It is true, my parents and my Emma will weep
for me. May God comfort them! I could not spare them this blow. It
is not much that I risk my life; but that this life is adorned with
love, friendship, and joy, and that I nevertheless risk it, is a
sacrifice that can be compensated only by love of country, more
sacred than any other love, and to it we should devote our life.
[Footnote: His own words.--Vide "Theodore Korner's Works," edited by
Carl Streckfuss p. 54] My noble father feels and knows this, and so
does my betrothed."
"And yet, agreed though you are with yourself and your dear ones,
why this despair?" asked Madame von Lutzow, with a smile.
Korner looked down in confusion, and then raised his flaming eyes
with a strange expression. "Ah, madame," he exclaimed, "I divine
your stratagem; it is that of an angel, and, therefore, worthy of
you."
"What stratagem do yon mean?" she asked, with a semblance of
surprise.
"The angelic stratagem by which you comforted me in my grief,
without knowing its cause. When I rushed so impolitely into this
room, I told you that I was in despair. And you, instead of urging
me to tell you at once the cause of it, inquired for the great
affairs of my life, and whether my affliction came from my parents
or my affianced bride. You thereby wished to admonish me that these
momentous affairs and relations of my life, not having lost their
harmony, my grief was, perhaps, but a passing dissonance, and that
it really might not be worth while to give way to despair on account
of it.
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