These addresses lay upon you the task of preventing, by the sole means
which still remains after the others have been tried in vain, the
destruction of every nobler impulse that may in the future possibly
arise among us and this debasement of our entire nation. They present
to you a true and omnipotent patriotism, which, in the conception
of our nation as of one that is eternal, and as citizens of our own
eternity, is to be deeply and ineradicably founded in the minds of
all, by means of education. What this education may be, and in what
way it may be achieved, we shall see in the following addresses.
[Illustration: VOLUNTEERS OF 1813 BEFORE KING FRIEDRICH WILHELM III IN
BRESLAU _From the Painting by F.W. Scholtz_]
* * * * *
ADDRESS FOURTEEN
Conclusion of the Whole
The addresses which I here conclude have, indeed, been directed
primarily to you,[4] but they had in view the entire German nation;
and, in intention, they have gathered about them, in the space wherein
you visibly breathe, all that would be capable of understanding
them as far as the German tongue extends. Should I have succeeded in
casting into any bosom throbbing before my eyes some sparks which may
glimmer on and take life, it is not in my thought that they remain
solitary and alone, but, traversing the whole ground in common, I
would gather about them similar sentiments and purposes and weld them
so unitedly that a continuous and coherent flame of patriotic thought
might spread and be enkindled from this centre over the soil of the
fatherland and to its furthest bounds.
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