The Swiss Republic

Trite and worn out as the subject may appear, it is impossible by any amount of familiarity to divest the historical legend of William Tell of its undying charm; and he who has visited the scene, so far from his interest in it being exhausted, has only been made more enthusiastic in its favor. It is a perfectly simple and natural story, when read in the light of the times, the circumstances that led up to it, and the impulses which sustained it throughout.

Nearly in the centre of Switzerland, around the Lake of Luzern, were the Forest Cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden; defended on the north by the stormy waves of the lake, on the south by inaccessible peaks and glaciers, on the side of Germany by precipices and unbroken forests, and the Rigi in the midst. This district was inhabited by a shepherd race; the elevated and barren site of their habitations had secured them from the cruel caprices of the petty tyrants who ruled over the lower valleys, and they governed themselves under the forms of a republic. Rudolph of Hapsburg, the father of the founder of the House of Austria, a distinguished soldier and leader of the Zurich troops, the son of an Alsatian landgrave, had his castle near the confluence of the Reuss and Aar, and in 1257 was voluntarily chosen by the people as their governor. Sixteen years later he ascended the imperial throne of the Roman Empire of Germany; for eighteen years he kept the throne, and, remembering that he was by birth a native of Switzerland, he protected his countrymen from oppression, and was esteemed for his humanity, prudence, and valor. He gave firm assurance that he would treat them as worthy sons of the Empire, with inalienable independence; and to that assurance he remained true till his death, which happened in 1291. His son, Albert, who had been made Duke of Austria, ascended the throne. He was grasping and eager to make territorial acquisitions. He desired to be first Duke of Helvetia, and proposed to these Forest Cantons that they should sever their relationship, as a province of the German Empire, and become a member of his Dukedom. Though Emperor of Germany, he was Duke of Austria, and his ambition was to aggrandize the Austrian House. The peasants rejected his proposition. Jealous of this remnant of independence, which the snows and rocks had left to the peasants of upper Helvetia, he undertook to subjugate them. Failing to seduce them by diplomacy or pretended kindness, he sent landvogts, or governors, to reside in their midst; these governors bore the title of Imperial Bailiffs. Instead of sending, as was usual, some noblemen for imperial governors, whose functions were only those of high judges in capital crimes, he sent two dependants of his family, men whose dispositions were as hostile and cruel as their orders. Their mission was to goad and persecute the people into some act of rebellion, that might be used as a pretext for reducing them to the level of common slavery. There were two of these bailiffs, Berenger and Gessler, the former stationed at Sarnen, the latter at Altdorf; they were unbounded in their tyrannies, using their powers wantonly, with all the stings of insolent authority. Gessler was the most cruel; he pillaged private property, imprisoned husbands, carried off the wives, and dishonored the daughters. It was now the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the country was in a degraded and miserable condition. The land groaned under violence; the despotism was distant and delegated; the sovereign too far removed to hear the universal lamentation. It became intolerable. A few brave hearts reasoned, that God had never granted power to any emperor, king, or bailiff to commit such injustice; and that death was preferable to a continued submission under so ignominious a yoke. The wife of Werner Stauffacher, of Schwyz, being brutally treated by one of the bailiffs’ officers, in the absence of her husband, on his return reporting the affair to him, exclaimed, “Shall we mothers nurse beggars at our bosoms, and bring up maid-servants for foreigners? What are the men of the mountains good for? Let there be an end of this!”101 Stauffacher sought the counsel of Walter Fürst, of Uri, and Arnold Melchthal, of Unterwalden; and these three, from the result of that counsel, became famous as

Being well acquainted with the most injured, the most intrepid, and the most implacable of their countrymen, they determined to see them, and ascertain whether they would be willing to risk their lives in defence of their liberties. If the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, no less true is it in all history, that the insolence of tyranny is the cradle of liberty. Rütli, so called from the uprooting and clearing of the trees (German, ausgereutet), a secluded field below Seelisberg, in the Canton of Uri, on a steep, small promontory standing out from the mountain and surrounded on three sides by the waters of the lake, was the spot chosen for their council chamber.102 On the night of the 7th of November, 1307, descending from their mountains, or crossing the lake in small fishing-boats, came the patriot three, each, as he had agreed to do, bringing ten true and brave herdsmen, stout of heart and strong of limb. They silently gathered at the lonely spot, as they had concerted. The love of native soil, the feeling of freedom and security under the protection of the laws of the country, the feeling of being ill treated and subjugated by a foreign debauchee, a determination to throw off so obnoxious a yoke—all these great and good qualities were shared by these untutored, but heroic, noble-minded peasants. A handful of patriots, meeting at midnight, and attesting the justice of their cause to the Almighty Disposer of events, the God of equity and mercy, the protector of the helpless; calm and united, proceeding to the delivery of their country; retaining all the serene forbearance of the most elevated reason, amid the energies and the fury of vindictive right. They could bear to die, but not to be subdued:

They met to interchange oaths, and not to utter exciting speeches; “words could not weigh in the balance with that decisive night, brooding under cover of its darkness the resurrection of a nation, with those mountains, stars, rocks, and waves, and with the sword ready to be drawn in the most sacred of causes.” They were summoned, and were bidden in a few brief sentences, uttered in a low tone, to choose; and they chose wisely and greatly; they chose liberty, born of the heavens, breathing of all their odors, and radiant with all their hues. With hands uplifted to the starry firmament, Fürst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal, with subdued and slow accent, their comrades repeating after them, proclaimed, “We swear in the presence of God, before whom kings and people are equal, to live or die for our fellow-countrymen; to undertake and sustain all in common; neither to suffer injustice, nor to commit injury; to respect the rights and property of the Count of Hapsburg; to do no violence to the imperial bailiffs, but to put an end to their tyranny.” One of the men who at that momentous assembly engaged each other by the pledge of “All for each and each for all,” was William Tell, a fisher of the lake and a hunter of chamois, of Bürglen, a half-hour from Altdorf in Uri, and a son-in-law of Walter Fürst. In the mean time, Gessler thought he perceived that the people walked abroad with more confidence, and carried in their looks a haughtier expression; when satisfied that the spirit of resistance was ripe, with a view to confirm his suspicions, he determined to put down by force the first symptoms of disaffection, and invented a crime to trap the most daring and dangerous. His hat, surmounted by the Austrian crown, was placed on the top of a pole, erected in the market-place of Altdorf, and all who passed by were ordered to uncover their heads, and bow submissively before this symbol of the imperial sovereignty:

Guards were posted round the pole, and ordered to arrest all who refused thus to pay homage. It happened that William Tell was passing, and failed to pay the required homage. He was instantly seized and taken before the bailiff. The bailiff first tried to extract from Tell whether his conduct had been premeditated, and if so, who were his friends and abettors; but he remained stubbornly silent. Gessler, incensed at his contumacy, determined to punish him, and, the offence being one unknown to the land and of his own invention, he was likewise compelled to invent a punishment. Tell had only one child, a boy, who was with him at the time, and, as all peasants were accustomed to the cross-bow, Gessler condemned him to shoot from off his son’s head an apple, saying, “Know, audacious bowman, that thy own art shall serve to punish thee.” The lad was blindfolded, the apple placed on his head, and Tell led away to his position:

To one side stood the cruel Gessler to watch the dreadful archery. Tell looked well to his aim, and let the arrow fly:

The twang of the bow was heard, and the eager crowd for the moment held their breath; then a joyful shout proclaimed that the child was safe, and the apple was pinned by the unerring arrow. Gessler observing that Tell had a second arrow, inquired why it was. “It was the custom of the archers,” he answered. Being further pressed, with the promise that he might speak freely without fear of losing his life, and excited by those generous emotions of resentment which a brave and simple race have seldom the discretion to repress, he replied, “That was reserved for you, had the first arrow hit my son.”

The tyrant, exasperated by the candid reply of Tell, said to him, “I have promised thee life, but thou shalt spend it in a dungeon.” He was pinioned by the guards, and thrown into Gessler’s boat, and they started for the castle of Küssnacht at the other end of the lake. Soon a dangerous surge came on, such as at certain seasons occurs suddenly, produced by contrary winds. The boat was in imminent peril from this tempest. Tell being a skilful boatman, and familiar with the sunken rocks and dangerous reefs of the long narrow lake, was unbound, placed at the helm, and ordered to land the boat. He at once steered straight to a flat piece of rock beneath the sharp sides of the Achsenberg. No sooner had the boat touched than Tell seized his bow, sprang on to the narrow ledge, and, at the same time, with his foot pushed back the frail craft into the angry waters. Quickly finding his way up the rock, and knowing where his enemy must land, he hastened there, and as Gessler approached, shot him through the heart. “A wife, Lucretia, liberated Rome; a father, William Tell, disenthralled Helvetia.”

No one can go to that rock-framed, mountain-embosomed, “that sacred lake withdrawn among the hills,” and so well known as the Vierwaldstättersee, or Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, and specially that part famed as the theatre of Tell’s exploits, and called the Urnersee (or Uri Lake), and examine the historic spot and see the numerous evidences, many of them contemporaneous, without being convinced that William Tell was as much an historical personage as Julius Cæsar, Napoleon Bonaparte, or George Washington; and that he lived, acted, and died, as the legend relates. One visiting these various places, must feel the force of what Latrobe wrote: “There is something in the grandeur and magnificence of the scene which surrounds you, which gently but irresistibly opens the heart to a belief in the truth of the page upon which the events which have hallowed them are recorded. Whatever a man may think, however he may be inclined to question the strength of the evidence upon which the relations of these facts rest while in his closet, I should think there are but few sufficiently insensible and dogmatical to stand firm and bar their hearts against the credibility which steals over them while contemplating the spots themselves.”

At a bend of the lake, a short distance from Brunnen, there rises from the water a slender rock pillar, some eighty feet in height. This is the Mythenstein, a noble monument, fashioned in the morning of the world by Nature herself, for the bard who was to hymn the rise of Helvetian freedom and the praise of its hero. The rock bears in golden letters the simple inscription:

A little farther on, opposite Brunnen, at the foot of the rocky ramparts of Seelisberg, lies a long meadow, Rütli-platte, where, the peasant tradition says, the spirits of the Patriot Three sleep in the rocky caverns, ready to awaken in their country’s hour of danger:

We now reach on the eastern bank, projecting into the lake, the platform of rock, Tellsplatte, with its little chapel marking the spot where Tell leaped ashore and escaped from Gessler’s boat. After the expulsion of the bailiffs and the demolition of their castles, it became customary among the Swiss to make pilgrimages to this place; and in 1388, only a little more than thirty years after the death of Tell, the Canton of Uri erected this chapel in the presence of a hundred and fourteen persons who had been acquainted with Tell. Müller the historian suggests as a reason why there were only a hundred and fourteen persons who had known Tell to gather together, not much more than thirty years after his death at the erection of the chapel, was, that Tell did not often leave Bürglen, and the deed, according to the ethics of that period, was not likely to attract inquisitive wonderers to him. It was Tell’s deed alone; the people had no part in Gessler’s death, the hour which they had agreed upon for their deliverance had not come. All the old chronicles agree as to the erection of the chapel and the persons present. The chapel was restored in 1883, the old frescoes being carefully removed, and now preserved in the Council House of Altdorf. The restored chapel has four large frescoes of artistic merit. On the back wall above the altar, to the left is the “Leap from the boat;” to the right the “Death of the tyrant;” on the north wall the “Apple scene;” on the southern wall the “Oath of Rütli;” this last fresco is very frequent in Switzerland, representing the Patriot Three (Les Trois Suisses, or Die Drei Schweizer); one holding a short-handled flag with a cross upon it; the central one leaning on a spear; and a third sustaining a tall standard which rests on the ground; all wearing their swords. On Sunday following Easter, annually, a procession of boats, appropriately decorated, proceeds slowly to this chapel, consecrated by art, religion, and patriotism to the great deeds or yet greater thoughts of its olden time hero, and a solemn memorial service is held. Near by at Küssnacht there is another chapel marking the place where Gessler was shot, and over the door is an illustrated painting with the date 18th of November, 1307, and under it the inscription,—

At the upper end of the lake, retired a short distance, is Altdorf, the capital of Uri. Here in the public square are two fountains. The pillar in the centre of one of them is surmounted by a figure of Tell holding his boy under one arm and pressing his bow to his bosom with the other; it marks the spot where Tell stood when he launched the fearful arrow. The other fountain is placed on the supposed site of the lime-tree by which the boy stood awaiting his father’s unerring aim. A figure of Gessler indicates where the pole bearing the hat and crown was erected; close to the second fountain is an ancient square tower, on the outside of which are painted the scenes of Tell’s history. Near by Altdorf runs the small stream of Schächen, where Tell met his death in 1354: seeing a child fall into the swollen stream as he passed that way, he plunged in to rescue it, and, being old and feeble, lost his life. The museum at Zurich contains the cross-bow of Tell; the little hamlet of Bürglen, his birthplace, has many reminiscences to show; old houses in Altdorf, Arth, and Schaffhausen are frescoed with representations of facts in his history. In Schaffhausen is a fountain having an old stone figure of Tell with the bow and arrow, on the base of which is the date 1682.

But we are told that history records six other apple-shooting feats, performed by different individuals before and after the time of Tell. It is difficult to see how this decides whether Tell was a real character or not. Such skill in marksmanship was not rare in the days of archery. A similar, indeed identical, feat is mentioned of the Scandinavian hero Egill, who was commanded by King Nidhung to shoot an apple from the head of his son. Egill, like Tell, took two arrows, and, on being asked why, replied, as Tell did to Gessler, “To shoot thee, tyrant, if I failed in my task.” Similar stories are recorded of Eindridi, of Norway; of Hemingr, challenged to the display of skill by King Harald, son of Sigurd, in 1066; of Toki, or Palnatoke, the Danish hero, in 1514; and of William of Cloudesley, who, to show the king his skill in shooting, bound his eldest son to a stake, put an apple on his head, and at a distance of three hundred feet cleft the apple in two. This is described by Percy in his “Reliques:”

In modern times the same skill is seen with the gun instead of with the cross-bow. Snuffing a candle, cutting a string, barking a squirrel, breaking glass balls thrown in the air, are all, perhaps, more difficult than for a firm hand and a steady eye to pick off an apple from the head of a boy. The same thing was done in the seventh century that is recorded of Tell in the fourteenth century, ergo William Tell is a myth,—this is the question reduced to a logical form. Any one may see that such an inference is absurd. Yet this is the greatest fact that has been adduced to prove that Tell’s heroism is a mere figment of the past. To believe in one tradition and repudiate the other is not less arbitrary than unphilosophic. Voltaire, whose function it was to deny, even sneered at the existence of the men of Rütli simply on account of “the difficulty in pronouncing their names.” The story of Tell is told in the chronicle of Klingenberg, that covers the close of the fourteenth century; then again in 1470, in the “Ballad of Tell,” one of the chief treasures in the archives of Sarnen; in the “Chronicles of Russ,” 1482; and by Schilling, of Luzern, in 1510, who had before him a “Tell-song;” and the chronicle of Eglof, town clerk of Luzern, in the first half of the fifteenth century. The first to clothe these traditions in the dress of historical narration of great substantial clearness was the celebrated Swiss chronicler, Ægidius Tschudi, of Glarus, in 1570. All the early Swiss and German historians, Stettler, Huldrich, and Müller, sanction it. Then it furnished Florian with the subject of a novel in French, 1788; Lemierre with his tragedy of Guillaume Tell, 1766; Schiller with a tragedy in German, Wilhelm Tell, 1804; Knowles with a tragedy in English, William Tell, 1840. In 1829, Rossini, the most famous composer of the land beyond the mountains, wove the magic of his music round Schiller’s greatest drama with the Italian opera of Guglielmo Tell, the delight of the musical world.104 Smollett, in his sublime “Ode to Independence,” thus alludes to Tell:

Goethe writes: “I picture Tell as an heroic man, possessed of native strength, but contented with himself, and in a state of childish unconsciousness. He traverses the Canton as a carrier, and is everywhere known and beloved, everywhere ready with his assistance. He peacefully follows his calling, providing for his wife and child.” Sir James Mackintosh, one of the most impartial of historians, visited the region associated with the name and deeds of Tell; he examined history, and became perfectly convinced of the existence of the mountain hero, and of the truth of the part he played in Switzerland when

Thus a seemingly unimportant event in the remote Alps became the key-note of European thought, literature, art, and language; for it inspired not only statesmen, historians, orators, and poets, but painters, sculptors, and composers. It influenced and exercised pen, pencil, and chisel, and expanded the vocabulary; for who has not seen, heard, read Wilhelm Tell in his own or some other language?

The legend of Tell has a companion piece doubtless as mythical to the sceptical, being of the same historic period, and occurring at the battle of Sempach. This was one of the great battles which terminated the long and obstinate struggle begun at Rütli, and, like all other famous achievements, is remembered in connection with a special example of personal self-sacrifice; still it passes historical scrutiny unchallenged, though no better authenticated, and in many respects more contentious than the heroism of Tell. On the 9th of August, 1386, Duke Leopold was marching against Zurich to fight the last battle which Austria presumed to try against the Forest Cantons. He had the flower of the Austrian nobility, 4000 knights and barons, each with his own vassals, forming an army of veterans in columns 20,000 strong. A handful of brave Swiss, numbering 1400 stout and fearless mountaineers, went out on foot to meet them; they came up with the enemy at Sempach. The mail-clad warriors, dismounting from their steeds, presented a solid and impregnable barrier of lances; the Swiss were rudely armed with halberds and morgensterne.105 According to their ancient custom, they knelt in silent prayer; arising, they placed themselves in column, presenting an angle, and charged. Again and again they dashed against these protruding lances that stood as firm as a wall of stone. Out of their little number sixty had died in vain; hearts seemed ready to fail; the Austrians were beginning to open in order to surround them. At this crisis Arnold Winkelried, “a trusty man amongst the confederates,” dropped his weapon, and, rushing forward, cried out, “I will open a way to freedom; protect my wife and children!”106 Being of great size and strength, he clutched as many of the enemy’s lances as his arms could embrace, gathered their points and buried them in his bosom, and as he fell drew his enemies with him. Before the Austrians could extract them his companions took advantage of the gap, rushed over his expiring body into the ranks of the enemy; a breach being made in the wall of mailed warriors, what seemed an inevitable defeat was turned into glorious victory. “Heed not the corpse,” says Byron’s Saul to his warriors and chiefs, admonishing them as to what they are to do should the lance and the sword strike them down in the front. Sempach is a story of thrilling heroism, and in little over half a century was followed by the battle of St. Jacob in 1444, when 1600 Swiss met a predatory invasion of the French, a corps of 8000 horse and a large detachment of infantry, in all numbering over 20,000, called Armagnacs, the disbanded mercenaries of the English war, led by the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. Though they might have retreated without loss, the Swiss determined rather to perish on the spot, and fought with heroic fury, tearing the enemy’s arrows from their wounds to send them back dripping with blood. Their valor and terrible sacrifice never were surpassed. The Dauphin lost 6000 men; and of the 1600 Swiss, only ten lived to tell the tale, and they were immediately proscribed throughout Switzerland for having deserted their comrades. A monument is erected near the Birs, on the battle-field, consisting of a figure of Helvetia at the top with four dying soldiers on the pedestal, with the inscription: “Our souls to God, our bodies to the enemy.” At Morgarten, in 1315, 1300 Swiss routed Leopold’s army of over 20,000, killing 9000, when

Then there is the battle fought near Wessen, in the Canton of Glarus, where 350 Swiss attacked 8000 Austrians and gained the field. Eleven pillars are erected on the field of battle to mark the places where the Swiss rallied, for history says they were repulsed ten times, but, rallying the eleventh, broke the enemies’ line and put them to flight with great slaughter. This victory is celebrated every year; the people, in procession, fall upon their knees at each pillar, sing a Kyrie and thank God for so signal a victory. When they come to the last pillar, one of their orators makes a eulogy of the three hundred and fifty, and, when he has finished, reads over a list of their names,—just as the Spartans caused the names of their three hundred to be cut in brass, to transmit their memories to posterity. There are, in addition, such duels of individual valor recorded as men fighting when mortally wounded, like Fontana, of Grisons, who cried out, “Do not stop for my fall, it is but one man the less;” or like John Walla, of Glarus, who met alone and put to flight thirty horsemen. These events, and many others well authenticated and unhesitatingly accepted in Swiss history, sound infinitely more of knight-errantry than the story of Tell.

Macaulay holds that intense patriotism and high courage are peculiar to people congregated in small spaces. Acts of unflinching bravery and of a noble self-immolation in the cause of conscience, duty, and freedom have been conspicuous in Swiss history. As habits of courage are formed by continual exposure to danger, the hazardous state, the perils and hardships which they hourly encountered, braced their nerves to enterprises of hardihood and daring. Turbulent times created a necessity for great sacrifices and daring exploits, and on the same principle, that the supply of a commodity in transactions of commercial life is generally found to be commensurate with the demand, the frequent call for heroic achievements raised up the patriots who were to perform them. There may be something in the deeply religious character of the Swiss favorable to this virtue. Cicero maintained that a belief in the immortality of the soul and a future state of rewards and punishments was indispensable to the steady sacrifice of private interests and passions to the public good. Some, perhaps, in their brighter visions of fancy, would aspire to those blessed abodes amidst the laurel groves of Paradise, which the poet of Mantua has assigned to the self-devoted victims of patriotic enthusiasm:

The renown, likewise, of the heroes of ancient stories is indebted for no inconsiderable portion of its brightness to their mode of warfare, which, by rendering personal courage more effective, rendered it at the same time the object of higher estimation. Prodigies of valor, by which the fate of a kingdom is decided, are now rarely performed, and victory inclines much more to the side of skill than either of physical strength or individual prowess.

With the Swiss no fable hangs about the deeds of William Tell and Arnold Winkelried or the battles of Morgarten, Sempach, and St. Jacob. They are the common glory of the people, their most cherished heritage; but it is in William Tell their pride centres. His very name to this day stirs the Swiss heart with the deepest emotions of pride and patriotism.

All the mementoes connected with his history are cherished with the fondest affection and veneration. Tell’s chapel is the Mecca of all Switzerland. The admiration for his character is an unbounded national passion. Every emotion of patriotism, national gratitude, and ardent love of liberty seems to find its readiest mode of utterance in passionate expressions regarding this heroic man. Ballads are sung to his memory, and in every popular gathering one may hear the familiar words from the old Swiss song,—

In canvas and marble his effigy adorns the national and cantonal capitals and the public buildings generally. On mountain, rock, and lake his history is carved indelibly.108 “It cannot be otherwise,” says the honest peasant; “it did so happen, and I believe it; not to believe it would be treason to my country.” In 1760, a pamphlet, under the title of “Fable Danoise,” was issued by a clergyman of Bern named Freudenberger attacking the historical character of this legend. It so aroused the patriotic indignation of the people that no one dared to give it circulation, and the government of the Canton of Uri caused the book to be publicly burned.

In the presence of so many memorials of the deeds of this hero, sustained by evidences of an antecedent and general popular conviction, and feeling that these things are entitled to have some weight, it is difficult to feel any sympathy with the doubts which bookish students have suggested as to the reality of Tell’s existence. No one can visit the lake, the rock, the fountains, the chapel, read the story painted on wall and tower, hear the local traditions in every man’s mouth, witness the annual festivals, study the history of Switzerland, and consider the character of its people, then think of Tell as a myth, more than he would say that Switzerland and all its heroic people have been a fable since Uri’s handful of patriots rid it of Gessler’s despotism. No! The simple story bears a striking analogy to the primitive and pastoral people who commemorate the name and actions of this hero. They know that no character of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is better attested in their history, and will religiously regard him as one of the noblest men that ever lived, so long as the Finsteraarhorn and Jungfrau present themselves in the vast firmament as the ever-enduring symbols of liberty. “The artlessness of Tell’s history resembles a poem; it is a pastoral song in which a single drop of blood is mingled with the dew upon a leaf or a tuft of grass. Providence seems thus to delight in providing for every free community, as the founder of their independence, a fabulous or actual hero, conformable to the local situation, manners, and character of each particular race. To a rustic, pastoral people like the Swiss is given for their liberator a noble peasant; to a proud, aspiring race, such as the Americans, an honest soldier. Two distinct symbols, standing erect by the cradles of the two modern liberties of the world, to personify their opposite natures; on the one hand, Tell with his arrow and the apple; on the other, Washington with his sword and the law.”109

The doubt thrown upon the existence of Tell came from an influence that bears upon things of a graver import. They originated at the time when religion was dead, and when rationalism, with an appearance of erudition, was rife. Many critics formed theories of their own in regard to Homer and the ancient writers and heroes in general. Book after book was issued from the press filled with the most absurd theories. Every student who came from a university had the ambition to write a book. Each one thought himself a veritable Daniel come to judgment; nearly every historical character was a being of imagination. They did not stop with human characters, they laid hold upon the Word of God. Moses became a myth in their hands; and Job was a mere story in poetry, like the Arabian Nights; Ecclesiastes was the blating of an Epicurean philosopher no longer young. Good, however, came out of this evil. The best men were led to examine the basis on which the truth stands, and to study more profoundly than ever the “faith once delivered to the saints,” and the result was the overthrow of this school of specious reasoning and crude theories. The details of Tell’s story, at last, do not signify much; they form only the drapery of the figure, which stands to this day one of the few heroes who have been able so to forget themselves, and so to inspire other men with self-forgetfulness, as to obtain with them a nation’s freedom. And thus Tell lives, safely, in the people’s songs and in the faithful hearts of his countrymen.

Ideals, the symbols of the truth which we conceive, of the beauty which we imagine, and of the good which we long for, have as great an influence in the world as ideas, if not even greater. High ideals and loyalty to them are virtues which are requisite to the existence and safety of a progressive society. We cannot afford to surrender the least of our high and pure ideals to the iconoclasm that would declare every grand historical character to be apocryphal; a spirit that revels in the breaking of images simply for the pleasure of breaking, even if chiselled by the hand of Praxiteles; a folly not content with robbing us of Tell and his apple, but would deprive us of Newton’s apple, too, and vainly talks of a cryptogram lurking in Shakespeare’s dramas, which points to his mythical existence. We have too few immortal names identified with their country’s glory. Let us not seek to inquire too minutely into their title to fame, to see if it is embarrassed by vague and contradictory traditions; but let us rather associate their names with the greatness, the virtue, the durability of their race, and invoke blessings on them down “to the last syllable of recorded time.”

In this day, so given to materialism, pitiful rivalries, and ignoble ambitions, we want more hero-worship, a greater reverence of heroism, a more just and delicate appreciation of individual worth, the traditions of noble deeds, and the “passion of philanthropy;” and not to believe that all men are much of a sameness, and the old days in which the gods lived on earth are forever gone. There are certain great events embalmed in tradition that it will not do to question, and which, if of doubtful historical support, it is unwise to disturb, as they are so many incentives to noble deeds, and should be cherished in our hearts even as an inspiring fiction. It is easy for cynics to deride heroism, and scoff at the superiority of ideal existence over the facts of life. But it is not good to be confined to what the physical eye can see, and refuse to use the eye of faith and imagination. Enthusiasm lives and flourishes with imagination and idealism; and together they purify, as well as ennoble, every nature they touch. They paint the world and men as they should be; all that human heart can do; all of which human nature, at its highest, is capable. The craving for the real is good and healthy, but it ought by no means to be set in opposition to the craving for the ideal, for