act upon our own resolves, each as we will, and not as another compels.

"Finally, make free your wills!

"This is the sole, purely human, this the necessary foundation for every human society: this must be won for the German Empire! Only when this sole and righteous condition is achieved, then only can be the discussion on further undertakings.

"My German people! win self-dependence, and that lofty mind, which already some of thy heroes have borne in them. This is the right, hallowed spirit of life, that thou dost that which the sacred Scriptures of Christendom and of antiquity teach--that which thy poets sing; and admirest or regardest them not merely as empty fables. Brother! proudly and courageously shalt thou win by high endeavour, that highest and holiest object which thy soul can conceive--the condition of a purified, and beatified manhood--

A Christ canst thou become.

"So learn, my People, the time in which, after long wandering, joy and unity shall come back into this life. The Reformation, begun three hundred years ago, sought to restore the life of our people after the image of God. It is not yet completed! for yet continue compulsion of conscience, servitude, tearing asunder of brothers in our country, and no one can rejoice himself after a Christian and purely human form. Brothers, break the ancient chains of the Popedom, the chains of arbitrary rule! We Germans,--one empire and one church! Let the schism betwixt spiritual and secular be annihilated! Faith, learning, and action, shall unite themselves into one, and bloom anew in the Christian enthusiasm of free German citizens.

"The Reformation must be completed! Brothers, abandon not one another in the oppressions of the times. Sluggishness and treason blacken history with the hand of slavery! You have it before you!

"Up! I show you the great day of freedom! Up, my people, bethink thee; make thyself free!"

The writing of Sand "To the Burschenschaft in Jena," and the other "To my Friends of the true German mind," were completed only a few days before his setting out; and finally he composed also a so-called "Sentence of Death against Kotzebue." He left behind, in his desk, a statement of the debts which his parents should pay; and an order that his books and other things should be sent home. He empowered a student, to receive all current letters and money for him. He contracted for his lodgings with his landlord for the ensuing half-year. To those who asked whither he was going, he gave the double-meaning answer--"Home." A letter was also found addressed to his parents, as follows:

"To Father, Mother, Brothers, Sisters, Brother-in-law, Teachers, and all Friends! True, eternally true souls!

"Why still more aggravate your pain? I thought, and hesitated to write to you on this business. Truly, if you received the intelligence of what has occurred at once, might the bitter sorrow the easier and quicker pass over; but the truth of affection would in that case be wounded, and this great affliction can only be wholly conquered by our emptying the whole cup of wo at once, and thus keeping faithful to our friend the true, the eternal Father in heaven. So from the shut-up bosom, forth thou long, great pang of the last speech; plain dealing can alone soften the agony of parting. This sheet brings to you the last greeting of the son and the brother! Much and continually have I talked and wished, it is now time that I left dreaming, and the trouble of my Fatherland impels me to action. This is unquestionably the highest misery in this earth-life, if the affairs of God, through guilt, come to a dead pause in their lively developement; this is for us the most overwhelming disgrace, if all that beauty and good which would have been boldly pursued by thousands and on whose account thousands have joyfully offered themselves up, as dream-shapes, without abiding consequence, now sinks away into dark discontent; if the reformation of the old life, now in its half-way advance, stand petrified. Our grandchildren would have to bewail this neglect. The commencement of the restoration of German life was made with spirits animated by God, within the last twenty years, and especially in that hallowed season 1813. The paternal house is shaken to the foundations--forwards! let us raise it again, fresh and beautiful, a true temple of God, as our hearts long after it. They are but a few who oppose themselves as a dam against the stream of the evolutions of the higher humanity in the German people; why then do whole hosts bow themselves again under the yoke of these knaves? shall our once awaked salvation perish again? Many of the most abandoned traitors play their game without obstruction, with us, to the complete corruption of our people. Among these, Kotzebue is the subtlest and most malicious; the actual tool and mouthpiece of every thing base in our time, and his voice is exactly fitted to beguile us Germans of all bitterness and opposition to the most unrighteous usurpations, and to lull us into the old indolent slumber. He practises daily arch-treason against the Fatherland, and then stands there, protected by his hypocritical speeches, and artful flatteries, and wrapped in the mantle of a great political reputation, spite of his wickedness, as an idol for the half of Germany, which blinded by him, willingly imbibes the poison which, for Russian pay, he prepares for them in his daily publications. Will not the greatest disaster befall us? Will not the history of our day be blackened with everlasting shame? He must perish! I say continually if any saving influence is to arise, we must not shrink from strife and toil; the true freedom of the German people then only awakes in us, when challenged and dared by the brave,--when the son of the Fatherland in the contest for the right and for the highest good, casts all other love? behind him, and loves death alone.

"That this may be, who shall rush upon this pitiful fellow, upon this hireling traitor, Kotzebue? In anguish and bitter tears turned to the Almighty, have I waited a long time for the appearance of one who would step before me, and release me, not fitted for murder, would release me from my pain, and leave me to proceed on the pleasant path that I have chosen. Spite of all my prayers, no one has appeared, and each has as good a right as myself to wait for another. Delay makes our condition continually worse and more pitiable; and who shall absolve us from the shame, if Kotzebue leave German ground unpunished, and shall enjoy in Russia a fortune acquired by his treason? Who shall help and save us out of this unhappy condition, if every one, and I in my province first of all, feels not the call to maintain justice, and to do what ought to be done for German Fatherland? So then boldly forward! I will assault him with a heart confident in God to strike down the calumniator and betrayer of our brethren--the horrible traitor! that he may cease from turning us from God and history, and plotting to deliver us into the hands of the cunningest enemy. Solemn duty compels me to it. Since I have discovered what a lofty prize our people have in the present time to wrestle for--and that he is the cowardly false villain that would prevent their destiny--it is become for me, as for every German who regards the well-being of the whole, a rigorous Must! May I direct the eyes of all active and public-spirited men, to where danger and falsehood threaten, and turn, in time, the fear of all, and the vigorous youth to the right point, that they may save the common Fatherland, Germany, the perpetually rent, the unworthy states-union, from an imminent danger. May I scatter terror over the base and the cowardly, and courage over the good! Writing and speaking effect nothing--it is action alone that now creates union. May I, at least, cast a brand into the present indifference, and rouse and augment the flame of popular feeling, that glorious struggle for the affairs of God amongst mankind, which burned in us in 1813--then were all my highest and holiest wishes fulfilled! On this account, though startled out of all lovely dreams of coming life, still am I calm, full of trust in God; yea, happy, since I see the path sketched out for me through Night and Death, by which I may pay back to my Fatherland all that I owe it.

"So farewell, you dear souls! This sudden parting falls heavily, and your expectations and my wishes are probably disappointed; yet may this have prepared us, and therefore now be our comfort--that what the necessity of the Fatherland demands, is the first of all things to be desired by us, and has always lived in me as the most inviolable principle. You may hereafter say and think among yourselves--'Yet had he through our sacrifices learnt to know the whole of life on this earth, the joy there is in this human society; and he appeared to love this land, and his chosen profession heartily.' Yes, so was it; so did I under your affectionate guardianship. Through your countless sacrifices and cares for me, are my land and life become so thoroughly dear to me; you caused me to be introduced into the world of knowledge; I have lived in the active pursuits of a free spirit; I have glanced into history, and then turned back into my own mind in order to twine myself up by the tendril of the spirit firmly to the pillar of faith in the Eternal, and through the free inquiries of my understanding, to acquire a clearer perception of myself and of the greatness of surrounding things. I have cultivated the sciences in the usual course with all my power, and reached thereby the position and capacity to oversee the district of human knowledge, and have thereupon spoken out my convictions with friends and other persons; have travelled the country, to learn, to know men and their doings. As a preacher of the gospel would I joyfully have spent this life, and in any possible overthrow of our social customs and of knowledge, by the help of God, would have discharged faithfully the duties of my office.

"But should all this have withheld me from warding off more imminent danger from my country? Must not your unspeakable love for me directly spur me on to set death at defiance for the common good and the object of all our endeavours? What numbers of the modern Greeks have already fallen, to liberate their people from the scourge of the Turks, and are yet dead without having effected any visible consequence, without any prospect of it; and hundreds of them also amongst us, preparing themselves by education, suffer not their courage to sink, but are immediately ready again to offer their lives for the good of their country, and would I not die for mine? And will not we, to whom the salvation and the working out of the highest blessings are so near and dear, will we do nothing to that end? And do I mistake your love, or would I wantonly sport with it? Believe it not. What should arm me for death, if not alone the love to you and the Fatherland, which impels me thus to testify it to you.

"Mother, thou wilt say,--Why have I brought up a son to maturity, whom I loved, and who loved me; for whom I have striven with a thousand cares and continual anxiety; who through my prayers became inspired with the love of goodness, and from whom I fondly hoped in the last days of my weary pilgrimage to experience repose and filial love? Why forsakes he me now? Dear mother! might not the fosterer of another also thus lament, if he went forth for his Fatherland? If no other will do that, where will the Fatherland be? But certainly thou complainest not thus, but thinkest on these things too justly. Complain not, noble woman! Once already have I received thy call, and if no one now would step forward for the good cause, wouldst thou thyself send me forth to the contest. Still two brothers, and two sisters, all true and noble, have I before me--they remain to you--I follow my duty! The young ones will step into my place, they will be true to their country--they also are your children. In the world have we troubles, but in God we are able to overcome them like Christ. Oh that we may enjoy his peace in full measure! Forsaken on the solitary way which I tread alone, I have no dependence but upon the Eternal Father: in him, however, grasp I courage and strength to conquer the last terror, and to accomplish my solemn deed. I commend you to his protection and comfort. May he lift you to that joy which misfortunes are not able to disturb. Forget then the loss in the enduring joy in Him, and regard not my tears so much as the love which exists between us, and never can perish. Advance still farther for your country, and conduct your little ones--to whom so gladly would I have become the guiding friend--without delay, up into the mighty mountains, and let them there, upon that sublime altar in the midst of the Fatherland, dedicate themselves and swear, never to rest nor to lay down the sword till the Brethren are united in freedom, till all Germany as one people, and with one constitution for the whole empire, great before God and mighty against their neighbours, is knit into one complete whole!

"With joyful look turned toward Thee, Eternal God, stands my Fatherland! Blessed be the great host of the German people ready armed for the battle, who, recognising the high privilege to be allowed to promote the cause of a pure humanity, thy image upon earth, stands courageously resolved, and amongst those may I see them in whose love I shall glory till my end.

"Salvation lies--highest and solely in the sword;

Press then the spear into the patriot heart,

And make a way for freedom!

"Karl Sand."

On the 19th of March, as already stated, he suddenly quitted Jena without taking any leave of the people of the house. His travelling dress consisted of a black German coat, with red cloth waistcoat, black cloth trousers, laced boots, and a black velvet cap with a front. Over his dress he wore on the way, for the most part, a blue carter's frock. Amongst other things was found in his pocket, Körner's "Lyre and Sword," in which many lines were under-drawn with single, and others with double scores; as for instance in the poem "Through,"--