as a soldier so
long and so meekly.[27]

In the literary circle there was still an external difference from the
citizen in dress and mode of life: it was the best portion of the
nation, in possession of the highest culture of the time. It included
poets and thinkers, inventive artists and men of learning, all who won
any influence in the domain of intellectual life, as leaders and
educators, teachers and critics. Many of the nobility who had entered
official life, or had higher intellectual tendencies, had joined them.
They were sometimes fellow-workers, frequently companions and kindly
promoters of ideal interests.

In every city there were gentry in this literary set. They were
scholars of the great philosopher of Koenigsberg; their souls were
filled with the poetic creations of the great poet, with the high
results of the knowledge of antiquity. But in their life there was
still much sternness and earnestness; the performance of duty was not
easy or cheerful. Their conception of existence wavered betwixt ideal
requirements and a fastidious, often narrow pedantry, which strikingly
distinguished them, not always advantageously, from the nobleman.

It is a peculiarity of modern culture, that the impulse of intellectual
power spreads itself in the middle of the nation between the masses and
the privileged classes, moulding and invigorating both; the more any
circle of earthly interests isolates itself from the educated class of
citizens, the further it is removed from all that gives light, warmth,
and a secure footing to its life. Whoever in Germany writes a history
of literature, art, philosophy, and science, does in fact treat of the
family history of the educated citizen class.

If one seeks what especially unites the men of this class and separates
them from others, it is not chiefly their practical activity in a
fortunate middle position, but their culture in the Latin schools.
Therein lies their pre-eminent advantage,--the great secret of their
influence. No one should be more willing to acknowledge this than the
merchant or manufacturer, who has worked his way up from beneath, and
entered into their circle.

He perceives with admiration the sharpness and precision in thought and
speech which his sons have attained by occupying themselves with the
Latin and Greek grammar, which are seldom acquired in any other
occupation. The unartificial logic, which so strikingly appears in the
artistic structure of the an