42 ALEXANDEB VON HUMJBOLDT. 



Jena, where he was often on a visit to his brother William, he 

 is described as ' a wit, a diplomat, a philosopher, always busy 

 with electrical machines and galvanic batteries,' and ' an. amia- 

 ble, good-looking man, undoubtedly the handsomer of the two 

 brothers.' 



It will be desirable here to direct particular attention to the 

 fact that almost all the personages referred to in this review of 

 Berlin were Jews ; and it is worthy of notice that the Jewish 

 element early formed an important constituent in the intel- 

 lectual society at Berlin, and that, especially at the time now 

 spoken of, the new phase of thought originated by Lessing was 

 chiefly received among Jewish circles. 



It is related by Henriette Herz in her biography, that, on ac- 

 count of the constraining influences prevailing in the Christian 

 circles of the middle classes, men of thought gathered by pre- 

 ference around the centres of Jewish society. 



While the men became earnest disciples of a severe school of 

 philosophy, the women, with naive originality and the fiery 

 zeal of an eastern nature, threw themselves into the study of 

 poetic literature, by which their youthful hearts were set in 

 violent agitation and their souls inspired with hatred to all 

 that was pedantic and obsolete. They read with delight the 

 best works of French, English, and Italian writers, they ad- 

 mired the profound genius of Goethe, and indulged in senti- 

 mentality with Werther, they sympathised with the jubilant 

 strains of Schiller, but their enthusiastic feeling reached a 

 climax in their adoration of Lessing. 



And as Lessing, the object of their highest admiration, had 

 burst the bonds that oppressed the world of literature, and freed 

 it from all conventionalities and the irksome restraints of esta- 

 blished rules, so did this younger generation, in emulation of 

 the spirit of their leader, seek to dissipate the depressing atmo- 

 sphere that enveloped the social world around them, and banish 

 from their social life the chilling influences which empty tradi- 

 tions and dead formalities had spread over them. 



It appears that to Alexander von Humboldt, among others, 

 this kind of society proved very congenial and attractive ; for 

 Henriette Herz writes of him as follows : 



'In those days, whenever Alexander von Humboldt wrote to 



