Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/130

 Whoever observed these two externally so different human beings in their domestic life could not but receive the impression that they found hearty joy in one another and that they fought the struggles of life together with a sort of defiant buoyancy of spirit. This impression became even stronger when one witnessed their happiness in their four children.

No wonder that Kinkel's house became the gathering place of a circle of congenial people, whose hours of social intercourse left nothing to desire in animation, intellectual vivacity and cheerfulness. It was composed throughout of men and women of rich mental endowments and of liberal ways of thinking in the religious as well as the political field—men and women who liked to utter their opinions and sentiments with outspoken frankness; and there was no lack of interesting topics in those days.

The revolt among the Roman Catholics caused by the exhibition and adoration of the “holy coat” in Trier had brought forth the so-called “German Catholic” movement, and had also given a vigorous impulse to the tendency for free-thinking and free-teaching among Protestants. Upon the political field, too, there was a mighty stir. The period of political discouragement and of national self-depreciation in Germany had given place to an impulse to strive for real and well-defined goals, and also to the belief that such goals were attainable. Everybody felt the coming of great changes, although most people did not anticipate how soon they would come. Among the guests of Kinkel's house I heard many things clearly uttered which until then were only more or less nebulous in my mind. A short review of the origin and development of the feelings with regard to political conditions, which at that time prevailed with the class of Germans to which he, and, in a more modest way, I belonged, may serve