art, by supplying Reinhold, the
youngest, their son's daily companion, with his dinner. But even
Edwin's patient efforts to thaw his shy schoolmate, were not entirely
successful. The wretched life which was lived in his parent's home
seemed to oppress his heart more and more, when he returned from the
table of kind people in easy circumstances, to a house where it was
necessary to count the outgoing of every penny. At a very early age he
began to reflect upon the difference in the division of worldly goods,
though without bitterness, for he neither conceived nor cherished any
unattainable desires. It was rather his parents' anxious fears that
constantly made him ponder over the mystery; how had these great
discrepancies arisen, how they might perhaps be remedied, until
good-natured and unselfish as he was, he would, even as a boy, fly into
the most violent passion at the bare mention of his fixed idea. When,
in studying Roman history, he came upon the Agrarian laws and the times
of the Gracchi, he composed an essay, in which with boyish impetuosity
he defended the most revolutionary opinions, gaining for himself the
nickname of "Franzelius Gracchus," which clung to him as long as he
remained at school.

Then the fate that befell the brothers dissolved the school friendship,
until many years after, Edwin met this half-forgotten comrade in
Berlin. In outward appearance he had changed very much. The thin, shy
boy, had become a sturdy, black-bearded, defiant youth, a person whom
all well-bred and well-dressed people would avoid in the street,
especially in winter, when a coarse red shawl, which he wore twisted
around his neck, contributed not a little to the oddity of his
appearance. In mind and disposition he had remained exactly the same;
awkward, silent, and gentle, but as soon as his fixed idea was touched,
would burst into a flood of stormy eloquence that swept all before it.
Edwin had also had occasion, in student circles, to perceive how the
same man, who in a small company could scarcely finish his sentences
properly, and in individual debate was easily confused and silenced,
would fearlessly address a crowd. He had a vehemently dogmatic mind,
together with the nature of a true agitator, and he liked to utter the
few cardinal principles of his belief in full, ringing tones, but he
required for his encouragement, the echo of listening multitudes. Then
the deeper water, in which he felt at ease, supported and bore him