here from my own experience, that the most numerous and best impulses
which urge the author to artistic development come from his childhood.
This law, which results from observing the life and works of the greatest
writers, has shown itself very distinctly in a minor one like myself.

There was certainly no lack of varied stimulus during this early period
of my existence; but when I look back upon it, I become vividly aware of
the serious perils which threaten not only the external but the internal
development of the children who grow up in large cities.

Careful watching can guard them from the transgressions to which there
are many temptations, but not from the strong and varying impressions
which life is constantly forcing upon them. They are thrust too early
from the paradise of childhood into the arena of life. There are many
things to be seen which enrich the imagination, but where could the young
heart find the calmness it needs? The sighing of the wind sweeping over
the cornfields and stirring the tree-tops in the forest, the singing of
the birds in the boughs, the chirping of the cricket, the vesper-bells
summoning the world to rest, all the voices which, in the country, invite
to meditation and finally to the formation of a world of one's own, are
silenced by the noise of the capital. So it happens that the latter
produces active, practical men, and, under favorable circumstances, great
scholars, but few artists and poets. If, nevertheless, the capitals are
the centers where the poets, artists, sculptors, and architects of the
country gather, there is a good reason for it. But I can make no further
digression. The sapling requires different soil and care from the tree. I
am grateful to my mother for removing us in time from the unrest of
Berlin life.

FIRST STUDIES.--MY SISTERS AND THEIR FRIENDS.

My mother told me I was never really taught to read. Ludo, who was a year
and a half older, was instructed in the art. I sat by playing, and one
day took up Speckter's Fables and read a few words. Trial was then made
of my capability, and, finding that I only needed practice to be able to
read things I did not know already by heart, my brother and I were
thenceforth taught together.

At first the governess had charge of us, afterward we were sent to a
little school kept by Herr Liebe in the neighbouring Schulgarten (now
Koniggratz) Strasse. It was attended almost entirely by children
belonging to the circle of our acquaintances, and the master was a
pleasant little man of middle age, who let us do more digging in his
garden and playing or singing than actual study.

His only child, a pretty little girl named Clara, was taught with us, and
I believe I have Herr Liebe to thank for learning to write. In summer he
took us on long walks, frequently to the country seat of Herr Korte, who
stood high in the estimation of farmers.

From such excursions, which were followed by others made with the son and
tutor of a family among our circle of friends, we always brought our
mother great bunches of flowers, and often beautiful stories, too; for
the tutor, Candidate Woltmann, was an excellent story-teller, and I early
felt a desire to share with those whom I loved whatever charmed me.

It was from this man, who was as fond of the beautiful as he was of
children, that I first heard the names of the Greek heroes; and I
remember that, after returning from one of these walks, I begged my
mother to give us Schwab's Tales of Classic Antiquity, which was owned by
one of our companions. We received it on Ludo's birthday, in September,
and how we listened when it was read to us--how often we ourselves
devoured its delightful contents!

I think the story of the Trojan War made a deeper impression upon me than
even the Arabian Nights. Homer's heroes seemed like giant oaks, which far
overtopped the little trees of the human wood. They towered like glorious
snow mountains above the little hills with which my childish imagination
was already filled; and how often we played the Trojan War, and aspired
to the honor of acting Hector, Achilles, or Ajax!

Of Herr Liebe, our teacher, I remember only three things. On his
daughter's birthday he treated us to cake and wine, and we had to sing a
festal song composed by himself, the refrain of which changed every year:

"Clara, with her fair hair thick,
Clara, with her eyes like heaven,
Can no more be called a chick,
For to-day she's really seven."

I remember, too, how when she was eight years old we had to transpose the
words a little to make the measure right. Karl von Holtei had a more
difficult task when, after the death of the Emperor Francis (Kaiser
Franz), he had to fit the name of his successor, Ferdinand, into the
beautiful "Gotterhalte Franz den Kaiser," but he got cleverly out of the
affair by making it "Gott erhalte Ferdinandum."--[God save the Emperor
Francis.]

My second recollection is, that we assisted Herr Liebe, who was a
churchwarden and had the honour of taking up the collection, to sort the
money, and how it delighted us to hear him scold--with good reason,
too--when we found among the silver and copper pieces--as, alas! we
almost always did--counters and buttons from various articles of
clothing.

In the third place, I must accuse Herr Liebe of having paid very little
attention to our behaviour out of school. Had he kept his eyes open, we
might have been spared many a bruise and our garments many a rent; for,
as often as we could manage it, instead of going directly home from the
Schulgartenstrasse, we passed through the Potsdam Gate to the square
beyond. There lurked the enemy, and we sought them out. The enemy were
the pupils of a humbler grade of school who called us Privy Councillor's
youngsters, which most of us were; and we called them, in return,
'Knoten,' which in its original meaning was anything but an insult,
coming as it does by a natural philological process from "Genote," the
older form of "Genosse" or comrade.

But to accuse us of arrogance on this account would be doing us wrong.
Children don't fight regularly with those whom they despise. Our "Knoten"
was only a smart answer to their "Geheimrathsjoren." If they had called
us boobies we should probably have called them blockheads, or something
of that sort.

This troop, which was not over-well-dressed even before the beginning of
the conflict, was led by some boys whose father kept a so-called flower
cellar--that is, a basement shop for plants, wreaths, etc.--at the head
of Leipzigerstrasse. They often sought us out, but when they did not we
enticed them from their cellar by a particular sort of call, and as soon
as they appeared we all slipped into some courtyard, where a battle
speedily raged, in which our school knapsacks served as weapons of
offence and defence. When I got into a passion I was as wild as a
fighting cock, and even quiet Ludo could deal hard blows; and I can say
the same of most of the "Geheimrathsjoren" and "Knoten." It was not often
that any decided success attended the fight, for the janitor or some
inhabitant of the house usually interfered and brought it all to an
untimely end. I remember still how a fat woman, probably a cook, seized
me by the collar and pushed me out into the street, crying: "Fie! fie!
such young gentlemen ought to be ashamed of themselves."

Hegel, however, whose influence at that time was still great in the
learned circles of Berlin, had called shame "anger against what is
natural," and we liked what was natural. So the battles with the "Knoten"
were continued until the Berlin revolution called forth more serious
struggles, and our mother sent us away to Keilhau.

Our sisters went to school also, a school kept by Fraulein Sollmann in
the Dorotheenstrasse. And yet we had a tutor, I do not really know why.
Whether our mother had heard of the fights, and recognized the
impossibility of following us about everywhere, or whether the candidate
was to teach us the rudiments of Latin after we went to the Schmidt
school in the Leipziger Platz, at the beginning of my tenth year, I
neglected to inquire.

The Easter holidays always brought Brother Martin home. Then he told us
about Keilhau, and we longed to accompany him there; and yet we had so
many good schoolmates and friends at home, such spacious playgrounds and
beautiful toys! I recall with especial pleasure the army of tin soldiers
with which we fought battles, and the brass cannon that mowed down their
ranks. We could build castles and cathedrals with our blocks, and cooking
was a pleasure, too, when our sisters allowed us to act as scullions and
waiters in white aprons and caps.

Martha, the eldest, was already a grown young lady, but so sweet and kind
that we never feared a rebuff from her; and her friends, too, liked us
little ones.

Martha's contemporaries formed a peculiarly charming circle. There was
the beautiful Emma Baeyer, the daughter of General Baeyer, who afterward
conducted the measuring of the meridian for central Europe; pretty,
lively Anna Bisting; and Gretchen Bugler, a handsome, merry girl, who
afterward married Paul Heyse and died young; Clara and Agnes
Mitscherlich, the daughters of the celebrated chemist, the younger of
whom was especially dear to my childish heart. Gustel Grimm, too, the
daughter of Wilhelm Grimm, was often at our house. The queen of my heart,
however, was the sister of our playmate, Max Geppert, and at this time
the most intimate friend of my sister Paula. The two took dancing lessons
together, and there was no greater joy than when the lesson was at our
house, for then the young ladies occasionally did us the favour of
dancing with us, to Herr Guichard's tiny violin.

Warm as was my love for the beautiful Annchen, my adored one came near
getting a cold from it, for, rogue that I was, I hid her overshoes during
the lesson on one rainy Saturday evening, that I might have the pleasure
of taking them to her the next morning.

She looked at that time like the woman with whom I celebrated my silver
wedding two years ago, and certainly belonged to the same feminine genre,
which I value and place as high above all others as Simonides von Amorgos
preferred the beelike woman to every other of her sex: I mean the kind
whose womanliness and gentle charm touch the heart before one ever thinks
of intellect or beauty.

Our mother smiled at these affairs, and her daughters, as girls, gave her
no great trouble in guarding their not too impressionable hearts.

There was only one boy for whom Paula showed a preference, and that was
pretty blond Paul, our Martin's friend, comrade, and contemporary, the
son of our neighbour, the Privy-Councillor Seiffart; and we lived a good
deal together, for his mother and ours were bosom friends, and our house
was as open to him as his to us.

Paul was born on the same November day as my sister, though several years
earlier, and their common birthday was celebrated, while we were little,
by a puppet-show at the neighbour's, conducted by some master in the
business, on a pretty little stage in the great hall at the Seiffarts'
residence.

I have never forgotten those performances, and laugh now when I think of
the knight who shouted to his servant Kasperle, "Fear my thread!"
(Zwirn), when what he intended to say was, "Fear my anger!" (Zorn). Or of
that same Kasperle, when he gave his wife a tremendous drubbing with a
stake, and then inquired, "Want another ounce of unburned wood-ashes, my
darling?"

Paula was very fond of these farces. She was, however, from a child
rather a singular young creature, who did not by any means enjoy all the
amusements of her age. When grown, it was often with difficulty that our
mother persuaded her to attend a ball, while Martha's eyes sparkled
joyously when there was a dance in prospect; and yet the tall and slender
Paula looked extremely pretty in a ball dress.

Gay and active, indeed bold as a boy sometimes, so that she would lead in
taking the rather dangerous leap from a balcony of our high ground floor
into the garden, clever, and full of droll fancies, she dwelt much in her
own thoughts. Several volumes of her journal came to me after our
mother's death, and it is odd enough to find the thirteen-year-old girl
confessing that she likes no worldly pleasures, and yet, being a very
truthful child, she was only expressing a perfectly sincere feeling.

It was touching to read in the same confessions: "I was in a dreamy mood,
and they said I must be longing for something--Paul, no doubt. I did not
dispute it, for I really was longing for some one, though it was not a
boy, but our dead father." And Paula was only three years old when he
left us!

No one would have thought, who saw her delight when there were fireworks
in the Seiffarts' garden, or when in our own, with her curls and her gown
flying, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes flashing, she played with all
her heart at "catch" or "robber and princess," or, all animation and
interest, conducted a performance of our puppet-show, that she would
sometimes shun all noisy pleasure, that she longed with enthusiastic
piety for the Sunday churchgoing, and could plunge into meditation on
subjects that usually lie far from childish thoughts and feelings.

Yet who would fancy her thoughtless when she wrote in her journal: "Fie,
Paula! You have taken no trouble. Mother had a right to expect a better
report. However, to be happy, one must forget what cannot be altered."

In reality, she was not in the least "featherheaded." Her life proved
that, and it is apparent, too, in the words I found on another page of
her journal, at thirteen: "Mother and Martha are at the Drakes; I will
learn my hymn, and then read in the Bible about the sufferings of Jesus.
Oh, what anguish that must have been! And I? What do I do that is good,
in making others happy or consoling their trouble? This must be
different, Paula! I will begin a new life. Mother always says we are
happy when we deny self in order to do good. Ah, if we always could! But
I will try; for He did, though He might have escaped, for our sins and to
make us happy."



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Full as an egg
I plead with voice and pen in behalf of fairy tales
Nobody was allowed to be perfectly idle
The carp served on Christmas eve in every Berlin family
To be happy, one must forget what cannot be altered
Unjust to injure and rob the child for the benefit of the man
When you want to strike me again, mother, please take off






THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORG EBERS

THE STORY OF MY LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD TO MANHOOD

Volume 2.




CHAPTER VI.

MY INTRODUCTION TO ART, AND ACQUAINTANCES GREAT AND SMALL IN THE
LENNESTRASSE.

The Drakes mentioned in my sister's journal are the family of the
sculptor, to whom Berlin and many another German city owe such splendid
works of art.

He was also one of our neighbours, and a warm friendship bound him and
his young wife to my mother. He was kind to us children, too, and had us
in his studio, which was connected with the house like the other and
larger one in the Thiergarten. He even gave us a bit of clay to shape. I
have often watched him at work for hours, chattering to him, but happier
still to listen while he told us of his childhood when he was a poor boy.
He exhorted us to be thankful that we were better off, but generally
added that he would not exchange for anything in the world those days
when he went barefoot. His bright, clear artist's eyes sparkled as he
spoke, and it must indeed have been a glorious satisfaction to have
conquered the greatest hindrances by his own might, and to have raised
himself to the highest pinnacle of life--that of art. I had a dim
impression of this when he talked to us, and now I consider every one
enviable who has only himself to thank for all he is, like Drake, his
friend in art Ritschl, and my dear friend Josef Popf, in Rome, all three
laurel-crowned masters in the art of sculpture.

In Drake's studio I saw statues, busts, and reliefs grow out of the rude
mass of clay; I saw the plaster cast turned into marble, and the master,
with his sure hand, evoking splendid forms from the primary limestone.
What I could not understand, the calm, kindly man explained with
unfailing patience, and so I got an early insight into the sculptor's
creative art.

It was these recollections of my childhood that suggested to me the
character of little Pennu in Uarda, of Polykarp in Homo Sum, of Pollux in
The Emperor, and the cheery Alexander in Per Aspera.

I often visited also, during my last years in Berlin, the studio of
another sculptor. His name was Streichenberg, and his workshop was in our
garden in the Linkstrasse.

If a thoughtful earnestness was the rule in Drake's studio, in that of
Prof. Streichenberg artistic gaiety reigned. He often whistled or sang at
his work, and his young Italian assistant played the guitar. But while I
still know exactly what Drake executed in our presence, so that I could
draw the separate groups of the charming relief, the Genii of the
Thiergarten, I do not remember a single stroke of Streichenberg's work,
though I can recall all the better the gay manner of the artist whom we
again met in 1848 as a demagogue.

At the Schmidt school Franz and Paul Meyerheim were among our comrades,
and how full of admiration I was when one of them--Franz, I think, who
was then ten or eleven years old--showed us a hussar he had painted
himself in oil on a piece of canvas! The brothers took us to their home,
and there I saw at his work their kindly father, the creator of so many
charming pictures of country and child life.

There was also a member of the artist family of the Begas, Adalbert, who
was one of our contemporaries and playmates, some of whose beautiful
portraits I saw afterward, but whom, to my regret, I never met again.

Most memorable of all were our meetings with Peter Cornelius, who also
lived in the Lennestrasse. When I think of him it always seems as if he
were looking me in the face. Whoever once gazed into his eyes could never
forget them. He was a little man, with waxen-pale, and almost harsh,
though well-formed features, and smooth, long, coal-black hair. He might
scarcely have been noticed save for his eyes, which overpowered all else,
as the sunlight puts out starlight. Those eyes would have drawn attention
to him anywhere. His peculiar seriousness and his aristocratic reserve of
manner were calculated to keep children at a distance, even to repel
them, and we avoided the stern little man whom we had heard belonged to
the greatest of the great. When he and his amiable wife became acquainted
with our mother, however, and he called us to him, it is indescribable
how his harsh features softened in the intercourse with us little ones,
till they assumed an expression of the utmost benevolence, and with what
penetrating, I might say fatherly kindness, he talked and even jested
with us in his impressive way. I had the best of it, for my blond curly
head struck him as usable in some work of his, and my mother readily
consented to my being his model. So I had to keep still several hours day
after day, though I confess, to my shame, that I remember nothing about
the sittings except having eaten some particularly good candied fruit.

Even now I smile at the recollection of his making an angel or a spirit
of peace out of the wild boy who perhaps just before had been scuffling
with the enemy from the flower-cellar.

There was another celebrated inhabitant of the Lennestrasse whose
connection with us was still closer than that of Peter Cornelius. It was
the councillor of consistory and court chaplain Strauss, who lived at No.
3.

Two men more unlike than he and his great artist-neighbour can hardly be
imagined, though their cradles were not far apart, for the painter was
born in Dusseldorf, and the clergyman at Iserlohn, in Westphalia.

Cornelius appears to me like a peculiarly delicate type of the Latin
race, while Strauss might be called a prototype of the sturdy Lower
Saxons. Broad-shouldered, stout, ruddy, with small but kindly blue eyes,
and a resonant bass voice suited to fill great spaces, he was always at
his ease and made others easy. He had a touch of the assured yet fine
dignity of a well-placed and well-educated Catholic prelate, though
combined with the warlike spirit of a Protestant.

Looking more closely at his healthy face, it revealed not only benevolent
amiability but superior sense and plain traces of that cheery elasticity
of soul which gave him such power over the hearts of the listening
congregation, and the disposition and mind of the king.

His religious views I do not accept, but I believe his strictly orthodox
belief was based upon conviction, and cannot be charged to any odious
display of piety to ingratiate himself with the king. It was in the time
of our boyhood that Alexander von Humboldt, going once with the king to
church, in Potsdam, in answer to the sneering question how he, who passed
for a freethinker at court, could go to the house of God, made the apt
reply, "In order to get on, your Excellency."

When Strauss met us in the street and called to us with a certain unction
in his melodious voice, "Good-morning, my dear children in Christ!" our
hearts went out to him, and it seemed as if we had received a blessing.
He and his son Otto used to call me "Marcus Aurelius," on account of my
curly blond head; and how often did he put his strong hand into my thick
locks to draw me toward him!

Strauss was in the counsels of the king, Frederick William IV, and at
important moments exercised an influence on his political decisions. Yet
that somewhat eccentric prince could not resist his inclination to make
cheap jokes at Strauss's expense. After creating him court-chaplain, he
said to Alexander von Humboldt: "A trick in natural history which you
cannot copy! I have turned an ostrich (Strauss) into a bullfinch
(Dompfaffer)"--in allusion to Strauss's being a preacher at the cathedral
(Dom).

Fritz, the worthy man's eldest son, came to see me in Leipsic. Our
studies in the department of biblical geography had led us to different
conclusions, but our scientific views were constantly intermingled with
recollections of the Lennestrasse.

But better than he, who was much older, do I remember his brother Otto,
then a bright, amiable young man, and his mother, who was from the Rhine
country, a warm-hearted, kindly woman of aristocratic bearing.

Our mother had a very high opinion of the court chaplain, who had
christened us all and afterward confirmed my sisters, and officiated at
Martha's marriage. But, much as she appreciated him as a friend and
counsellor, she could not accept his strict theology. Though she received
the communion at his hands, with my sisters, she preferred the sermons of
the regimental chaplain, Bollert, and later those of the excellent Sydow.
I well remember her grief when Bollert, whose free interpretation of
Scripture had aroused displeasure at court, was sent to Potsdam.

I find an amusing echo of the effect of this measure in Paula's journal,
and it would have been almost impossible for a growing girl of active
mind to take no note of opinions which she heard everywhere expressed.

Our entire circle was loyal; especially Privy-Councillor Seiffart, one of
our most intimate friends, a sarcastic Conservative, who was credited
with the expresssion, "The limited intellect of subjects," which,
however, belonged to his superior, Minister von Rochow. Still, almost all
my mother's acquaintances, and the younger ones without exception, felt a
desire for better political conditions and a constitution for the brave,
loyal, reflecting, and well-educated Prussian people. In the same house
with us lived two men who had suffered for their political
convictions--the brothers Grimm. They had been ejected from their chairs
among the seven professors of Gottingen, who were sacrificed to the
arbitrary humour of King Ernst August of Hanover.

Their dignified figures are among the noblest and most memorable
recollections of the Lennestrasse. They were, it might be said, one
person, for they were seldom seen apart; yet each had preserved his own
distinct individuality.

If ever the external appearance of distinguished men corresponded with
the idea formed of them from their deeds and works, it was so in their
case. One did not need to know them to perceive at the first glance that
they were labourers in the department of intellectual life, though
whether as scientists or poets even a practised observer would have found
it difficult to determine. Their long, flowing, wavy hair, and an
atmosphere of ideality which enveloped them both, might have inclined one
to the latter supposition; while the form of their brows, indicating deep
thought and severe mental labor, and their slightly stooping shoulders,
would have suggested the former. Wilhelm's milder features were really
those of a poet, while Jakob's sterner cast of countenance, and his
piercing eyes, indicated more naturally a searcher after knowledge.

But just as certainly as that they both belonged to the strongest
champions of German science, the Muse had kissed them in their cradle.
Not only their manner of restoring our German legends, but almost all
their writings, give evidence of a poetical mode of viewing things, and
of an intuition peculiar to the spirit of poetry. Many of their writings,
too, are full of poetical beauties.

That both were men in the fullest meaning of the word was revealed at the
first glance. They proved it when, to stand by their convictions, they
put themselves and their families at the mercy of a problematical future;
and when, in advanced years, they undertook the gigantic work of
compiling so large and profound a German dictionary. Jakob looked as if
nothing could bend him;

Wilhelm as if, though equally strong, he might yield out of love.

And what a fascinating, I might almost say childlike, amiability was
united to manliness in both characters! Yes, theirs was indeed that
sublime simplicity which genius has in common with the children whom the
Saviour called to him. 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. But there is a
yet brighter light of fire in my memory. It was shed by the burning opera
house. Our mother, who liked to have us participate in anything
remarkable which might be a recollection for life, took us out of our
beds to the next house, where the Seiffarts lived, and which had a little
tower on it. Thence we gazed in admiration at the ever-deepening glow of
the sky, toward which great tongues of flame kept streaming up, while
across the dusk shot formless masses like radiant spark-showering birds.
Pillars of smoke mingled with the clouds, and the metallic note of the
fire-bells calling for help accompanied the grand spectacle. I was only
six years old, but I remember distinctly that when Ludo and I were taken
to the Lutz swimming-baths next day, we found first on the drill-ground,
then on the bank of the Spree, and in the water, charred pieces, large
and small, of the side-scenes of the theatre. They were the glowing birds
whose flight I had watched from the tower of the Crede house.

This remark reminds me how early our mother provided for our physical
development, for I clearly remember that the tutor who took us little
fellows to the bath called our attention to these bits of decoration
while we were swimming. When I went to Keilhau, at eleven years old, I
had mastered the art completely.

I did, in fact, many things at an earlier age than is customary, because
I was always associated with my brother, who was a year and a half older.

We were early taught to skate, too, and how many happy hours we passed,
frequently with our sisters, on the ice by the Louisa and Rousseau
Islands in the Thiergarten! The first ladies who at that time
distinguished themselves as skaters were the wife and daughter of the
celebrated surgeon Dieffenbach--two fine, supple figures, who moved
gracefully over the ice, and in their fur-bordered jackets and Polish
caps trimmed with sable excited universal admiration.

On the whole, we had time enough for such things, though we lost many a
free hour in music lessons. Ludo was learning to play on the piano, but I
had chosen another instrument. Among our best friends, the three fine
sons of Privy-Councillor Oesterreich and others, there was a pleasant boy
named Victor Rubens, whose parents were likewise friends of my mother. In
the hospitable house of this agreeable family I had heard the composer
Vieuxtemps play the violin when I was nine years old. I went home fairly
enraptured, and begged my mother to let me take lessons. My wish was
fulfilled, and for many years I exerted myself zealously, without any
result, to accomplish something on the violin. I did, indeed, attain to a
certain degree of skill, but I was so little satisfied with my own
performances that I one day renounced the hope of becoming a practical
musician, and presented my handsome violin--a gift from my
grandmother--to a talented young virtuoso, the son of my sisters' French
teacher.

The actress Crelinger, when she came to see my mother, made a great
impression on me, at this time, by her majestic appearance and her deep,
musical voice. She, and her daughter, Clara Stich, afterward Frau
Liedtcke, the splendid singer, Frau Jachmann-Wagner, and the charming
Frau Schlegel-Koster, were the only members of the theatrical profession
who were included among the Gepperts' friends, and whose acquaintance we
made in consequence.

Frau Crelinger's husband was a highly respected jurist and councillor of
justice, but among all the councillors' wives by whom she was surrounded
I never heard her make use of her husband's title. She was simply "Frau"
in society, and for the public Crelinger. She knew her name had an
importance of its own. Even though posterity twines no wreaths for
actors, it is done in the grateful memory of survivors. I shall never
forget the ennobling and elevating hours I afterward owed to that great
and noble interpreter of character.

I am also indebted to Frau Jachmann-Wagner for much enjoyment both in
opera and the drama. She now renders meritorious service by fitting on
the soundest artistic principles--younger singers for the stage.

Among my mother's papers was a humorous note announcing the arrival of a
friend from Oranienburg, and signed:

"Your faithful old dog, Runge,
Who was born in a quiet way
At Neustadt, I've heard say."

He came not once, but several times. He bore the title of professor, was
a chemist, and I learned from friends versed in that science that it was
indebted to him for interesting discoveries.

He had been an acquaintance of my father, and no one who met him,
bubbling over with animation and lively wit, could easily forget him. He
had a full face and long, straight, dark hair hanging on his short neck,
while intellect and kindness beamed from his twinkling eyes. When he
tossed me up and laughed, I laughed too, and it seemed as if all Nature
must laugh with us.

I have not met so strong and original a character for many a long year,
and I was very glad to read in the autobiography of Wackernagel that when
it went ill with him in Berlin, Hoffman von Fallersleben and this same
Runge invited him to Breslau to share their poverty, which was so great
that they often did not know at night where they should get the next
day's bread.

How many other names with and without the title of privy-councillor occur
to me, but I must not allow myself to think of them.

Fraulein Lamperi, however, must have a place here. She used to dine with
us at least once a week, and was among the most faithful adherents of our
family. She had been governess to my father and his only sister, and
later was in the service of the Princess of Prussia, afterward the
Empress Augusta, as waiting-woman.

She, too, was one of those original characters whom we never find now.

She was so clever that, incredible as it sounds, she made herself a wig
and some false teeth, and yet she came of a race whose women were not
accustomed to serve themselves with their own hands; for the blood of the
venerable and aristocratic Altoviti family of Florence flowed in her
veins. Her father came into the world as a marquis of that name, but was
disinherited when, against the will of his family, he married the dancer
Lamperi. With her he went first to Warsaw, and then to Berlin, where he
supported himself and his children by giving lessons in the languages.
One daughter was a prominent member of the Berlin ballet, the other was
prepared by a most careful education to be a governess. She gave various
lessons to my sisters, and criticised our proceedings sharply, as she did
those of her fellow-creatures in general. "I can't help it--I Must say
what I think," was the palliating remark which followed every severe
censure; and I owe to her the conviction that it is much easier to
express disapproval, when it can be done with impunity, than to keep it
to one's self, as I am also indebted to her for the subject of my fairy
tale, The Elixir.

I shall return to Fraulein Lamperi, for her connection with our family
did not cease until her death, and she lived to be ninety. Her
aristocratic connections in Florence--be it said to their honour--never
repudiated her, but visited her when they came to Berlin, and the
equipage of the Italian ambassador followed at her funeral, for he, too,
belonged to her father's kindred. The extreme kindness extended to her by
Emperor William I and his sovereign spouse solaced her old age in various
ways.

One of the dearest friends of my sister Paula and of our family knew more
of me, unfortunately, at this time than I of her. Her name was Babette
Meyer, now Countess Palckreuth. She lived in our neighbourhood, and was a
charming, graceful child, but not one of our acquaintances.

When she was grown up--we were good friends then--she told me she was
coming from school one winter day, and some boys threw snowballs at her.
Then Ludo and I appeared--"the Ebers boys" and she thought that would be
the end of her; but instead of attacking her we fell upon the boys, who
turned upon us, and drove them away, she escaping betwixt Scylla and
Charybdis.

Before this praiseworthy deed we had, however, thrown snow at a young
lady in wanton mischief. I forgive our heedlessness as we were forgiven,
but it is really a painful thought to me that we should have snowballed a
poor insane man, well known in the Thiergarten and Lennestrasse, and who
seriously imagined that he was made of glass.

I began to relate this, thinking of our uproarious laughter when the poor
fellow cried out: "Let me alone! I shall break! Don't you hear me clink?"
Then I stopped, for my heart aches when I reflect what terrible distress
our thoughtlessness caused the unfortunate creature. We were not
bad-hearted children, and yet it occurred to none of us to put ourselves
in the place of the whimpering man and think what he suffered. But we
could not do it. A child is naturally egotistical, and unable in such a
case to distinguish between what is amusing and what is sad. Had the cry,
"It hurts me!" once fallen from the trembling lips of the "glass man," I
think we should have thrown nothing more at him.

But our young hearts did not, under all circumstances, allow what amused
us to cast kinder feelings into the shade. The "man of glass" had a
feminine 'pendant' in the "crazy Frau Councillor with the velvet
envelope." This was a name she herself had given to a threadbare little
velvet cloak, when some naughty boys--were we among them?--were
snowballing her, and she besought us not to injure her velvet envelope.
But when there was ice on the ground and one of the boys was trying to
get her on to a slide, Ludo and I interfered and prevented it. Naturally,
there was a good fight in consequence, but I am glad of it to this day.




CHAPTER VII.

WHAT A BERLIN CHILD ENJOYED ON THE SPREE AND AT HIS GRANDMOTHER'S IN
DRESDEN.

In the summer we were all frequently taken to the new Zoological Garden,
where we were especially delighted with the drollery of the monkeys. Even
then I felt a certain pity for the deer and does in confinement, and for
the wild beasts in their cages, and this so grew upon me that many a
visit to a zoological garden has been spoiled by it. Once in Keilhau I