Indeed, I am not sure that any other people
than Germans would not find in the repetition of the five hours of
the "Meister-Singer von Nurnberg," which was given the other night at
the Hof Theater, sufficient reason for revolution.
Well, what I set out to say was, that most Germans would like unity
if they could be the unit. Each State would like to be the center of
the consolidated system, and thus it happens that every practical
step toward political unity meets a host of opponents at once. When
Austria, or rather the house of Hapsburg, had a preponderance in the
Diet, and it seemed, under it, possible to revive the past reality,
or to realize the dream of a great German empire, it was clearly seen
that Austria was a tyranny that would crush out all liberties. And
now that Prussia, with its vital Protestantism and free schools,
proposes to undertake the reconstruction of Germany, and make a
nation where there are now only the fragmentary possibilities of a
great power, why, Prussia is a military despot, whose subjects must
be either soldiers or slaves, and the young emperor at Vienna is
indeed another Joseph, filled with the most tender solicitude for the
welfare of the chosen German people.
But to return to the clergy. While the monasteries and nunneries are
going to the ground in superstition-saturated Spain; while eager
workmen are demolishing the last hiding-places of monkery, and
letting the daylight into places that have well kept the frightful
secrets of three hundred years, and turning the ancient cloister
demesne into public parks and pleasure-grounds,--the Romish
priesthood here, in free Bavaria, seem to imagine that they cannot
only resist the progress of events, but that they can actually bring
back the owlish twilight of the Middle Ages.
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