as swelled by a song more majestic and not less triumphant:

Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen,
Durch des Himmels praecht'gen Plan,
Wandelt, Brueder, eure Bahn,
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen,

and, passing the Alps and the Vistula, died in a tumultuous hymn of
victory long hoped for, of joy long desired, of freedom long despaired
of, in the cities of Italy, the valleys of Greece, the plains of
Poland, and the Russian steppes. Since those days three generations
have arisen, looked their last upon the sun, and passed to their rest,
and in what another mood does Europe now confront the opening century
and the long vista of its years! Man presents himself no more as he
was delineated by the poets of 1800. Not now does man appear to the
poet's vision as mild by suffering and by freedom strong, rising like
some stately palm on the century's verge; but to the highest-mounted
minds in Russia, Germany, France, Norway, Italy, man presents himself
like some blasted pine, a thunder-riven trunk, tottering on the brink
of the abyss, whilst far below rave the darkness and the storm-drift of
the worlds. From what causes and by the operation of what laws has the
great disillusion fallen upon the heart of Europe? Whither are
vanished the glorious hopes with which the century opened? Is it final
despair, this mood in which it closes, or is it but the temporary
eclipse which hides some mightier hope, a new incarnation of the spirit
of the world, some yet serener endeavour, radiant and more enduring,
wider in its range and in its influences profounder than that of 1789,
of 1793, or of the year of Hohenlinden and Marengo?

In the year 1800, from the Volga to the Irish Sea, from the sunlit
valleys of Calabria to the tormented Norwegian fiords, there was in
every European heart capable of interests other than egoistical and
personal one word, one hope, ardent and unconquerable. That word was
"Freedom"--freedom to the serf from the fury of the boyard, to the
thralls who toiled and suffered throughout the network of
principalities, kingdoms, and duchies, named "Germany"; freedom to the
negro slave; freedom to the newer slaves whom factories were creating;
freedom to Spain from the Inquisition, from the tyranny and shame of
Charles IV and Godoy; freedom to Greece from the yoke of the Ottoman;
to Italy from the slow, unrelenting oppression of the Austrian; freedom
to all men from the feudal State and the feudal Church, from civic