"I can now for the first time, say the best words: 'grandfather,' 'uncle;' and"--turning quickly to Johanna--"'aunt;' to Julius I have already said 'cousin,' and I shall soon have more cousins."
The brothers were soon involved in a most zealous discussion of the great questions of the day. Richard warned Ludwig against permitting the demagogues to make use of him, as their only aim was to foment disturbance, and to abuse all existing institutions. They were wholly without lofty or honest aims of their own. When he warned him to be on his guard and not to permit this or that one to influence his views of affairs in the Fatherland, Ludwig replied: "With your permission, I shall begin with you." Richard observed that, just as time helps to correct our judgments, in regard to past events, so does distance aid us in criticising contemporary history. It may take ten years before we can see the Europe of the present in the light in which it appears to the unprejudiced American of to-day; and when he asked Ludwig whether we might not cherish the hope that he would now remain in the old world, Ludwig answered that, with all his love of home, he did not believe he would be able to give up the perfect independence of American life.
"And what do you think on the subject, my dear sister-in-law?"
"I am of the same opinion as my husband."
Richard expressed a wish that Ludwig might, at some future day, take charge of the family estate, as there was no one else who could do it. It seemed to me, indeed, that, in all that he said, Richard was trying to determine Ludwig to unite his fortunes with those of the Fatherland.
Ludwig, who had come by way of France, could tell us much of the great excitement that had been produced there by the plebiscite.
The brothers were agreed that the expression of the popular will had been accompanied by fearful deceit on the part of the authorities; but they did not agree as to the object contemplated by that deceit.
"I was often obliged," said Ludwig, "to think of our old schoolmaster, who explained the philosophic beauty of the Latin language to us by the fact that volo has no imperative; but the author of the 'Life of Cæsar' has shown us, by means of the plebiscite, that volo has an imperative."
Ludwig asserted that the majority of educated Frenchmen hated and despised Napoleon; for all the large cities, with the exception of Strasburg, which gave a small majority on the other side, had voted no. At the same time, what they hated and despised in him was just what they themselves were; for every individual Frenchman really desires to be a Napoleon; and the no that a portion of the army had voted, simply meant, "We want war." Napoleon had undermined every sense of duty, and the misfortune of France was that no one there believed in the honesty or the unselfishness of another creature.
"I have also made the acquaintance of French emigrants in America. It is, of course, unfair to judge of a nation by its emigrants; but I could not help being struck by the fact that those whom I met had no confidence in any one."