and for them, you find to your
astonishment that often you are ignorant of the simplest things and
untouched by the finest thoughts. I have read of princes who never, or
scarcely ever, are seen by the people. For them it is easy enough to be
hedged with majesty."

"As the breath of the land and sea returns to them after having been
congealed into rain-drops in upper air, so the spirit of a people must
return from the lofty realms of literature to its source,--the people's
heart."

"There can be no doubt that many of the world-renowned Grecian heroes
were no more educated in what we now term education than my Hansgeorge,
Kilian, Mat, Thaddie, Wendel, and so on, not to speak of Buchmaier,
Bat, owing to the publicity of their political and social organization,
of their arts, of the forms of worship which emanated from the very
core of the people's heart, a world of thoughts, feelings, views, and
delicate suggestions hovered in the air. People were not restricted to
Biblical stories, narratives of men and women who had lived in other
climes and under other traditions, having no immediate correspondence
with their own condition. They heard of their own forefathers, who had
lived as they lived, who had acted thus and so and thought so and thus:
particular sentiments and anecdotes were handed down from generation to
generation; all these things concerned them nearly; and at need the
descendants emulated the heroism of their ancestors. We give the name
of sacred history to the fortunes of a foreign people, and neglect our
own as profane. The Greeks had Homer by heart; and this gave them a
fund of sayings and images adapted to their condition. We Germans have
no one to take his place: even Schiller is not in the reach of every
class of the people. Almost all we have is a stock of national wisdom
garnered up in the form of proverbs, which has developed itself
independently of the Old and New Testament. We have the sentiment of
the people incarnate in their songs. This the Greeks had not."

Soon after the reading-room was organized, the teacher established a
musical association, which was joined by all the single men and a few
of the married ones. This appeased mine host at the Eagle, as they met
for practice in his room up-stairs. Though virtually the master-spirit
of the whole, our friend devolved the ostensible management upon the
old schoolmaster, who was marvellously well fitted for the office. They
wisely devoted the most