Read "Waldfried" by Berthold Auerbach online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The great crisis which we have dreaded and yet hoped for has at last arrived. We are again obliged to contend with our hectoring neighbor, whose lust of power goads him to trample on our rights. We must fight, if we wish to endure; and will all Germany be united? If in this juncture we are not as one, our ruin is assured, and will be richly deserved.
To know that the decisive moment is at hand, and that you cannot actively participate -- that you are only a single wave in the current, is at once an oppressive and an exalting thought.