354 RETURN OF COURT 1847 table law of Natural Necessity, and (2) man's Free Will, which latter is restricted to an apparently very narrow sphere, but yet can and does do much more than the thoughtless have any idea of. No doubt, I must admit, that the freedom of the human will is limited to the choice between what a man is forced to regard as good, and what he cannot fail to regard as evil, but in this choice he is unfettered, and it seems to me, that the choice of the good has been made so difficult ONLY to give a higher value to man, and to the choice he makes. "Your Royal Highness's judgment on the character of Lord Grey seems to me very just. With natures such as his it is impossible to establish a personal relation. You cannot fail to secure his esteem and confidence if you show by your acts, as time goes on, that you possess the quality of moral earnestness, and that your own truthfulness of nature will not permit you to make light of whatever is true, great, good, and beautiful. For it is only the belief in a man's moral earnestness, that will gain for him credit and friends; and credit and friends are indispensable to your Royal Highness's political success. That God may shield and strengthen you will to my dying hour be my ceaseless wish and prayer. And now God bless your Royal Highness, our dear Queen, and all the Royal Family! Whatever happens, do not forget me, but keep me in unbroken friendly remembrance, as well as the years I passed so happily with your Royal Highness. 20th September, 1847.' On the 17th of September the Queen left Ardverikie on her return to England. Prince Albert had gone to Inverness the day before, and met Her Majesty at Fort William, to which he had travelled by way of Lochness and the Caledonian Canal. Under persistently bad weather the route homewards was resumed, and continued by sea as far as Liverpool, and thence by railway to London. Despite the wretched weather the Prince had been able to get some shooting in the intervals of work at Ardverikie, made unusually heavy by the peculiarly critical state of European politics, and the mass of communications from all sides, which claimed the close attention of Her Majesty and himself. But in this, as in other things, he was in the habit of exercising great self-denial. 'Really, when one thinks,' says the Queen, writing to her uncle from Ardverikie on the 7th of September, of the very dull 1817 FROM SCOTLAND. 355 life, and particularly the life of self-denial, which Albert leads, he deserves every amusement. And even about his amusements he is so accommodating, that I am deeply touched by it. He is very fond of shooting, but it is all with the greatest moderation.' Of their stay at Ardverikie Her Majesty says in the same letter 'I love this place dearly, and particularly the quiet, simple, and wild life we lead here, in spite of the abominable weather we have had.' The expression of some natural regret at having to forego its freedom for the constraints of Court life appears to have escaped the Queen in writing after her return to her sister, the Princess of Hohenlohe. How true, how delicate in feeling and expression, is the language of the Princess's reply!" 'Langenburg, 27th September, 1847. .. I well understand your having been sorry to leave the Highlands. Not only that style of country, but the way of living there, was agreeable to you. I know that well from experience, coming home after a time of delightful independence. One feels so shut in on all sides, so tame. By degrees the old habits and occupations overcome that feeling. But there still remains a yearning after what is past, and which seldom comes again just so. That is life! and makes one feel very sad at times. With me it is not the feeling of sadness at the running down of life, year after year, but that everything which gives one pleasure, and is beautiful, should pass away like everything else, leaving only recollection as a mark of its having been there. I am becoming very resigned to what gives me pain or pleasure. Not that I feel it less, but I am not afraid of things that give me pain; I have become so accustomed to it of late.' 3 This letter is extracted, by permission, from a volume printed by Her Majesty for strictly private circulation, entitled Letters of Feodora, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, from 1828 to 1872. 1874. The letters, which are all in English, are exclusively addressed to Her Majesty. CHAPTER XXI. Memorandum by Prince on the State of Affairs in Germany-Views of Lord Palmerston on same Subject-Correspondence between Baron Stockmar and the Prince in regard to the Movement for Reform and Unity in Germany. THE Condition of Germany had for some time engaged much of the Prince's attention, and the confidential relation in which he stood towards the King of Prussia, by whom his judgment was held in high esteem, had led to the free interchange of ideas between them as to the measures best fitted to satisfy the growing demand for the establishment of popular institutions, and at the same time bring about such harmony of policy and action among the numerous individual States as would build up one great and united nation, able to take a potential place in European Councils. While at Ardverikie, as the Prince mentions in a letter above quoted (supra, p. 346), he had gone deep into the details of the question with the late Prince Leiningen, and had put his ideas into the form of a Memorandum, with the view of its being submitted to the King of Prussia. Although the problem, which then and for long afterwards occupied the thoughts of the ablest men in Germany, has been settled, within the last few years, by events which came in a form and succession not one of them could have foreseen, this Memorandum is too valuable, as illustrating the character of the Prince's mind, and the breadth and liberality of his political opinions, to require any apology for its reproduction here. Memorandum on German Affairs by Prince Albert. 'Ardverikie, 11th September, 1847. 'It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the fact that Germany regards her present condition as one of development and of transition into another, of the precise nature of which few persons form any clear idea for themselves. No one who has 1847 GERMAN AFFAIRS. 357 followed the movements of the German press and the other movements of the German people and politics for the last thirty years will deny this for a moment, or hesitate at the same time to admit, that public opinion in Germany has two main objects in view "1. The establishment of popular forms of government. 2. The construction of an Ünited Germany. 'Of German statesmen and politicians some will share and countenance only the first, others only the second of these aims, while many will condemn both, but all will acknowledge them as actual facts, and most (whether themselves favourable or the reverse) will recognise in these inclinations of the public mind a power which will make itself be felt, sooner or later, according as circumstances may or may not be favourable. 'I will not here dwell upon the development of the forms of government into such as will secure to the people a larger share in the administration of their own affairs, or, in a word, into constitutional forms, but merely express my own conviction that this development is advancing with rapid strides, and will very shortly become an accomplished fact, and that, moreover, simultaneously with the establishment of popular activity in politics, the yearning for German unity will not merely be increased, but the means will also be provided for its attainment. 'In view of the umistakable tendency of the German public mind it becomes German Sovereigns and German Governments to consider how such a direction shall be given to it, as that it may not merely not do mischief either to the country as a whole, or to the separate individual life of the different federal States, but be even productive of good to both, and so this powerful current be guided to its outfall, bearing blessings on its way. 'It was only after the great disasters of 1805 and 1806 that the unity of Germany came to be felt as an essential want by the German people; later on, after a period of lengthened prostration, it gave rise to an epoch of national glory, and it is now also acknowledged by all the federal States and Governments to be indispensable with reference to means of defence against attacks from without. On the other hand, as regards the political, commercial, intellectual, and, in a word, the inner unity of Germany, the most contradictory and hazy views prevail both as to the necessity for it, as well 358 MEMORANDUM BY PRINCE 1847 as how it is to be brought about, and yet the strength of that unity towards the outside world, which is acknowledged to be essential, will always be no more than a reflex of the strength of this inner unity about which there is so much dispute. 'The question, then is: ""Where are we to look for aid? By what road is this unity to be reached? And by what means so as to be productive of permanent good?" 'It may be assumed as a general principle in the solution of all political questions, that the organic development of what actually exists offers a better prospect for the achievement of a future really healthy condition, than the construction of a future out of some abstract and therefore arbitrary theory, however closely such theory may approximate the absolute ideal of perfection. 'The status quo, then, in Germany shows us a multitude of different States, complete in themselves, with their Sovereigns, Governments, Chambers, and international relations, and with their only point of union in the German Diet, as that was established, after the dissolution of the Empire and of the partial Rhine-Bund, as the representative of German nationality and unity. Its fundamental purpose was the individual independence and unfettered vitality of the separate States, combined with the advancement of the welfare of Germany as a nation. At present it is dead, a symbol rather than a reality, disowned as an authority by the individual States, and a byword with the German people for its inactivity and weakness. If we seek for the causes of the decline of this solitary German national institution, there are two which chiefly present themselves : 1. The mutual jealousy of the different Governments, and the mistaken idea of the different Sovereigns, that submission to the decrees of an active confederation might derogate from their sovereign authority. 2. Austria, a State composed less of German than of nonGerman elements, whose policy is governed by other than German interests and views, and whose system of government is so wholly based upon stagnation that it cannot hold out a hand to progress of any kind, without shattering its own foundations, continues, by virtue of its retaining as rulers the old German Imperial House, to play the most influential part in the Diet; and on account of its palpably Conservative bias |