The greatest danger threatened from fresh conflicts between the army and

the people, and it was to the fear of this that various young or elderly
gentlemen owed their office of going about wherever a crowd was assembled
and urging the populace to keep the peace. They were distinguished by a
white band around the arm bearing the words, "Commissioner of
Protection," and a white rod a foot and a half long designed to awaken
the respect accorded by the English to their constables. We recognized
many well-known men; but the Berlin populace, called by Goethe insolent,
is not easily impressed, and we saw constables surrounded by street boys
like an owl with a train of little birds fluttering teasingly around it.
Even grown persons called them nicknames and jeered at their sticks,
which they styled "cues" and "tooth-picks."

A large number of students, too, had expressed their readiness to join
this protective commission, either as constables or deputies, and had
received the wand and band at the City Hall.

How painful the exercise of their vocation was made to them it would be
difficult to describe. News from Austria and South Germany, where the
people's cause seemed to be advancing with giant strides to the desired
goal, hourly increased the offensive strength of the excited populace.

On the afternoon of the 16th the Potsdam Platz, only a few hundred steps
from our house, was filled with shouting and listening throngs, crowded
around the sculptor Streichenberg, his blond-bearded friend, and other
violently gesticulating leaders. This multitude received constant
reenforcements from the city and through Bellevuestrasse. On the left, at
the end of the beautiful street with its rows of budding chestnut-trees,
lay "Kemperhof," a pleasure resort where we had often listened to the
music of a band clad in green hunting costume. Many must have come
thence, for I find that on the 16th an assemblage was held there from
which grew the far more important one on the morning of the 17th, with
its decisive conclusion in Kopenickerstrasse.

At this meeting, on the afternoon of the 17th, it was decided to set on
foot a peaceful manifestation of the wishes of the people, and a new
address to the king was drawn up. It was settled that on the 28th of
March, at two o'clock, thousands of citizens with the badges of the
protective commission should appear before the palace and send in a
deputation to his Majesty with a document which should clearly convey the
principal requirements of the people.

What they were to represent to the king as urgently necessary was: The
withdrawal of the military force, the organization of an armed citizen
guard, the granting of an unconditional freedom of the press, which had
been promised for a lifetime, and the calling of the General Assembly. I
shall return to the address later.




CHAPTER IX.

THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH.

THE 17th passed so quietly that hopes of a peaceable outcome of the
fateful conflict began to awake. My own recollections confirm this.

People believed so positively that the difficulty would be adjusted, that
in the forenoon of the 18th my mother sent my eldest sister Martha to her
drawing-lesson, which was given at General Baeyer's, in the
Friedrichstrasse.

Ludo and I went to school, and when it was over the many joyful faces in
the street confirmed what we had heard during the school hours.

The king had granted the Constitution and the "freedom of the press."

Crowds were collected in front of the placards which announced this fact,
but there was no need to force our way through; their contents were read
aloud at every corner and fountain.

One passer-by repeated it to another, and friend shouted to friend across
the street. "Have you heard the news?" was the almost invariable question
when people accosted one another, and at least one "Thank God!" was
contained in every conversation. Two or three older acquaintances whom we
met charged us, in all haste, to tell our mother; but she had heard it
already, and her joy was so great that she forgot to scold us for staying
away so long. Fraulein Lamperi, on the contrary, who dined with us, wept.
She was convinced that the unfortunate king had been forced into
something which would bring ruin both to him and his subjects. "His poor
Majesty!" she sobbed in the midst of our joy.

Our mother loved the king too, but she was a daughter of the free
Netherlands; two of her brothers and sisters lived in England; and the
friends she most valued, whom she knew to be warmly and faithfully
attached to the house of Hohenzollern, thought it high time that the
Prussian people attained the majority to which that day had brought them.
Moreover, her active mind knew no rest till it had won a clear insight
into questions concerning the times and herself. So she had reached the
conviction that no peace between king and people could be expected unless
a constitution was granted. In Parliament she would have sat on the
right, but that her adopted country should have a Parliament filled her
with joyful pride.

Ludo and I were very gay. It was Saturday, and towards evening we were
going to a children's ball given by Privy-Councillor Romberg--the
specialist for nervous diseases--for his daughter Marie, for which new
blue jackets had been made.

We were eagerly expecting them, and about three o'clock the tailor came.

Our mother was present when he tried them on, and when she remarked that
now all was well, the man shook his head, and declared that the
concessions of the forenoon had had no other object than to befool the
people; that would appear before long.

While I write, it seems as if I saw again that poor little bearer of the
first evil tidings, and heard once more the first shots which interrupted
his prophecy with eloquent confirmation.

Our mother turned pale.

The tailor folded up his cloth and hurried away. What did his words mean,
and what was the firing outside?

We strained our ears to listen. The noise seemed to grow louder and come
nearer; and, just as our mother cried, "For Heaven's sake, Martha!" the
cook burst into the room, exclaiming, "The row began in the
Schlossplatz!"

Fraulein Lamperi shrieked, seized her bonnet and cloak, and the pompadour
which she took with her everywhere, to hurry home as fast as she could.

Our mother could think only of Martha. She had dined at the Baeyers' and
was now perhaps on the way home. Somebody must be sent to meet her. But
of what use would be the escort of a maid; and Kurschner was gone, and
the porter not to be found!

The cook was sent in one direction, the chambermaid in another, to seek a
male escort for Martha.

And then there was Frau Lieutenant Beyer, our neighbour in the house,
whose husband was on the general staff, asking: "How is it possible?
Everything was granted! What can have happened?"

The answer was a rattle of musketry. We leaned out of the window, from
which we could see as far as Potsdamstrasse. What a rush there was
towards the gate! Three or four men dashed down the middle of the quiet
street. The tall, bearded fellow at the head we knew well. It was the
upholsterer Specht, who had often put up curtains and done similar work
for us, a good and capable workman.

But what a change! Instead of a neat little hammer, he was flourishing an
axe, and he and his companions looked as furious as if they were going to
revenge some terrible injury.

He caught sight of us, and I remember distinctly the whites of his
rolling eyes as he raised his axe higher, and shouted hoarsely, and as if
the threat was meant for us:

"They shall get it!"

Our mother and Frau Beyer had seen and heard him too, and the firing in
the direction of which the upholsterer and his companions were running
was very near.

The fight must already be raging in Leipzigerstrasse.

At last the porter came back and announced that barricades had been built
at the corner of Mauer-and Friedrichstrasse, and that a violent conflict
had broken out there and in other places between the soldiers and the
citizens. And our Martha was in Friedrichstrasse, and did not come. We
lived beyond the gate, and it was not to be expected that fighting would
break out in our neighbourhood; but back of our gardens, in the vicinity
of the Potsdam railway station, the beating of drums was heard. The
firing, however, which became more and more violent, was louder than any
other noise; and when we saw our mother wild with anxiety, we, too, began
to be alarmed for our dear, sweet Martha.

It was already dark, and still we waited in vain.

At last some one rang. Our mother hurried to the door--a thing she never
did.

When we, too, ran into the hall, she had her arms around the child who
had incurred such danger, and we little ones kissed her also, and Martha
looked especially pretty in her happy astonishment at such a reception.

She, too, had been anxious enough while good Heinrich, General Maeyer's
servant, who had been his faithful comrade in arms from 1813 to 1815,
brought her home through all sorts of by-ways. But they had been obliged
in various places to pass near where the fighting was going on, and the
tender-hearted seventeen-year-old girl had seen such terrible things that
she burst into tears as she described them.

For us the worst anxiety was over, and our mother recovered her
composure. It was perhaps advisable for her, a defenceless widow, to
leave the city, which might on the morrow be given over to the unbridled
will of insurgents or of soldiers intoxicated with victory. So she
determined to make all preparations for going with us to our grandmother
in Dresden.

Meanwhile the fighting in the streets seemed to have increased in certain
places to a battle, for the crash of the artillery grapeshot was
constantly intermingled with the crackling of the infantry fire, and
through it all the bells were sounding the tocsin, a wailing, warning
sound, which stirred the inmost heart.

It was a fearful din, rattling and thundering and ringing, while the sky
emulated the bloodsoaked earth and glowed in fiery red. It was said that
the royal iron foundry was in flames.

At last the hour of bedtime came, and I still remember how our mother
told us to pray for the king and those poor people who, in order to
attain something we could not understand, were in such great peril.



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Child cannot distinguish between what is amusing and what is sad
Child is naturally egotistical
Deserve the gratitude of my people, though it should be denied
Half-comprehended catchwords serve as a banner
Hanging the last king with the guts of the last priest
Readers often like best what is most incredible
Smell most powerful of all the senses in awakening memory






THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORG EBERS

THE STORY OF MY LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD TO MANHOOD

Volume 3.




CHAPTER X.

AFTER THE NIGHT OF REVOLUTION.

When we rose the next morning the firing was over. It was said that all
was quiet, and we had the well-known proclamation, "To my dear people of
Berlin." The horrors of the past night appeared, indeed, to have been the
result of an unfortunate mistake. The king himself explained that the two
shots by the troops, which had been taken for the signal to attack the
people, were from muskets which had gone off by some unlucky
accident--"thank God, without injuring any one."

He closed with the words: "Listen to the paternal voice of your king,
residents of my loyal and beautiful Berlin; forget what has occurred, as
I will forget it with all my heart, for the sake of the great future
which, by the blessing of God, will dawn for Prussia, and, through
Prussia, for Germany. Your affectionate queen and faithful mother, who is
very ill, joins her heart-felt and tearful entreaties to mine."

The king also pledged his royal word that the troops would be withdrawn
as soon as the Berlin people were ready for peace and removed the
barricades.

So peace seemed restored, for there had been no fighting for hours, and
we heard that the troops were already withdrawing.

Our departure for Dresden was out of the question--railway communication
had ceased. The bells which had sounded the tocsin all night with their
brazen tongues seemed, after such furious exertion, to have no strength
for summoning worshippers to church. All the houses of God were closed
that Sunday.

Our longing to get out of doors grew to impatience, which was destined to
be satisfied, for our mother had a violent headache, and we were sent to
get her usual medicine. We reached the Ring pharmacy--a little house in
the Potsdam Platz occupied by the well-known writer, Max Ring--in a very
few minutes. We performed our errand with the utmost care, gave the
medicine to the cook on our return, and hurried off into the city.

When we had left the Mauer-and Friedrichstrasse behind, our hearts began
to beat faster, and what we saw on the rest of the way through the
longest street of Berlin as far as the Linden was of such a nature that
the mere thought of it awakens in me to this day an ardent hope that I
may never witness such sights again.

Rage, hate, and destruction had celebrated the maddest orgies on our
path, and Death, with passionate vehemence, had swung his sharpest
scythe. Wild savagery and merciless destruction had blended with the
shrewdest deliberation and skillful knowledge in constructing the bars
which the German, avoiding his own good familiar word, called barricades.
An elderly gentleman who was explaining their construction, pointed out
to us the ingenuity with which some of the barricades had been
strengthened for defence on the one side, and left comparatively weak on
the other. Every trench dug where the paving was torn up had its object,
and each heap of stones its particular design.

But the ordinary spectator needed a guide to recognize this. At the first
sight, his attention was claimed by the confused medley and the many
heart-rending signs of the horrors practised by man on man.

Here was a pool of blood, there a bearded corpse; here a blood-stained
weapon, there another blackened with powder. Like a caldron where a witch
mixes all manner of strange things for a philter, each barricade
consisted of every sort of rubbish, together with objects originally
useful. All kinds of overturned vehicles, from an omnibus to a
perambulator, from a carriage to a hand-cart, were everywhere to be
found. Wardrobes, commodes, chairs, boards, laths, bookshelves, bath tubs
and washtubs, iron and wooden pipes, were piled together, and the
interstices filled with sacks of straw and rags, mattresses, and carriage
cushions. Whence came the planks yonder, if they were not stripped from
the floor of some room? Children and promenaders had sat only yesterday
on those benches and, the night before that, oil lamps or gas flames had
burned on those lamp-posts. The sign-boards on top had invited customers
into shop or inn, and the roll of carpet beneath was perhaps to have
covered some floor to-morrow. Oleander shrubs, which I was to see later
in rocky vales of Greece or Algeria, had possibly been put out here only
the day before into the spring sunshine. The warehouses of the capital no
doubt contained everything that could be needed, no matter how or when,
but Berlin seemed to me too small for all the trash that was dragged out
of the houses in that March night.

Bloody and terrible pictures rose before our minds, and perhaps there was
no need of Assessor Geppert's calling to us sternly, "Off home with you,
boys!" to turn our feet in that direction.

So home we ran, but stopped once, for at a fountain, either in
Leipzigstrasse or Potsdamstrasse, a ball from the artillery had struck in
the wood-work, and around it a firm hand had written with chalk in a
semicircle, "TO MY DEAR PEOPLE OF BERLIN." On the lower part of the
fountain the king's proclamation to the citizens, with the same heading,
was posted up.

What a criticism upon it!

The address set forth that a band of miscreants, principally foreigners,
had by patent falsehood turned the affair in the Schlossplatz to the
furtherance of their evil designs, and filled the heated minds of his
dear and faithful people of Berlin with thoughts of vengeance for blood
which was supposed to have been spilled. Thus they had become the
abominable authors of actual bloodshed.

The king really believed in this "band of miscreants," and attributed the
revolution, which he called a 'coup monte' (premeditated affair), to
those wretches. His letters to Bunsen are proof of it.

Among those who read his address, "To my Dear People of Berlin," there
were many who were wiser. There had really been no need of foreign
agitators to make them take up arms.

On the morning of the 18th their rejoicing and cheering came from full
hearts, but when they saw or learned that the crowd had been fired into
on the Schlossplatz, their already heated blood boiled over; the people
so long cheated of their rights, who had been put off when half the rest
of Germany had their demands fulfilled, could bear it no longer.

I must remind myself again that I am not writing a history of the Berlin
revolution. Nor would my own youthful impressions justify me in forming
an independent opinion as to the motives of that remarkable and somewhat
incomprehensible event; but, with the assistance of friends more
intimately acquainted with the circumstances, I have of late obtained a
not wholly superficial knowledge of them, which, with my own
recollections, leads me to adopt the opinion of Heinrich von Sybel
concerning the much discussed and still unanswered question, whether the
Berlin revolution was the result of a long-prepared conspiracy or the
spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for liberty among the citizens. He
says: "Both these views are equally well founded, for only the united
effort of the two forces could insure a possibility of victory."

Here again the great historian has found the true solution. It was for
the interest of the Poles, the French, and other revolutionary spirits,
to bring about a bloody conflict in Berlin, and there were many of them
in the capital that spring, among whom must have been men who knew how to
build barricades and organize revolts; and it can hardly be doubted that,
at the decisive moment, they tried to enhance the vengefulness and
combativeness of the people by strong drink and fiery speeches, perhaps,
in regard to the dregs of the populace, by money. There is weighty
evidence in support of this. But it is still more certain--and, though I
was but eleven years old and brought up in a loyal atmosphere, I, too,
felt and experienced it--that before the 18th of March the general
discontent was at the highest point. There was no controlling it.

If the chief of police, Von Minutoli, asserts that he knew beforehand the
hour when the revolution was to break out, this is no special evidence of
foresight; for the first threat the citizens had ventured to utter
against the king was in the address drawn up at the sitting of the
popular assembly in Kopenickstrasse, and couched in the following terms
"If this is granted us, and granted at once, then we will guarantee a
genuine peace." To finish the proposition with a statement of what would
occur in the opposite case, was left to his Majesty; the assembly had
simply decided that the "peaceful demonstration of the wishes of the
people" should take place on the 18th, at two o'clock, several thousand
citizens taking part in it. While the address was handed in, and until
the reply was received, the ambassadors of the people were to remain
quietly assembled in the Schlossplatz. What was to happen in case the
above-mentioned demands were not granted is nowhere set down, but there
is little doubt that many of those present intended to trust to the
fortune of arms. The address contained an ultimatum, and Brass is right
in calling it, and the meeting in which it originated, the starting point
of the revolution. Whoever had considered the matter attentively might
easily say, "On the 18th, at two o'clock, it will be decided either so or
so." The king had come to his determination earlier than that. Sybel puts
it beyond question that he had been forced to it by the situation in
Europe, not by threats or the compulsion of a conflict in the streets.
Nevertheless it came to a street fight, for the enemies of order were
skillful enough to start a fresh conflagration with the charred beams of
the house whose fire had been put out. But all their efforts would have
been in vain had not the conduct of the Government, and the events of the
last few days, paved the way.

Among my mother's conservative friends, and in her own mind, there was a
strong belief that the fighting in Berlin had broken out in consequence
of long-continued stirring of the people by foreign agitators; but I can
affirm that in my later life, before I began to reflect particularly on
the subject, it always seemed to me, when I recalled the time which
preceded the 18th of March, as if existing circumstances must have led to
the expectation of an outbreak at any moment.

It is difficult in these days to form an idea of the sharp divisions
which succeeded the night of the revolution in Berlin, just as one can
hardly conceive now, even in court circles, of the whole extent and
enthusiastic strength of the sentiment of Prussian loyalty at that time.
These opposite principles separated friends, estranged families long
united in love, and made themselves felt even in the Schmidt school
during the short time that we continued to go there.

Our bold excursion over the barricades was unpunished, so far as I
remember. Perhaps it was not even noticed, for our mother, in spite of
her violent headache, had to make preparations for the illumination of
our tolerably long row of windows. Not to have lighted the house would
have imperilled the window-panes. To my regret, we were not allowed to
see the illumination. I have since thought it a peculiarly amusing trick
of fate that the palace of the Russian embassy--the property of the
autocrat Nicholas--was obliged to celebrate with a brilliant display of
lights the movement for liberty in a sister country.

On Monday, the 20th, we were sent to school, but it was closed, and we
took advantage of the circumstance to get into the heart of the city. The
appearance of the town-hall peppered with balls I have never forgotten.
Most of the barricades were cleared away; instead, there were singular
inscriptions in chalk on the doors of various public buildings.

At the beginning of Leipzigstrasse, at the main entrance of the Ministry
of War, we read the words, "National Property." Elsewhere, and
particularly at the palace of the Prince of Prussia, was "Property of the
Citizens" or "Property of the entire Nation."

An excited throng had gathered in front of the plain and simple palace to
whose high ground-floor windows troops of loyal and grateful Germans have
often looked up with love and admiration to see the beloved countenance
of the grey-haired imperial hero. That day we stood among the crowd and
listened to the speech of a student, who addressed us from the great
balcony amid a storm of applause. Whether it was the same honest fellow
who besought the people to desist from their design of burning the
prince's palace because the library would be imperilled, I do not know,
bat the answer, "Leave the poor boys their books," is authentic.

And it is also true, unhappily, that it was difficult to save from
destruction the house of the man whose Hohenzollern blood asserted itself
justly against the weakness of his royal brother. Through those days of
terror he was what he always had been and would remain, an upright man
and soldier, in the highest and noblest meaning of the words.

What we saw and heard in the palace and its courts, swarming with
citizens and students, was so low and revolting that I dislike to think
of it.

Some of the lifeless heroes were just being borne past on litters,
greeted by the wine-flushed faces of armed students and citizens. The
teachers who had overtaken us on the way recognized among them college
friends who praised the delicious vintage supplied by the palace guards.

My brother and I were also fated to see Frederick William IV. ride down
the Behrenstrasse and the Unter den Linden with a large black, red, and
yellow band around his arm.

The burial of those who had fallen during the night of the revolution was
one of the most imposing ceremonies ever witnessed in Berlin. We boys
were permitted to look at it only for a short time, yet the whole
impression of the procession, which we really ought not to have been
allowed to see, has lingered in my memory.

It was wonderful weather, as warm as summer, and the vast escort which
accompanied the two hundred coffins of the champions of freedom to their
last resting-place seemed endless. We were forbidden to go on the
platform in front of the Neuenkirche where they were placed, but the
spectacle must have produced a strange yet deeply pathetic impression.

Pastor Sydow, who represented the Protestant clergy as the Prelate Roland
did the Catholics, and the Rabbi Dr. Sachs the Jews, afterwards told me
that the multitude of coffins, adorned with the rarest flowers and
lavishly draped with black, presented an image of mournful splendour
never to be forgotten, and I can easily believe it.

This funeral remains in my memory as an endless line of coffins and
black-garbed men with banners and hats bound with crape, bearing flowers,
emblems of guilds, and trade symbols. Mounted standard bearers, gentlemen
in robes--the professors of the university--and students in holiday
attire, mingled in the motley yet solemn train.

How many tears were shed over those coffins which contained the earthly
remains of many a young life once rich in hopes and glowing with warm
enthusiasm, many a quiet heart which had throbbed joyously for man's
noblest possession! The interment in the Friedrichshain, where four
hundred singers raised their voices, and a band of music composed of the
hautboy players of many regiments poured mighty volumes of sound over the
open graves of the dead, must have been alike dignified and majestic.

But the opposition between the contending parties was still too great,
and the demand upon the king to salute the dead had aroused such anger in
my mother's circle, that she kept aloof from these magnificent and in
themselves perfectly justifiable funeral obsequies. It seemed almost
unendurable that the king had constrained himself to stand on the balcony
of the palace with his head bared, holding his helmet in his hand, while
the procession passed.

The effect of this act upon the loyal citizens of Berlin can scarcely be
described. I have seen men--even our humble Kurschner--weep during the
account of it by eye-witnesses.

Whoever knew Frederick William IV. also knew that neither genuine
reconciliation nor respect for the fallen champions of liberty induced
him to show this outward token of respect, which was to him the deepest
humiliation.

The insincerity of the sovereign's agreement with the ideas, events, and
men of his day was evident in the reaction which appeared only too soon.
His conviction showed itself under different forms, but remained
unchanged, both in political and religious affairs.

During the interval life had assumed a new aspect. The minority had
become the majority, and many a son of a strictly conservative man was
forbidden to oppose the "red." Only no one needed to conceal his loyalty
to the king, for at that time the democrats still shared it. A good word
for the Prince of Prussia, on the contrary, inevitably led to a brawl,
but we did not shrink from it, and, thank Heaven, we were among the
strongest boys.

This intrusion of politics into the school-room and the whole tense life
of the capital was extremely undesirable, and, if continued, could not
fail to have an injurious influence upon immature lads; so my mother
hastily decided that, instead of waiting until the next year, we should
go to Keilhau at once.

She has often said that this was the most difficult resolve of her life,
but it was also one of the best, since it removed us from the motley,
confusing impressions of the city, and the petting we received at home,
and transferred us to the surroundings most suitable for boys of our age.

The first of the greater divisions of my life closes with the Easter
which follows the Berlin revolution of March, 1848.

Not until I attained years of maturity did I perceive that these
conflicts, which, long after, I heard execrated in certain quarters as a
blot upon Prussian history, rather deserved the warmest gratitude of the
nation. During those beautiful spring days, no matter by what
hands--among them were the noblest and purest--were sown the seeds of the
dignity and freedom of public life which we now enjoy.

The words "March conquests" have been uttered by jeering lips, but I
think at the present time there are few among the more far-sighted
conservatives who would like to dispense with them. To me and, thank
Heaven, to the majority of Germans, life deprived of them would seem
unendurable. My mother afterward learned to share this opinion, though,
like ourselves, in whose hearts she early implanted it, she retained to
her last hour her loyalty to the king.




CHAPTER XI.

IN KEILHAU

Keilhau! How much is comprised in that one short word!

It recalls to my memory the pure happiness of the fairest period of
boyhood, a throng of honoured, beloved, and merry figures, and hundreds
of stirring, bright, and amusing scenes in a period of life rich in
instruction and amusement, as well as the stage so lavishly endowed by
Nature on which they were performed. Jean Paul has termed melancholy the
blending of joy and pain, and it was doubtless a kindred feeling which
filled my heart in the days before my departure, and induced me to be
particularly good and obliging to every body in the house. My mother took
us once more to my father's grave in the Dreifaltigkeits cemetery, where
I made many good resolutions. Only the best reports should reach home
from Keilhau, and I had already obtained excellent ones in Berlin.

On the evening of our departure there were numerous kisses and farewell
glances at all that was left behind; but when we were seated in the car
with my mother, rushing through the landscape adorned with the most
luxuriant spring foliage, my heart suddenly expanded, and the pleasure of
travel and delight in the many new scenes before me destroyed every other
feeling.

The first vineyard I saw at Naumburg--I had long forgotten those on the
Rhine--interested me deeply; the Rudelsburg at Kosen, the ruins of a real
ancient castle, pleased me no less because I had never heard Franz
Kugler's song:

"Beside the Saale's verdant strand
Once stood full many a castle grand,
But roofless ruins are they all;
The wind sweeps through from hall to hall;
Slow drift the clouds above,"

which refers to this charming part of the Thuringian hill country. We
were soon to learn to sing it at Keilhau. Weimar was the first goal of
this journey. We had heard much of our classic poets; nay, I knew
Schiller's Bell and some of Goethe's poems by heart, and we had heard
them mentioned with deep reverence. Now we were to see their home, and a
strange emotion took possession of me when we entered it.

Every detail of this first journey has remained stamped on my memory. I
even know what we ordered for supper at the hotel where we spent the
night. But my mother had a severe headache, so we saw none of the sights
of Weimar except the Goethe house in the city and the other one in the
park. I cannot tell what my feelings were, they are too strongly blended
with later impressions. I only know that the latter especially seemed to
me very small. I had imagined the "Goethe House" like the palace of the
Prince of Prussia or Prince Radziwill in Wilhelmstrasse. The Grand Duke's
palace, on the contrary, appeared aristocratic and stately. We looked at
it very closely, because it was the birthplace of the Princess of
Prussia, of whom Fraulein Lamperi had told us so much.

The next morning my mother was well again. The railroad connecting Weimar
and Rudolstadt, near which Keilhau is located, was built long after, so
we continued our journey in an open carriage and reached Rudolstadt about
noon.

After we had rested a short time, the carriage which was to take us to
Keilhau drove up.

As we were getting in, an old gentleman approached, who instantly made a
strong impression upon me. In outward appearance he bore a marked
resemblance to Wilhelm Grimm. I should have noticed him among hundreds;
for long grey locks, parted in the middle, floated around a nobly formed
head, his massive yet refined features bore the stamp of a most kindly
nature, and his eyes were the mirror of a pure, childlike soul. The rare
charm of their sunny sparkle, when his warm heart expanded to pleasure or
his keen intellect had succeeded in solving any problem, comes back
vividly to my memory as I write, and they beamed brightly enough when he
perceived our companion. They were old acquaintances, for my mother had
been to Keilhau several times on Martin's account. She addressed him by
the name of Middendorf, and we recognized him as one of the heads of the
institute, of whom we had heard many pleasant things.

He had driven to Rudolstadt with the "old bay," but he willingly accepted
a seat in our carriage.

We had scarcely left the street with the hotel behind us, when he began
to speak of Schiller, and pointed out the mountain which bore his name
and to which in his "Walk" he had cried:

"Hail! oh my Mount, with radiant crimson peak."

Then he told us of the Lengefeld sisters, whom the poet had so often met
here, and one of whom, Charlotte, afterward became his wife. All this was
done in a way which had no touch of pedagogy or of anything specially
prepared for children, yet every word was easily understood and
interested us. Besides, his voice had a deep, musical tone, to which my
ear was susceptible at an early age. He understood children of our
disposition and knew what pleased them.

In Schaale, the first village through which we passed, he said, pointing
to the stream which flowed into the Saale close by: "Look, boys, now we
are coming into our own neighbourhood, the valley of the Schaal. It owes
its name to this brook, which rises in our own meadows, and I suppose you
would like to know why our village is called Keilhau?"

While speaking, he pointed up the stream and briefly described its
course.

We assented.

We had passed the village of Schaale. The one before us, with the church,
was called Eichfeld, and at our right was another which we could not see,
Lichtstadt. In ancient times, he told us, the mountain sides and the
bottom of the whole valley had been clothed with dense oak forests. Then