134.
Berlin, Jan. 18th, 1849.
If I appear slow, my dear Varnhagen, and rather laconic to-day in offering you my thanks for your friendly presents and your letter, and your congratulations, you will not ascribe it to a diminution of my true esteem and friendship. I have had but now the enjoyment of what you alone are entitled to call “A Plain Discourse.”[[55]]
How much more fearful, and at the same time hopeful, a turn events have taken. They only know how to oppose brute force to the impending danger, and are afraid themselves to pluck the proffered fruit.
Romuald’s “Vocation”[[56]] deserves, no doubt, the severest censure. What an abuse of his most eminent talents! We will talk about it as soon as I shall have done with the “Ordenstag[[57]]” and the annoyances of the Academy elections of my order. La petite piece side by side with the great world’s drama.
With the old attachment,
Yours,
A. v. Ht.
There never was nobler praise bestowed on the King than in “The Plain Discourse.”
The little work, “Plain Discourse to the Germans on the Duties of the Day. Berlin, 1848,” is from the pen of Varnhagen. A few months later, on the 10th of May, 1849, the author himself thus speaks of it in his diary: “I have been re-reading what I wrote in August last on Frederick William IV., and what I wrote in 1840, the day after he received the homage of his subjects. What strange sensations it provokes! Do what I will, awake or asleep, I cannot for a moment shake off the nightmare of consciousness of our political condition, although I know full well how ephemeral it is, how certain the retribution, and how bright the ultimate future. Arouse then, my country, arouse! Civil war is thy fate, but it is not thy choice. Go on thy way undaunted, and be the blood on the head of those who willed it not otherwise. At a time like this it is not the successes but the failures of the moment that are of profit to the people.”