Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/266

 we are now to be despised as well, and rightly despised, whether in addition to all other losses we are to lose our honour also—that will still depend on ourselves. The fight with weapons has ended; there arises now, if we so will it, the new fight of principles, of morals, of character.

206. Let us give our guests a picture of faithful devotion to friends and fatherland, of incorruptible uprightness and love of duty, of all civic and domestic virtues, to take home with them as a friendly gift from their hosts; for they will return home at last some time or other. Let us be careful not to invite them to despise us; there would, however, be no surer way for us to do this than if we either feared them beyond measure or gave up our own way of life and strove to resemble them in theirs. Be it far from us as individuals to be so unmannerly as to provoke or irritate individuals; but, as to the rest, our safest measure will be to go our own way in all things, as if we were alone with ourselves, and not to establish any relation that is not laid upon us by absolute necessity; and the surest means to this will be for each one to content himself with what the old national conditions are able to afford him, to take up his share of the common burden according to his powers, but to look upon any favour from foreigners as a disgrace and a dishonour. Unfortunately, it has become an almost general European custom, and therefore a German custom too, for people to prefer to descend to the level of others, rather than to appear what is called singular or noticeable, when the choice is open to them; indeed, the whole system of what are esteemed good manners may perhaps be regarded as based upon that one principle. Let us Germans at the present juncture offend rather against this code of manners than against something higher. Let us remain