Jula Ward Howe, Reminiscences: 1819-1899

[147] aspiration came from the same source. For this was the period of Germany's true glory. Her intellectual radiance outshone and outlived the military meteor which for a brief moment obscured all else to human vision. The great vitality of the German nation, the indefatigable research of its learned men, its wholesome balance of sense and spirit, all made themselves widely felt, and infused fresh blood into veins impoverished by ascetic views of life. Its philosophers were apostles of freedom, its poets sang the joy of living, not the bitterness of sin and death.

These good things were brought to us piecemeal, by translations, by disciples. Dr. Hedge published an English rendering of some of the masterpieces of German prose. Longfellow gave us lovely versions of many poets. John S. Dwight produced his ever precious volume of translations of the minor poems of Goethe and Schiller. Margaret Fuller translated Eckermann's ‘Conversations with Goethe.’ Carlyle wrote his wonderful essays, inspired by the new thought, and adding to it daring novelty of his own. The whole is matter of history now, quite beyond the domain of personal reminiscence.

I have spoken of the transcendentalists and the abolitionists as if they had been quite distinct bodies of believers. Reflecting more deeply, I feel that both were features of the new movement. In