Of all these young writers who are striving to preserve the integrity of their minds against the force of national passions, the one whose personality has been most exalted by this tempest, the most eloquent, courageous, and decided of all is Wilhelm Herzog. He is the editor of the _Forum_ at Munich, and like our own Péguy, when he began to publish his _Cahiers de la Quinzaine_, he fills almost the whole of his review with his own burning articles. The enthusiastic biographer of H. von Kleist, he sees and judges the events of his own time with the eyes of that indomitable spirit. The German censor attempts in vain to silence him and to forbid the publication of the lectures of Spitteler and of Annette Kolb; his indignation and cries of vengeful irony spread even to us. He attacks bitterly the ninety-three intellectuals who "_fancy they are all Ajaxes because they bray the loudest_," those politicians of the school of Haeckel, who make a new division of the world, those patriotic bards who insult other nations; he attacks Thomas Mann mercilessly, scoffs at his sophistry, and defends France, the French Army,[33] and French civilization against him; he points out that the great men of Germany (Grünwald, Dürer, Bach, and Mozart amongst others) have always been persecuted, humiliated, and calumniated.[34] In an article entitled "_Der neue Geist_,"[35] after having scoffed at the banality that has reappeared in the German theaters, and the literary mediocrity of patriotic productions, he asked where this "new spirit" may be found, and this gives him an opportunity to demolish Ostwald and Lasson. "_Where is it to be found? In the Hochschulen? Have we not read that incredibly clumsy_ (unwahrscheinlich plumpen) _appeal of the 99 professors? Have we not appreciated the statements of that double centenarian_ (des zweihundertjährige Mummelgreises) _mummy Lasson? When I was studying philosophy as an undergraduate at the University of Berlin, the theatre in which he lectured was a place of amusement_ (Lachkabinett) _for us--nothing more. And today people take him seriously! English, French, and Italian papers print his senile babblings against Holland, as typical of the_ Stimmung _of the German intellectuals. The wrong that these privy councillors and professors have done us with their Aufklärungsarbeit can hardly be measured. They have isolated themselves from humanity by their inability to realize the feelings of others._" In opposition to these false representatives of a nation, these cultured gossips and political adventurers, he extols the silent ones, the great mass of the people of all nations who suffer in silence; and he joins with them in "the invisible community of sorrow." "_One who is suffering and knows that his sorrow is shared by millions of other beings, will bear it calmly; he will accept it willingly even, because he knows that he is enriched thereby, made stronger, more tender, more humane._"[36]