It spoke from the eyes whose gaze was so searching, and echoed in their language which so easily mastered difficult things, though when they condescended to play with their children and with us, and jested so naively, we were half tempted to think ourselves the wiser.
But we knew with what intellectual giants we had to do; no one had needed to tell us that, at least; and when they called me to them I felt as if the king himself had honoured me.
Only Wilhelm was married, and his wife had hardly her equal for sunny and simple kindness of heart.

A pleasanter, more motherly, sweeter matron I never met.
Hermann, who won good rank as a poet, and was one of the very foremost of our aesthetics, was much older than we.

The tall young man, who often walked as if he were absorbed in thought, seemed to us a peculiar and unapproachable person.

His younger brother, Rudolf, on the other hand, was a cheery fellow, whose beauty and brightness charmed me unspeakably.
When he came along with elastic tread as if he were challenging life to a conflict, and I saw him spring up the stairs three steps at a time, I was delighted, and I knew that my mother was very fond of him.

It was just the same with "Gustel," his sister, who was as amiable and kindly as her mother.
I can still see the torchlight procession with which the Berlin students honoured the beloved and respected brothers, and which we watched from the Grimms' windows because they were higher than ours.