The individual wished to come into his own and the quicker the better. Reformers shocked landed proprietors, titled folk and office-holders under kings, by demanding unconditional surrender of the machinery of government; zealots urged revolts against all manner of constituted authority. The point was to gain for the barber, the tailor, the shoemaker and the blacksmith more life, more political experience, more freedom of choice--and right on the next tick of the clock! ¶ There is this about it: that the Frankfort Convention offered to William IV the "People's Crown" as a direct symbol of belief in political idealism, not necessarily, however, the political idealism that tolerates a king but instead uses him as a popular signboard. The Convention held that German unity "ought by right" to be established; therefore "once the grand Idea was set afloat" the cause "must by moral right come to pass." ¶ Probably never before in the world was there formulated an outright, widespread expression of greater political idealism by men who called themselves patriots. There is a noble side to the sentiment, heightened the more as we realize the inevitable delusion of it all, translated into terms of human selfishness. Germany, so the zealots proclaimed, should by blood and language be united; and in this respect orators of the hour were correct. Germany had a manifest destiny, the speakers continued, but in this respect they were guided by faith rather than by experience. At least, the momentary end of "manifest destiny" was clearly the political function; to be one and united. ¶ So far good. * * * * * ¶ Then why "should not" this noble German Idea be "accepted"? The word Idea was usually presented with a capital letter, in form of personification, so real had the thing become to German political orators. Certainly every German was ready to testify that National Unity had been the one political dream of generations past and gone. Had not the old wandering minstrels sung of the Fatherland, alas, too long delayed by miserable human selfishness! German bull-headedness insisted on insularity, on individualism, on particularism, on standing each petty monarch in his corner, with farce-comedy courtiers bowing and scraping while the rights of the peasant were forgotten. Assuredly, the day had come for this folly to cease. Then in Heaven's name, why not a United Germany--here and now? * * * * * ¶ The petty passions of rival princes acted as a bar to the acceptance of the glorious National Idea, spelled with the big "I." Intense particularisms preferred loyalty to local princes, fashions, customs, dialects rather than to lose the old ways in the larger life of the German Nation. ¶ But Bismarck did not lose heart. CHAPTER IX So Much the Worse for Zeitgeist 30