ffart, one of
our most intimate friends, a sarcastic Conservative, who was credited
with the expresssion, "The limited intellect of subjects," which,
however, belonged to his superior, Minister von Rochow. Still, almost all
my mother's acquaintances, and the younger ones without exception, felt a
desire for better political conditions and a constitution for the brave,
loyal, reflecting, and well-educated Prussian people. In the same house
with us lived two men who had suffered for their political
convictions--the brothers Grimm. They had been ejected from their chairs
among the seven professors of Gottingen, who were sacrificed to the
arbitrary humour of King Ernst August of Hanover.

Their dignified figures are among the noblest and most memorable
recollections of the Lennestrasse. They were, it might be said, one
person, for they were seldom seen apart; yet each had preserved his own
distinct individuality.

If ever the external appearance of distinguished men corresponded with
the idea formed of them from their deeds and works, it was so in their
case. One did not need to know them to perceive at the first glance that
they were labourers in the department of intellectual life, though
whether as scientists or poets even a practised observer would have found
it difficult to determine. Their long, flowing, wavy hair, and an
atmosphere of ideality which enveloped them both, might have inclined one
to the latter supposition; while the form of their brows, indicating deep
thought and severe mental labor, and their slightly stooping shoulders,
would have suggested the former. Wilhelm's milder features were really
those of a poet, while Jakob's sterner cast of countenance, and his
piercing eyes, indicated more naturally a searcher after knowledge.

But just as certainly as that they both belonged to the strongest
champions of German science, the Muse had kissed them in their cradle.
Not only their manner of restoring our German legends, but almost all
their writings, give evidence of a poetical mode of viewing things, and
of an intuition peculiar to the spirit of poetry. Many of their writings,
too, are full of poetical beauties.

That both were men in the fullest meaning of the word was revealed at the
first glance. They proved it when, to stand by their convictions, they
put themselves and their families at the mercy of a problematical future;
and when, in advanced years, they undertook the gigantic work of
compiling s