are, for that reason, more
positive and exacting and less given to fine talk.

Formerly, Richard had been dissatisfied with all of Ludwig's actions
and opinions. He was opposed to all that was violent; but now Richard
had become the more liberal, and Ludwig the more conservative, of the
two. It was in America, where the tendency seemed towards a loosening
of all restraint, that Ludwig had for the first time learned to attach
importance to the preservation of established institutions. While they
were yet children under the instructions of Pastor Genser, who
afterward became my son-in-law, the two boys had given much of their
time to music. To listen to Richard playing the violincello and Ludwig
playing the piano, was one of the greatest pleasures that our household
afforded Gustava and myself.

Ludwig has given up music, and they can now no longer play together.
But when I heard them talking in unrestrained converse, and observed
how the one transposed the mood and the thoughts of the other into his
own key, and developed it, adding new combinations of ideas; and when I
noticed how the eye of either speaker would, from time to time, rest
upon the other with a joyful expression, it seemed yet more beautiful
and more grateful to my heart than any music could be. And withal, each
temperament preserved its own melody. Richard looked forward for some
event that would mark a turning-point in the affairs of men, or for the
advent of some great man, to utter the command, "Come, and follow me."
Ludwig added that liberation could only be brought about by one who
possessed a cool head and a firm hand, so that, without swerving a
hair's breadth to either side, he could put in the knife where it was
needed.

Richard, with more than his wonted animation, spoke joyfully of being
released from the opposition party, and when Ludwig approvingly said
that the time was now coming for Germany in which those who were
dissatisfied with its laws and institutions would not be the only free
ones, Richard again urged him to consider how hard it would be if no
one of us should take charge of the estate, and it should thus at some
day fall into the hands of strangers.

"That is no misfortune," replied Ludwig. "Our posterity may again
become poor, just as our ancestors were; all property must change hands
at some time or other. To encourage the fond desire of retaining
possession of a so called family estate, savors of aristocratic
feeling."