If our readers have followed with some attention the different extracts from the journal that we have placed before them, they must have seen Sand’s resolution gradually growing stronger and his brain becoming excited.  From the beginning of the year 1818, one feels his view, which long was timid and wandering, taking in a wider horizon and fixing itself on a nobler aim.  He is no longer ambitious of the pastor’s simple life or of the narrow influence which he might gain in a little community, and which, in his juvenile modesty, had seemed the height of good fortune and happiness; it is now his native land, his German people, nay, all humanity, which he embraces in his gigantic plans of political regeneration.  Thus, on the flyleaf of his journal for the year 1818, he writes: 

“Lord, let me strengthen myself in the idea that I have conceived of the deliverance of humanity by the holy sacrifice of Thy Son.  Grant that I may be a Christ of Germany, and that, like and through Jesus, I may be strong and patient in suffering.”

But the anti-republican pamphlets of Kotzebue increased in number and gained a fatal influence upon the minds of rulers.  Nearly all the persons who were attacked in these pamphlets were known and esteemed at Jena; and it may easily be comprehended what effects were produced by such insults upon these young heads and noble hearts, which carried conviction to the paint of blindness and enthusiasm to that of fanaticism.

Thus, here is what Sand wrote in his diary on the 5th of May.

“Lord, what causes this melancholy anguish which has again taken possession of me?  But a firm and constant will surmounts everything, and the idea of the country gives joy and courage to the saddest and the weakest.  When I think of that, I am always amazed that there is none among us found courageous enough to drive a knife into the breast of Kotzebue or of any other traitor.”

Still dominated by the same thought, he continues thus on the 18th of May:—­

“A man is nothing in comparison with a nation; he is a unity compared with millions, a minute compared with a century.  A man, whom nothing precedes and nothing follows, is born, lives, and dies in a longer or shorter time, which, relatively to eternity, hardly equals the duration of a lightning flash.  A nation, on the contrary, is immortal.”

From time to time, however, amid these thoughts that bear the impress of that political fatality which was driving him towards the deed of bloodshed, the kindly and joyous youth reappears.  On the 24th of June he writes to his mother:—­

“I have received your long and beautiful letter, accompanied by the very complete and well-chosen outfit which you send me.  The sight of this fine linen gave me back one of the joys of my childhood.  These are fresh benefits.  My prayers never remain unfulfilled, and I have continual cause to thank you and God.  I receive, all at once, shirts, two pairs of fine sheets, a present of your work, and of Julia’s and Caroline’s work, dainties and sweetmeats, so that I am still jumping with joy and I turned three times on my heels when I opened the little parcel.  Receive the thanks of my heart, and share, as giver, in the joy of him who has received.