Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/189

 hearty frankness. I could have used him, just as well as I used Luther or as I might use anyone else if there have been others like them, to demonstrate the characteristics of the German spirit and to give the gratifying proof that this spirit, in all its miraculous power, reigned down to the present day within the range of the German tongue. He, also, has spent a laborious life struggling with every possible obstacle; within, with his own stubborn obscurity and awkwardness and his very scanty supply of the most ordinary aids to scholarly education; without, with continual misunderstanding. Towards an end, which he simply surmised and which was quite unknown to him, he has struggled, upheld and stimulated by an unconquerable and all-powerful and German impulse, a love of the poor neglected people. As in the case of Luther, only in another connection and one more in keeping with his age, this all-powerful love had made him its instrument and had become the life of his life. It was the unknown but definite and unchanging guide which led his life through the all-enveloping night, and, because it was impossible for such a love to leave the earth unrewarded, crowned its evening with his truly spiritual invention, which achieved far more than he had ever longed for in his boldest wishes. He wished simply to help the people; but his invention, when developed to the full, raises the people, removes every difference between them and an educated class, provides national education instead of the desired popular education, and might, indeed, have the power of helping peoples and the whole human race to rise from the depths of their present misery.

135. This fundamental conception of his appears in his writings with complete clearness and unmistakable precision. First of all, in regard to the form, he desires,