Famous Affinities of History — Volume 3 by Lydon Orr
page 98 of 122 (80%)
page 98 of 122 (80%)
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Jewish silk-merchant. Heymann Lassal--for thus the father spelled
his name--stroked his hands at young Ferdinand's cleverness, but he meant it to be a commercial cleverness. He gave the boy a thorough education at the University of Breslau, and later at Berlin. He was an affectionate parent, and at the same time tyrannical to a degree. It was the old story where the father wishes to direct every step that his son takes, and where the son, bursting out into youthful manhood, feels that he has the right to freedom. The father thinks how he has toiled for the son; the son thinks that if this toil were given for love, it should not be turned into a fetter and restraint. Young Lassalle, instead of becoming a clever silk- merchant, insisted on a university career, where he studied earnestly, and was admitted to the most cultured circles. Though his birth was Jewish, he encountered little prejudice against his race. Napoleon had changed the old anti-Semitic feeling of fifty years before to a liberalism that was just beginning to be strongly felt in Germany, as it had already been in France. This was true in general, but especially true of Lassalle, whose features were not of a Semitic type, who made friends with every one, and who was a favorite in many salons. His portraits make him seem a high-bred and high-spirited Prussian, with an intellectual and clean-cut forehead; a face that has a sense of humor, and yet one capable of swift and cogent thought. No man of ordinary talents could have won the admiration of so many compeers. It is not likely that such a keen and cynical observer as Heinrich Heine would have written as he did concerning |
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