student could turn!  Yet the zeal--nay, the enthusiasm--with which I
devoted myself to the study was so great that it conquered every
difficulty.

[I had no dictionary and no grammar for the hieroglyphic language
save Champollion's.  No Stern had treated Coptic in a really
scientific manner.  I was obliged to learn it according to Tuki,
Peyron, Tattam, and Steinthal-Schwarze.  For the hieratic there was
no aid save my own industry and the lists I had myself compiled from
the scanty texts then at the disposal of the student.  Lepsius had
never devoted much time to them.  Brugsch's demotic grammar had
appeared, but its use was rendered very difficult by the lack of
conformity between the type and the actual signs.]

When I recall the amount of knowledge I mastered in a few terms it seems
incredible; yet my labour was interrupted every summer by a sojourn at
the springs--once three months, and never for a less period than six
weeks.  True, I was never wholly idle while using the waters, but,
on the other hand, I was obliged to consider the danger that in winter
constantly threatened my health.  All night-work was strictly forbidden
and, if I sat too long over my books by day, my mother reminded me of my
promise to the doctor, and I was obliged to stop.

During the first years I worked almost exclusively at home, for I was
permitted to go out only in very pleasant weather.

Dr. Romberg had wisely considered my reluctance to interrupt my studies
by a residence in the south, because he deemed life in a well-ordered
household more beneficial to sufferers from spinal diseases than a warmer
climate, when leaving home, as in my case, threatened to disturb the
patient's peace of mind.

For three winters I had been denied visiting the university, the museum,
and the libraries.  On the fourth I was permitted to begin, and now,
with mature judgment and thorough previous preparation, I attended the
academic lectures, and profited by the treasures of knowledge and rich
collections of the capital.

After my return from Wildbad Lepsius continued his Thursday visits, and
during the succeeding winters still remained my guide, even when I had
also placed myself, in the department of the ancient Egyptian languages,
under the instruction of Heinrich Brugsch.

At school, of course, I had not thought of studying Hebrew.  Now I took
private lessons in that language, to which I devoted several hours daily.
I had learned to read Sanscrit and to translate easy passages in the
chrestomathy, and devoted myself with special zeal to the study of the
Latin grammar and prosody.  Professor Julius Geppert, the brother of our
most intimate family friend, was my teacher for four terms.

The syntax of the classic languages, which had been my weak point as a
school-boy, now aroused the deepest interest, and I was grateful to
Lepsius for having so earnestly insisted upon my pursuing philology.  I
soon felt the warmest appreciation of the Roman comedies, which served as
the foundation of these studies.  What sound wit, what keenness of
observation, what a happy gift of invention, the old comic writers had at
their disposal!  I took them up again a few years ago, after reading with
genuine pleasure in Otto Ribbeck's masterpiece, The History of Roman
Poetry, the portions devoted to Plautus and Terence.

The types of character found in these comedies strengthened my conviction
that the motives of human actions and the mental and emotional
peculiarities of civilized men in every age always have been and always
will be the same.

With what pleasure, when again permitted to go out in the evening, I
witnessed the performances of Plautus's pieces given by Professor
Geppert's pupils!

The refreshed and enlarged knowledge of school Latin was of great service
in writing, and afterwards discussing, a Latin dissertation.  I devoted
perhaps a still larger share of my time to Greek, and, as the fruit of
these studies, still possess many translations from Anacreon, Sappho, and
numerous fragments from the Bergk collection of Greek lyrics, but, with
the exception of those introduced into my novels, none have been printed.

During my leisure hours translating afforded me special pleasure.  An
exact rendering of difficult English authors soon made Shakespeare's
language in both prose and poetry as intelligible as German or French.

After mastering the rules of grammar, I needed no teacher except my
mother.  When I had conquered the first difficulties I took up Tennyson's
Idyls of the King, and at last succeeded in translating two of these
beautiful poems in the metre of the original.

My success with Enid I think was very tolerable.  The manuscript still
lies in my desk unpublished.

As I was now engaged in studying the languages I easily learned to read
Italian, Spanish, and Dutch books.

In view of this experience, which is not wholly personal, I have wondered
whether the instruction of boys might not be shortened to give them more
outdoor exercise.  In how brief a time the pupils, as men studying for
their own benefit, not the teacher's, would acquire many things!  Besides
the languages, I studied, at first exclusively under Lepsius's thoroughly
admirable instruction, ancient history and archeology.

Later I owed most to Gerhard, Droysen, Friederichs, and August Bockh.

A kind fate afterwards brought me into personal relations with the
latter, whose lectures on the Athenian financial system were the finest
and the most instructive I have ever heard.  What clearness, what depth
of learning, what a subtle sense of humour this splendid old man
possessed!  I attended his lectures in 1863, and how exquisite were the
allusions to the by no means satisfactory political conditions of the
times with which he spiced them.  I also became sincerely attached to
Friederichs, and it made me happy to be able to requite him in some small
degree in Egypt for the kindness and unselfishness he had shown me in
Berlin.

Bopp's lectures, where I tried to increase my meagre knowledge of
Sanscrit, I attended, unfortunately, only a few hours.

The lectures of the African traveller Heinrich Earth supplied rich
sources of material, but whoever expected to hear bewitching narratives
from him would have been disappointed.  Even in more intimate intercourse
he rarely warmed up sufficiently to let others share the rich treasure of
his knowledge and experience.  It seemed as if, during his lonely life in
Africa, he had lost the necessity of exchanging thoughts with his fellow-
men.  During this late period Heinrich Brugsch developed in the
linguistic department of Egyptology what I had gained from Lepsius
and by my own industry, and I gladly term myself his pupil.

I have cause to be grateful for the fresh and helpful way in which this
great and tireless investigator gave me a private lecture; but Lepsius
had opened the door of our science, and though he could carry me only
to a certain stage in the grammar of the ancient Egyptians, in other
departments I owe him more than any other of my intellectual guides.
I am most indebted to him for the direction to use historical and
archaeological authorities critically, and his correction of the tasks he
set me; but our conversations on archaeological subjects have also been
of the greatest interest.

After his death I tried to return in some small degree what his
unselfish kindness had bestowed by accepting the invitation to become
his biographer.  In "Richard Lepsius," I describe reverently but without
deviating one step from the truth, this wonderful scholar, who was a
faithful and always affectionate friend.

I can scarcely believe it possible that the dignified man, with the
grave, stern, clear-cut, scholarly face and snow-white hair, was but
forty-five years old when he began to direct my studies; for, spite of
his erect bearing and alert, movements, he seemed to me at that time a
venerable old man.  There was something in the aristocratic reserve of
his nature and the cool, penetrating sharpness of his criticism, which is
usually found only in men of more mature years.  I should have supposed
him incapable of any heedless word, any warm emotion, until I afterwards
met him under his own roof and enjoyed the warm-hearted cheerfulness of
the father of the family and the graciousness of the host.

It certainly was not the cool, calculating reason, but the heart, which
had urged him to devote so many hours of his precious time to the young
follower of his science.

Heinrich Brugsch, my second teacher, was far superior to Lepsius as a
decipherer and investigator of the various stages of the ancient Egyptian
languages.  Two natures more totally unlike can scarcely be imagined.

Brugsch was a man of impulse, who maintained his cheerfulness even when
life showed him its serious side.  Then, as now, he devoted himself with
tireless energy to hard work.  In this respect he resembled Lepsius, with
whom he had other traits in common-first, a keen sense of order in the
collection and arrangement of the abundant store of scientific material
at his disposal; and, secondly, the circumstance that Alexander von
Humboldt had smoothed the beginning of the career of investigation for
both.  The attention of this great scholar and influential man had been
attracted by Brugsch's first Egyptological works, which he had commenced
before he left school, and his keen eye recognized their value as well as
the genius of their author.  As soon as he began to win renown Humboldt
extended his powerful protection to him, and induced his friend, the
king, to afford him means for continuing his education in Paris and for a
journey to Europe.

Though it was Bunsen who first induced Lepsius to devote himself to
Egyptology, that he might systematize the science and prune with the
knife of philological and historical criticism the shoots which grew so
wildly after Champollion's death, Humboldt had opened the paths to
learning which in Paris were closed to the foreigner.

Finally, it was the great naturalist who had lent the aid of his powerful
influence with Frederick William IV to the enterprise supported by Bunsen
of an expedition to Egypt under the direction of Lepsius.  But for the
help of the most influential man of his day it would have been difficult
--nay, perhaps impossible--to obtain for themselves and German
investigation the position which, thanks to their labour, it now
occupies.

I had the privilege of meeting Alexander von Humboldt at a small dinner
party, and his image is vividly imprinted on my memory.  He was at that
time far beyond the span of life usually allotted to man, and what I
heard him say was hardly worth retaining, for it related to the pleasures
of the table, ladies' toilettes, court gossip, etc.  When he afterwards
gave me his hand I noticed the numerous blue veins which covered it like
a network.  It was not until later that I learned how many important
enterprises that delicate hand had aided.

Heinrich Brugsch is still pursuing with fresh creative power the
profession of Egyptological research.  The noble, simple-hearted woman
who was so proud of her son's increasing renown, his mother, died long
ago.  She modestly admired his greatness, yet his shrewdness, capacity
for work, and happy nature were a heritage from her.

Heinrich Brugsch's instruction extended beyond the actual period of
teaching.

With the commencement of convalescence and the purposeful industry which
then began, a time of happiness dawned for me.  The mental calmness felt
by every one who, secluded from the tumult of the world, as I was at that
time, devotes himself to the faithful fulfilment of duty, rendered it
comparatively easy for me to accommodate myself patiently to a condition
which a short time before would have seemed insupportable.

True, I was forced to dispense with the companionship of gay associates
of my own age.  At first many members of my old corps, who were studying
in Berlin, sought me, but gradually their places were filled by other
friends.

The dearest of these was Dr. Adolf Baeyer, son of the General.  He is now
one of the leaders in his chosen science, chemistry, and is Justus
Liebig's successor in the Munich University.

My second friend was a young Pole who devoted himself eagerly to
Egyptology, and whom Lepsius had introduced as a professional comrade.
He called me Georg and I him Mieczy (his name was Mieczyslaw).

So, during those hard winters, I did not lack friendship.  But they also
wove into my life something else which lends their memory a melancholy
charm.

The second daughter of my mother's Belgian niece, who had married in
Berlin the architect Fritz Hitzig, afterwards President of the Academy of
Arts, was named Eugenie and nicknamed "Nenny."

If ever any woman fulfilled the demands of the fairy tale, "White as snow
and black as ebony," it was she.  Only the "red as blood" was lacking,
for usually but a faint roseate hue tinged her cheeks.  Her large blue
eyes had an innocent, dreamy, half-melancholy expression, which I was not
the only person who found unspeakably charming.  Afterwards it seemed to
me, in recalling her look, that she beheld the fair boy Death, whose
lowered torch she was so soon to follow.

About the time that I returned to Berlin seriously ill she had just left
boarding-school, and it is difficult to describe the impression she made
when I saw her for the first time; yet I found in the opening rose all
that had lent the bud so great a charm.

I am not writing a romance, and shall not permit the heart to beautify or
transfigure the image memory retains, yet I can assert that Nenny lacked
nothing which art and poesy attribute to the women who allegorically
personate the magic of Nature or the fairest emotions and ideals of the
human soul.  In this guise poet, sculptor, or artist might have
represented Imagination, the Fairy Tale, Lyric Poetry, the Dream, or
Compassion.

The wealth of raven hair, the delicate lines of the profile, the scarlet
lips, the pearly teeth, the large, long-lashed blue eyes, whose colour
formed a startling contrast to the dark hair, the slender little hands
and dainty feet, united to form a beauty whose equal Nature rarely
produces.  And this fair body contained a tender, loving, pure, childlike
heart, which longed for higher gifts than human life can bestow.

Thus she appeared before me like an apparition from a world opened only
to the poet.  She came often, for she loved my mother, and rarely
approached my couch without a flower, a picture which pleased her,
or a book containing a poem which she valued.

When she entered I felt as if happiness came with her.  Doubtless my eyes
betrayed this distinctly enough, though I forced my lips to silence; for
what love had she, before whom life was opening like a path through a
blooming garden, to bestow on the invalid cousin who was probably
destined to an early death, and certainly to many a year of illness?
At our first meeting I felt that I loved her, but for that very reason
I desired to conceal it.

I had grown modest.  It was enough for me to gaze at her, hear her dear
voice, and sometimes--she was my cousin--clasp her little hand.

Science was now the object of my devotion.  My intellect, passion, and
fire were all hers.  A kind fortune seemed to send me Nenny in order to
bestow a gift also upon the heart, the soul, the sense of beauty.

This state of affairs could not last; for no duty commanded her to share
the conflict raging within me, and a day came when I learned from her own
lips that she loved me, that her heart had been mine when she was a
little school-girl, that during my illness she had never wearied of
praying for me, and had wept all night long when the physician told her
mother of the danger in which I stood.

This confession sounded like angel voices.  It made me infinitely happy,
yet I had strength to entreat Nenny to treasure this blissful hour with
me as the fairest jewel of our lives, and then help me to fulfil the duty
of parting from her.

But she took a different view of the future.  It was enough for her to
know that my heart was hers.  If I died young, she would follow me.

And now the devout child, who firmly believed in a meeting after death
face to face, permitted me a glimpse of the wondrous world in which she
hoped to have her portion after the end here.

I listened in astonishment, with sincere emotion.  This was the faith
which moved mountains, which brings heaven itself to earth.

Afterwards I again beheld the eyes with which, gazing into vacancy, she
tried to conjure up before my soul these visions of hope from the realm
of her fairest dreams--they were those of Raphael's Saint Cecilia in
Bologna and Munich.  I also saw them long after Nenny's death in one of
Murillo's Madonnas in Seville, and even now they rise distinctly before
my memory.

To disturb this childish faith or check the imagination winged by this
devout enthusiasm would have seemed to me actually criminal.  And I was
young.  Even the suffering I had endured had neither silenced the
yearning voice of my heart nor cooled the warmth of my blood.  I, who
had believed that the garden of love was forever closed against me, was
beloved by the most beautiful girl, who was even dearer to me than life,
and with new hope, which Nenny's faith in God's goodness bedewed with
warm spring rain, I enjoyed this happiness.

Yet conscience could not be silenced.  The warning voice of my mother,
to whom I had opened my heart, sharpened the admonitions of mine; and
when Wildbad brought me only relief, by no means complete recovery, I
left the decision to the physician.  It was strongly adverse.  Under the
most favourable circumstances years must pass ere I should be justified
in binding any woman's fate to mine.

So this beginning of a beautiful and serious love story became a swiftly
passing dream.  Its course had been happy, but the end dealt my heart a
blow which healed very slowly.  It opened afresh when in her parents'
house, where during my convalescence I was a frequent guest, I myself
advised her to marry a young land-owner, who eagerly wooed her.  She
became his wife, but only a year later entered that other world which
she had regarded as her true home even while here.  Her beloved image
occupies the most sacred place in the shrine of my memory.

I denied myself the pleasure of introducing her character in one of my
novels, for I felt that if I should succeed in limning it faithfully the
modern reader would be justified in considering her an impossible figure
for our days.  She would perhaps have suited a fairy tale;  and when I
created Bianca in The Elixir I gave her Nenny's form.  The gratitude
which I owe her will accompany me to my life's end, for it was she who
brought to my sick-room the blue sky, sunlight, and the thousand gifts of
a blooming Garden of Eden.




CHAPTER XXV.

THE SUMMERS OF MY CONVALESCENCE.

While I spent the winters in my mother's house in industrious work and
pleasant social life, the summers took me out of the city into the open
air.  I always went first with my faithful nurse and companion to
Wildbad; the remainder of the warm season I spent on the Elbe,
sometimes with my mother, sometimes with my aunt.

I used the Wildbad springs in all seventeen times.  For two summers,
aided by a servant, I descended from a wheel-chair into the warm water;
in the third I could dispense with assistance; and from the fourth for
several lustra I moved unchecked with a steady step.  After a long
interval, owing to a severe relapse of the apparently conquered disease,
I returned to them.

The Wurtemberg Wildbad is one of the oldest cures in Germany.  The legend
of the Count Mirtemberg, who discovered its healing powers by seeing a
wild boar go down to the warm spring to wash its wound, has been rendered
familiar by Uhland to every German.  Ulrich von Hutten also used it.
It rises in a Black Forest valley inclosed by stately mountains,
a little stream, the Enz, crystal clear, and abounding in trout.

The small town on both banks of the river expands, ere the Enz loses
itself in the leafage, into the Kurplatz, where one stately building of
lightred sandstone adjoins another.  The little white church stands at
the left.  But the foil, the background for everything, is the beautiful
foliage, which is as beneficial to the eyes as are the springs to the
suffering body.  This fountain of health has special qualities.  The
Swabian says, "just right, like Wildbad."  It gushes just the right
degree of heat for the bath from the gravelly sand.  After bathing early
in the morning I rested an hour, and when I rose obeyed any other
directions of the physician in charge of the watering-place.

The remainder of the day, if the weather was pleasant, I spent out of
doors, usually in the grounds under the leafy trees and groups of shrubs
on the shore of the Enz.  On the bank of the clear little stream stood
a wooden arbour, where the murmur of the waves rippling over the mossy
granite blocks invited dreams and meditation.  During my whole sojourn
in Wildbad I always passed several hours a day here.  During my period
of instruction I was busied with grammatical studies in ancient Egyptian
text or archaeological works.  In after years, instead of Minerva, I
summoned the muse and committed to paper the thoughts and images which
had been created in my mind at home.  I wrote here the greater portion of
An Egyptian Princess, and afterwards many a chapter of Uarda, Homo Sum,
and other novels.

I was rarely interrupted, for the report had spread that I wished to be
alone while at work; yet even the first year I did not lack
acquaintances.

Even during our first stay at Wildbad, which, with the Hirsau
interruption, lasted more than three months, my mother had formed an
intimate friendship with Frau von Burckhardt, in which I too was
included.  The lady possessed rare tact in harmonizing the very diverse
elements which her husband, the physician in charge, brought to her.
Every one felt at ease in her house and found congenial society there.
So it happened that for a long time the Villa Burckhardt was the
rendezvous of the most eminent persons who sought the healing influence
of the Wildbad spring.  Next to this, it was the Burckhardts who
constantly drew us back to the Enz.

Were I to number the persons whom I met here and whose acquaintanceship I
consider a benefit, the list would be a long one.  Some I shall mention
later.  The first years we saw most frequently the song-writer Silcher,
from Tubingen, Justus von Liebig, the Munich zoologist von Siebold, the
Belgian artist Louis Gallait, the author Moritz Hartmann, Gervinus, and,
lastly, the wife of the Stuttgart publisher Eduard Hallberger, and the
never-to-be-forgotten Frau Puricelli and her daughter Jenny.

Silcher, an unusually attractive old man, joined us frequently.  No other
composer's songs found their way so surely to the hearts of the people.
Many, as "I know not what it means," "I must go hence to-morrow," are
supposed to be folk-songs.  It was a real pleasure to hear him sing them
in our little circle in his weak old voice.  He was then seventy, but his
freshness and vivacity made him appear younger.  The chivalrous courtesy
he showed to all ladies was wonderfully winning.

Justus Liebig's manners were no less attractive, but in him genuine
amiability was united to the elegance of the man of the world who had
long been one of the most distinguished scholars of his day.  He must
have been remarkably handsome in his youth, and though at that time past
fifty, the delicate outlines of his profile were wholly unmarred.

Conversation with him was always profitable and the ease with which he
made subjects farthest from his own sphere of investigation--chemistry
perfectly clear was unique in its way.  Unfortunately, I have been denied
any deeper insight into the science which he so greatly advanced, but I
still remember how thoroughly I understood him when he explained some
results of agricultural chemistry.  He eagerly endeavoured to dissuade
the gentlemen of his acquaintance from smoking after dinner, which he had
found by experiment to be injurious.

For several weeks we played whist with him every evening, for Liebig,
like so many other scholars, regarded card-playing as the best recreation
after severe tension of the mind.  During the pauses and the supper which
interrupted the game, he told us many things of former times.  Once he
even spoke of his youth and the days which determined his destiny.  The
following event seems to me especially worth recording.

When a young and wholly unknown student he had gone to Paris to bring his
discovery of fulminic acid to the notice of the Academy.  On one of the
famous Tuesdays he had waited vainly for the introduction of his work,
and at the close of the session he rose sadly to leave the hall, when an
elderly academician in whose hand he thought he had seen his treatise
addressed a few words to him concerning his discovery in very fluent
French and invited him to dine the following Thursday.  Then the
stranger suddenly disappeared, and Liebig, with the painful feeling of
being considered a very uncivil fellow, was obliged to let the Thursday
pass without accepting the invitation so important to him.  But on
Saturday some one knocked at the door of his modest little room and
introduced himself as Alexander von Humboldt's valet.  He had been told
to spare no trouble in the search, for the absence of his inexperienced
countryman from the dinner which would have enabled him to make the
acquaintance of the leaders of his science in Paris had not only been
noticed by Humboldt, but had filled him with anxiety.  When Liebig went
that very day to his kind patron he was received at first with gay jests,
afterwards with the kindest sympathy.

The great naturalist had read his paper and perceived the writer's future
promise.  He at once made him acquainted with Gay Lussac, the famous
Parisian chemist, and Liebig was thus placed on the road to the lofty
position which he was afterwards to occupy in all the departments of
science.

The Munich zoologist von Siebold we first knew intimately years after.  I
shall have more to say of him later, and also of the historian Gervinus,
who, behind apparently repellant arrogance, concealed the noblest human
benevolence.

After the first treatment, which occupied six weeks, the physician
ordered an intermission of the baths.  I was to leave Wildbad to
strengthen in the pure air of the Black Forest the health I had gained.
On the Enz we had been in the midst of society.  The new residence was to
afford me an opportunity to lead a lonely, quiet life with my mother and
my books, which latter, however, were only to be used in moderation.

Shortly before our departure we had taken a longer drive with our new
friends Fran Puricelli and her daughter Jenny to the Hirsau cloister.

The daughter specially attracted me.  She was pretty, well educated, and
possessed so much independence and keenness of mind that this alone would
have sufficed to render her remarkable.

Afterwards I often thought simultaneously of her and Nenny, yet they were
totally unlike in character, having nothing in common save their
steadfast faith and the power of looking with happy confidence beyond
this life into death.

The devout Protestant had created a religion of her own, in which
everything that she loved and which she found beautiful and sacred had a
place.

Jenny's imagination was no less vivid, but she used it merely to behold
in the form most congenial to her nature and sense of beauty what faith
commanded her to accept.  For Jenny the Church had already devised and
arranged what Nenny's poetic soul created.  The Protestant had succeeded
in blending Father and Son into one in order to pray to love itself.  The
Catholic, besides the Holy Trinity, had made the Virgin Mother the
embodiment of the feeling dearest to her girlish heart and bestowed on
her the form of the person whom she loved best on earth, and regarded as
the personification of everything good and beautiful.  This was her older
sister Fanny, who had married a few years before a cousin of the same
name.

When she at last appeared I was surprised, for I had never met a woman
who combined with such rare beauty and queenly dignity so much winning
amiability.  Nothing could be more touching than the manner in which this
admired, brilliant woman of the world devoted herself to the sick girl.

This lady was present during our conversations, which often turned upon
religious questions.

At first I had avoided the subject, but the young girl constantly
returned to it, and I soon perceived that I must summon all my energies
to hold my ground against her subtle dialectics.  Once when I expressed
my scruples to her sister, she answered, smiling: "Don't be uneasy on
that score; Jenny's armour is strong, but she has sharp arrows in her
quiver."

And so indeed it proved.

She felt so sure of her own convictions that she might investigate
without peril the views of those who held a different belief, and beheld
in me, as it were, the embodiment of this opportunity, so she gave me no
peace until I had explained the meaning of the words pantheism, atheism,
materialism, etc.

At first I was very cautious, but when I perceived that the opinions of
the doubters and deniers merely inspired her with pity, I spoke more
freely.

Her soul was like a polished plate of metal on which a picture is etched.
This, her belief, remained uninjured.  Whatever else might be reflected
from the mirror-like surface soon vanished, leaving no trace.

The young girl died shortly after our separation the following year.  She
had grown very dear to my heart.  Her beloved image appears to me most
frequently as she looked in the days when she was suffering, with thick,
fair hair falling in silken masses on her white dress, but amid keen
physical pain the love of pleasure natural to youth still lingered.  She
went with me--both in wheel-chairs--to a ball at the Kursaal, and looked
so pretty in an airy, white dress which her mother and sister had
arranged for their darling, that I should have longed to dance with her
had not this pleasure been denied me.

Hirsau had first been suggested as a resting-place, but it was doubtful
whether we should find what we needed there.  If not, the carriage was to
convey us to beautiful, quiet Herrenalb, between Wildbad and Baden-Baden.

But we found what we sought, the most suitable house possible, whose
landlady proved to have been trained as a cook in a Frankfort hotel.

The lodgings we engaged were among the most "romantic" I have ever
occupied, for our landlord's house was built in the ruins of the
monastery just beside the old refectory.  The windows of one room looked
out upon the cloisters and the Virgin's chapel, the only part of the once
stately building spared by the French in 1692.

A venerable abode of intellectual life was destroyed with this monastery,
founded by a Count von Calw early in the ninth century.  The tower which
has been preserved is one of the oldest and most interesting works of
Romanesque architecture in Germany.

A quieter spot cannot be imagined, for I was the first who sought
recreation here.  Surrounded by memories of olden days, and absolutely
undisturbed, I could create admirably.  But one cannot remain permanently
secluded from mankind.

First came the Herr Kameralverwalter, whose stately residence stood near
the monastery, and in his wife's name invited us to use their pretty
garden.

This gentleman's title threw his name so far into the shade that I had
known the pleasant couple five weeks before I found it was Belfinger.

We also made the acquaintance of our host, Herr Meyer.  Strange and
varied were the paths along which Fate had led this man.  As a rich
bachelor he had welcomed guests to his ever-open house with salvos of
artillery, and hence was still called Cannon Meyer, though, after having
squandered his patrimony, he remained absent from his home for many
years.  His career in America was one of perpetual vicissitudes and full
of adventures.  Afore than once he barely escaped death.  At last,
conquered by homesickness, he returned to the Black Forest, and with a
good, industrious wife.

His house in the monastery suited his longing for rest; he obtained a
position in the morocco factory in the valley below, which afforded him
a support, and his daughters provided for his physical comfort.

The big, broad-shouldered man with the huge mustache and deep, bass voice
looked like some grey-haired knight whose giant arm could have dealt that
Swabian stroke which cleft the foe from skull to saddle, and yet at that
time he was occupied from morning until night in the delicate work
splitting the calf skin from whose thin surfaces, when divided into two
portions, fine morocco is made.

We also met the family of Herr Zahn, in whose factory this leather was
manufactured; and when in the East I saw red, yellow, and green slippers
on the feet of so many Moslems, I could not help thinking of the shady
Black Forest.

Sometimes we drove to the little neighbouring town of Calw, where we were
most kindly received.  The mornings were uninterrupted, and my work was
very successful.  Afternoon sometimes brought visitors from Wildbad,
among whom was the artist Gallait, who with his wife and two young
daughters had come to use the water of the springs.  His paintings,
"Egmont in Prison," "The Beheaded Counts Egmont and Horn," and many
others, had aroused the utmost admiration.  Praise and honours of all
kinds had consequently been lavished upon him.  This had brought him to
the Spree, and he had often been a welcome guest in our home.

Like Menzel, Cornelius, Alma Tadema, and Meissonier, he was small in
stature, but the features of his well-formed face were anything but
insignificant.  His whole person was distinguished by something I might
term "neatness."  Without any touch of dudishness he gave the impression
of having "just stepped out of a bandbox."  From the white cravat which
he always wore, to the little red ribbon of the order in his buttonhole,
everything about him was faultless.

Madame Gallait, a Parisian by birth, was the very embodiment of the
French woman in the most charming sense of the word, and the bond which
united her to her husband seemed enduring and as if woven by the
cheeriest gods of love.  Unfortunately, it did not last.

After leaving Hirsau, we again met the Gallaits in Wildbad and spent
some delightful days with them.  The Von Burckhardts, Fran Henrietta
Hallberger, the wife of the Stuttgart publisher, the Puricellis,
ourselves, and later the author Moritz Hartmann, were the only persons
with whom they associated.  We always met every afternoon at a certain
place in the grounds, where we talked or some one read aloud.  On these
occasions, at Gallait's suggestion, everybody who was so disposed
sketched.  My portrait, which he drew for my mother at that time in black
and red pencils, is now in my wife's possession.  I also took my sketch-
book, for he had seen the school volume I had filled with arabesques just
before leaving Keilhau, and I still remember the 'merveilleux and
incroyable, inoui, and insense' which he lavished on the certainly
extravagant creatures of my love-sick imagination.

During these exercises in drawing he related many incidents of his own
life, and never was he more interesting than while describing his first
success.

He was the son of a poor widow in the little Belgian town of Tournay.
While a school-boy he greatly enjoyed drawing, and an able teacher
perceived his talent.

Once he saw in the newspaper an Antwerp competition for a prize.  A
certain subject--if I am not mistaken, Moses drawing water from the rock
in the wilderness--was to be executed with pencil or charcoal.  He went
to work also, though with his defective training he had not the least
hope of success.  When he sent off the finished drawing he avoided taking
his mother into his confidence in order to protect her from
disappointment.

On the day the prize was to be awarded the wish to see the work of the
successful competitor drew him to Antwerp, and what was his surprise, on
entering the hall, to hear his own name proclaimed as the victor's!

His mother supported herself and him by a little business in soap.  To
increase her delight he had changed the gold paid to him into shining
five franc pieces.  His pockets almost burst under the weight, but there
was no end to the rejoicing when he flung one handful of silver coins
after another on the little counter and told how he had obtained them.

No one who heard him relate this story could help liking him.

Another distinguished visitor at Hirsau was Prince Puckler Muskau.  He
had heard that his young Kottbus acquaintance had begun to devote himself
to Egyptology.  This interested the old man, who, as a special favourite
of Mohammed Ali, had spent delightful days on the Nile and made all sorts
of plans for Egypt.  Besides, he was personally acquainted with the great
founders of my science, Thomas Young and Francois Champollion, and had
obtained an insight into deciphering the hieroglyphics.  He knew all the
results of the investigations, and expressed an opinion concerning them.
Without having entered deeply into details he often hit the nail on the
head.  I doubt whether he had ever held in his hand a book on these
subjects, but he had listened to the answers given by others to his
skilful questions with the same keen attention that he bestowed on mine,
and the gift of comprehension peculiar to him enabled him to rapidly