t was strengthened by the remark of the lady
at whose side I sat, who said, "You see,--this activity is the
salvation of many, as you can perceive in your grand-daughter
Christiane. She is untiring, and the dissatisfied air her face used to
wear is gone. We are now all united. It will not last; but hereafter
the thought that there once was a time when the children of the poorer
and of the upper classes did not ask 'Who are you, after all?' will
greatly benefit us."

I stayed in the city. The next evening, just as it was growing dark,
the councillor arrived with his son's body. The whole town, young and
old, was collected at the railway station. The children carried wreaths
and flowers, the bells were ringing, and thus was the body taken from
the station to the churchyard. After a hymn was sung, the clergyman
delivered his address. What could he say? He explained in few words
that this was not an ordinary funeral, but that we were now parts of
one great whole, even in death.

The father, mother, and sisters cast the first clods of earth on the
young hero's coffin; the grave was then filled in and covered with
flowers.

We had buried the first one who had died for the union and independence
of our Fatherland. I was staying with the family which had thus lost
its only son. They sat at home in silence; indeed, what could be said?

The parson had added a text from the Bible, and had made some earnest
remarks thereon; yet I thought, and am sure that these stricken ones
thought as I did, that all political feeling is foreign to that holy
book. Patient endurance here, and the hope of better things beyond,
suit a nation that is kept in subjection, but not one that is gladly
battling and sacrificing itself for its existence. What an entirely
different comprehension the Greeks had of exertion carried to its
utmost limit. I remembered how, while in prison, the speech of
Pericles, delivered at the funeral rites in Athens, had illumined and
elevated my soul; and I could almost see the words, for they seemed to
have been hewn out of stone, like a finely chiselled piece of
sculpture. I found the book in the house, and read the address to the
parents and children. I had to stop frequently, for sometimes the
father and sometimes the mother would exclaim: "That is intended for
us, for to-day."

"No enemy has ever seen our entire forces," says Pericles, and so say
we.

"Bold, daring, and calm consideration of what we undertake, are