Much as the language of the ancient Roman republic was resuscitated in the days of Tacitus, so too in present-day Germany, torn by destructive tempests, the love of the language and literature of  our virtuous ancestors is alive and active, and it seems as if people seek in the past and in its poetry what is so grievously declining today. And this need for comfort  is the last remaining sign of the imperishable German character, which, raised above all servility, will sooner or later always beaks foreign bonds and, wiser and chastened, will retrieve its inherited nature and liberty.

[…] Nothing can afford a German heart more comfort and true edification than the most immortal of all heroic lays, which from long oblivion re-emerges in vital and rejuvenated form: The song of the Nibelungs, undoubtedly one of the greatest and most admirable works of all periods and nations, grown and matured wholly from German life and sensibility, and pre-eminent for its sublime perfection among the admirable remains of our long-forgotten national poetry – comparable to the colossal edifice of Erwin von Steinach [i.e. Strasbourg Cathedral]. No other lay can so move and grip a patriotic heart, delight and fortify it […]