How often we had yearned for unity of feeling, and an interchange of sympathy with our compatriots! How sad it was to keep in our path with the knowledge that the feelings and aspirations of those whom we met had nothing in common with our own! The unity of feeling had at last been brought about. Every street had become as a hall of the great temple in which love of country testified its readiness to sacrifice itself. Every valley resounded with the joyful message, "Awake! Our Fatherland has arisen in its might! Hasten! for the battle is not yet over. The soul of him who falls will live on in the comrade who marched at his side. Now none can live for himself alone, but for the one great cause." After my sad bereavement, life had ceased to be aught but duty, and I would have been ready, at any time, calmly to leave the world. But now my only desire was to live long enough to witness the fruition of the hopes which, during my whole life, had filled my soul. My children and grandchildren, each in his own way, showed their love of country. Society at large was now like one great family, united in sentiment. The vicar was the first of my family to visit me. He came to offer his services as chaplain to the troops. Julius followed soon after. It had gone hard with him to leave his wife, but he was happy to know that he could at last serve his country. It moved me deeply when he told me of the courage and resignation his wife had shown at parting. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law, the lieutenant, who joyously confessed that he was filled with hopes of glory and rapid advancement. He drew his sword a few inches from its scabbard, and said, "This blade has lost patience--it is all athirst." My grandson Wolfgang returned from the forester's school. "Grandfather, have my pine-seeds sprouted?" was his first question. "They do not grow so fast, my child; the bed is still covered with brushwood." He wanted to enter the army as a volunteer, and was quite sad when we told him that foreigners would not be accepted, and that it would, moreover, take a good while before he could learn the drill. He could with difficulty reconcile himself to the fact that he was not permitted to take part in the war, and with a voice full of emotion, exclaimed, "Although my name is growing on its soil, I am not allowed to fight for Germany!" Wolfgang was accompanied by Annette's nephew, the son of Offenheimer the lawyer. He desired to offer his services as a volunteer. He was a comrade of Wolfgang's, and a student in the agricultural department of the forester's school. His face was marked by several scars, and although he was not of a quarrelsome disposition, he had been in several duels. He had served in the Young Guard, which, during the past few years, had been recruited from the students of Gymnasiums and polytechnic schools. I inquired whether his father consented to his entering the service, and he answered me in the affirmative.