an of Stein's temper,
only another name for the DEVIL. The congress of Vienna, so far as Germany
was concerned, ended, according to his views, in a "FARCE;" for not only
were the other German states, great and small, left entire, but SAXONY
also--Napoleon's centre and base in the late war--was preserved, only a
half (instead of the whole) of it being cut off for the great German
object of forming "a strong Prussia." And with regard to this point, we
must confess we feel, in some respects, inclined to agree with the
Prussian baron. If Saxony was to be made an exception to the general rule,
it would have been better, for many reasons, to have handed it over
undivided to the great Northern power. If neither one strong German
empire, nor an equally-poised federal system, was any longer possible, a
strong Prussia was certainly a thing imperatively called for. But
congresses are congresses; and we must even content ourselves with the
most convenient adjustment of contending claims that was found practicable
at the time; and if the result seems unsatisfactory, we may turn away our
eyes from it; occupy ourselves with the best business that offers itself,
and let God work. So at least Stein did. He kept his word to Count Muenster
most faithfully; and, after the decisive thunders of Leipsig and Waterloo,
having done his part to bring the great European tragedy to a worthy
catastrophe, he retired from witnessing the "farce," with all convenient
speed, into private life, and was heard of no more in court or cabinet in
Berlin, from that day till his death. In the spring of 1816, we find him,
in his own ancestral castle in Nassau, addressing a fiend as
follows:--"Yes, dear friend, we have won much; but much also should have
been otherwise. God governs the world, and abandons no German; and if we
remain true and German, (_treu und Deutsch_,) we shall take up the matter
some other day with the French again, and settle the account more
satisfactorily. For myself, I long to depart; _this world is, once for
all, so constituted, that a man cannot walk on the straight path, and yet
ought not to walk on the crooked_. 'Tis even so; circumstances and
relations drive and force men. They act, and think they are the doers; but
it is God that decides." This most characteristic passage expresses only
Stein's feeling, that the French had been allowed to escape so cheaply, by
the generosity of the Allies, at the peace of Paris; but he had much more
sub