A similar sensitiveness pervaded the whole body present--nearly all drew
their bread and beer from the Government, and did not wish it stopped or
diminished. This class had gotten up the meeting, and hoped to control
it. When they saw Dr. Neumann rise, they felt that _there_ was a man
_naturally_ fearless, and _now_ quite beyond that special sense of
danger which made them cautious. Recollection passed over his seven
years' silence, and called up the power with which he had harangued in
other years. Nor was it so much what he said as the man who said it,
which produced the effect, and yet there was much in the speech. He said
that Schiller had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and
historian; but nothing had been said of him as a _politician_, and he
should speak of him in this character. The _rising_ of _such_ a man was
an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe
tremble from centre to circumference. The word _politician_ was a
_second_ shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of
that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded
to compare Schiller with Goethe--the _former_ frankly addressing himself
to his friend in correspondence on the great questions of their
politics, and trying to draw him out, the _latter_, then a minister of
state, cautiously and warily declining to expose his views--he but
carried out the impression made in his rising and his announcement.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140