★ 155 ★
public opinion is the most powerful restorative- and the means of moral education.
22. The conduct of the state depends on public opinion. Refining this opinion is the sole basis for true state reform. As such, the king and the queen can and must be the principle of public opinion. There is no longer a monarchy where the king and the state's discernment are no longer identical. Thus, the king of France was already dethroned long before the revolution, as were most of Europe's princes. It would be a very dangerous symptom of the new Prussian state if we were too insensible to the beneficent influence of the king and the queen, if indeed there is a sense of this marvellous couple. That will reveal itself shortly. If these spirits of our nation do nothing, then the complete dissolution of the modern world is certain, and the heavenly manifestation is nothing but the flash of fleeting life force, the celestial music of a dying man, the manifest retribution of a better world foretelling the coming of more noble generations.
23. The court is actually the great model for the household. It organizes the larger household of the state, this organizes the smaller, and so on. How powerfully court reform might not function! The king should not be frugal like a farmer or a well-off private person; but there is also a royal frugality, and this the king appears to know. The court should be the ideal model of private life on a large scale. The housewife is the composer of housework. So the queen is the composer of the court. The husband is decorative appearance, the wife arranges and organizes. Thoughtless housekeeping is most of the times the fault of the wife.
