But even the silent may find their means
of vengeance, as the noble discovers when he attempts recognition in the
intellectual world. But if he were a propagandist, with the welfare of
all Germany at heart, and won his influence under an assumed name, as
Gisela Doering did, the revelation of his identity, together with proof
of dissociation from his own class, would enhance his popularity
immensely. Moreover, it would be incense to the vanity of classes that
never are permitted to forget their inferior rank.
In this country there is a snobbish tendency to exalt and boom any
writer who is known to belong to one of the old and wealthy families;
and the more snobbish the writer the more infectious the disease. But
then in this country, which has never suffered from militarism, there is
a naive tendency to worship success in any form. In Germany my heroine
would have doomed herself to failure if she had signed her work Gisela
von Niebuhr. But her early education, surroundings, position,--to say
nothing of her four years in the United States--were just what gave her
the requisite advantages, and preserved her from many mistakes. She
starts out with no prejudices against any caste, and an intense sympathy
for all German women who lack even the compensation of being
_hochwohlgeboren_.
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