After a restless night I went to Professor Tzschirner and told him

everything, without palliation or concealment. He censured my frivolity
and lack of consideration for my position in life, but every word, every
feature of his expressive face showed that he grieved for what had
happened, and would have gladly punished it leniently. In after years he
told me so. Promising to make every effort to save me from exclusion from
the examination in the conference which he was to call at the close of
the afternoon session, he dismissed me--and he kept his word.

I know this, for I succeeded in hearing the discussion. The porter of the
gymnasium was the father of the boy whom my friend Lebenstein and I kept
to clean our boots, etc. He was a conscientious, incorruptible man, but
the peculiar circumstances of the case led him to yield to my entreaties
and admit me to a room next to the one where the conference was held. I
am grateful to him still, for it is due to this kindness that I can think
without resentment of those whose severity robbed me of six months of my
life.

This conference taught me how warm a friend I possessed in Professor
Tzschirner, and showed that Professor Braune was kindly disposed. I
remember how my heart overflowed with gratitude when Professor Tzschirner
sketched my character, extolled my rescue of life at the Kubisch factory,
and eloquently urged them to remember their own youth and judge what had
happened impartially. I should have belied my nature had I not availed
myself of the chain of circumstances which brought me into association
with the actress to make the acquaintance of so charming a creature.

To my joyful surprise Herr Ebeling agreed with him, and spoke so
pleasantly of me and of Clara, concerning whom he had inquired, that I
began to hope he was on my side.

Unfortunately, the end of his speech destroyed all the prospects held out
in the beginning.

Space forbids further description of the discussion. The majority, spite
of the passionate hostility of the informer, voted not to expel me, but
to exclude me from the examination this time, and advise me to leave the
school. If, however, I preferred to remain, I should be permitted to do
so.

At the close of the session I was standing in the square in front of the
school when Professor Tzschirner approached, and I asked his permission
to leave school that very day. A smile of satisfaction flitted over his
manly, intellectual face, and he granted my request at once.

So my Kottbus school-days ended, and, unfortunately, in a way unlike what
I had hoped. When I said farewell to Professor Tzschirner and his wife I
could not restrain my tears. His eyes, too, were dim, and he repeated to
me what I had already heard him say in the conference, and wrote the same
thing to my mother in a letter explaining my departure from the school.
The report which he sent with it contains not a single word to indicate a
compulsory withdrawal or the advice to leave it.

When I had stopped at Guben and said goodbye to Clara my dream was
literally fulfilled. Our delightful intercourse had come to a sudden end.
Fortunately, I was the only sufferer, for to my great joy I heard a few
months after that she had made a successful debut at the Dresden court
theatre.

I was, of course, less joyfully received in Berlin than usual, but the
letters from Professor Tzschirner and Frau Boltze put what had occurred
in the right light to my mother--nay, when she saw how I grieved over my
separation from the young girl whose charms still filled my heart and
mind, her displeasure was transformed into compassion. She also saw how
difficult it was for me to meet the friends and guardian who had expected
me to return as a graduate, and drew her darling, whom for the first time
she called her "poor boy," still closer to her heart.

Then we consulted about the future, and it was decided that I should
graduate from the gymnasium of beautiful Quedlinburg. Professor Schmidt's
house was warmly recommended, and was chosen for my home.

I set out for my new abode full of the best resolutions. But at Magdeburg
I saw in a show window a particularly tasteful bonnet trimmed with lilies
of the valley and moss-rose buds. The sight brought Clara's face framed
in it vividly be fore my eyes, and drew me into the shop. It was a Paris
pattern-hat and very expensive, but I spent the larger part of my
pocket-money in purchasing it and ordered it to be sent to the girl whose
image still filled my whole soul. Hitherto I had given her nothing except
a small locket and a great many flowers.




CHAPTER XX.

AT THE QUEDLINBURG GYMNASIUM

The atmosphere of Quedlinburg was far different from that of the Mark
factory town of Kottbus. How fresh, how healthful, how stimulating to
industry and out-door exercise it was!

Everything in the senior class was just as it should be.

In Kottbus the pupils addressed each other formally. There were at the
utmost, I think, not more than half a dozen with whom I was on terms of
intimacy. In Quedlinburg a beautiful relation of comradeship united all
the members of the school. During study hours we were serious, but in the
intervals we were merry enough.

Its head, Professor Richter, the learned editor of the fragments of
Sappho, did not equal Tzschirner in keenness of intellect and bewitching
powers of description, yet we gladly followed the worthy man's
interpretations.

Many a leisure day and hour we spent in the beautiful Hartz Mountains.
But, best of all, was my home in Quedlinburg, the house of my tutor,
Professor Adalbert Schmidt, an admirable man of forty, who seemed
extremely gentle and yielding, but when necessary could be very
peremptory, and allowed those under his charge to make no trespass on his
authority.

His wife was a model of amiable, almost timid womanliness. Her
sister-in-law, the widow of a magistrate, Frau Pauline Schmidt, shared
the care of the pupils and the beautiful, large garden; while her pretty,
bright young sons and daughters increased the charm of the intercourse.

How pleasant were the evenings we spent in the family circle! We read,
talked, played, and Frau Pauline Schmidt was a ready listener when ever I
felt disposed to communicate to any one what I had written.

Among my school friends were some who listened to my writings and showed
me their own essays. My favorite was Carl Hey, grandson of Wilhelm Hey,
who understood child nature so well, and wrote the pretty verses
accompanying the illustrations in the Speckter Fables, named for the
artist, a book still popular with little German boys and girls. I was
also warmly attached to the enthusiastic Hubotter, who, under the name of
"Otter," afterwards became the ornament of many of the larger German
theatres. Lindenbein, Brosin, the talented Gosrau, and the no less gifted
Schwalbe, were also dear friends.

At first I had felt much older than my companions, and I really had seen
more of life; but I soon perceived that they were splendid, lovable
fellows. My wounded heart speedily healed, and the better my physical and
mental condition became the more my demon stirred within me. It was no
merit of mine if I was not dubbed "the foolhardy Ebers" here also. The
summer in Quedlinburg was a delightful season of mingled work and
pleasure. An Easter journey through the Hartz with some gay companions,
which included an ascent of the Brocken--already once climbed from
Keilhau--is among my most delightful memories.

Like the Thuringian Mountains, the Hartz are also wreathed with a garland
of legends and historical memories. Some of its fairest blossoms are in
the immediate vicinity of Quedlinburg. These and the delight in nature
with which I here renewed my old bond tempted more than one of us to
write, and very different poems, deeper and with more true feeling, than
those produced in Kottbus. A poetic atmosphere from the Hercynian woods
and the monuments of ancient days surrounded our lives. It was delightful
to dream under the rustling beeches of the neighbouring forest; and in
the church with its ancient graves and the crypt of St. Wiperti Cloister,
the oldest specimen of Christian art in that region, we were filled with
reverence for the days of old.

The life of the great Henry, which I had celebrated in verse at Kottbus,
became a reality to me here; and what a powerful influence a visit to the
ancient cloister exerted on our young souls! The nearest relatives of
mighty sovereigns had dwelt as abbesses within its walls. But two
generations ago Anna Amalie, the hapless sister of Frederick the Great,
died while holding this office.

A strange and lasting impression was wrought upon me by a corpse and a
picture in this convent. Both were in a subterranean chamber which
possessed the property of preserving animal bodies from corruption. In
this room was the body of Countess Aurora von Konigsmark, famed as the
most beautiful woman of her time. After a youth spent in splendour she
had retired to the cloister as superior, and there she now lay unveiled,
rigid, and yellow, although every feature had retained the form it had in
death. Beside the body hung her portrait, taken at the time when a smile
on her lips, a glance from her eyes, was enough to fire the heart of the
coldest man.

A terrible antithesis!

Here the portrait of the blooming, beautiful husk of a soul exulting in
haughty arrogance; yonder that husk itself, transformed by the hand of
death into a rigid, colourless caricature, a mummy without embalming.

Art, too, had a place in Quedlinburg. I still remember with pleasure
Steuerwald's beautiful winter landscapes, into which he so cleverly
introduced the mediaeval ruins of the Hartz region.

Thus, Quedlinburg was well suited to arouse poetic feelings in young
hearts, steep the soul with love for the beautiful, time-honoured region,
and yet fill it with the desire to make distant lands its own. Every one
knows that this was Klopstock's birthplace; but the greatest geographer
of all ages, Karl Ritter, whose mighty mind grasped the whole universe as
if it were the precincts of his home, also first saw the light of the
world here.

Gutsmuths, the founder of the gymnastic system, Bosse, the present
Minister of Public Worship and Instruction, and Julius Wolff, are
children of Quedlinburg and pupils of its gymnasium.

The long vacation came between the written and verbal examinations, and
as I had learned privately that my work had been sufficiently
satisfactory, my mother gave me permission to go to the Black Forest, to
which pleasant memories attracted me. But my friend Hey had seen nothing
of the world, so I chose a goal more easily attained, and took him with
me to the Rhine. I went home by the way of Gottingen, and what I saw
there of the Saxonia corps filled me with such enthusiasm that I resolved
to wear the blue, white, and blue ribbon.

The oral was also successfully examination passed, and I returned to my
mother, who received me at Hosterwitz with open arms. The resolve to
devote myself to the study of law and to commence in Gottingen was
formed, and received her approval.

For what reason I preferred the legal profession it would be hard to say.
Neither mental bias nor interest gained by any searching examination of
the science to which I wished to devote myself, turned the scale. I
actually gave less thought to my profession and my whole mental and
external life than I should have bestowed upon the choice of a residence.

In the ideal school, as I imagine it, the pupils of the senior class
should be briefly made acquainted with what each one of the principal
professions offers and requires from its members. The principal of the
institution should also aid by his counsel the choice of the young men
with whose talents and tastes long intercourse had rendered him familiar.

[It should never contain more than seventy pupils. Barop, when I
met him after I attained my maturity, named sixty as the largest
number which permitted the teacher to know and treat individually
the boys confided to his care. He would never receive more at
Keilhau.]

Of course I imagine this man not only a teacher but an educator, familiar
not alone with the school exercises, but with the mental and physical
characteristics of those who are to graduate from the university.

Had not the heads of the Keilhau Institute lost their pupils so young,
they would undoubtedly have succeeded in guiding the majority to the
right profession.



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Coach moved by electricity
Do thoroughly whatever they do at all
I approve of such foolhardiness
Life is the fairest fairy tale (Anderson)
Loved himself too much to give his whole affection to any one
Scorned the censure of the people, he never lost sight of it
What father does not find something to admire in his child




THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORG EBERS

THE STORY OF MY LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD TO MANHOOD

Volume 6.




CHAPTER XXI.

AT THE UNIVERSITY.

The weeks following my graduation were as ill suited as possible to the
decision of any serious question.

After a gay journey through Bohemia which ended in venerable Prague, I
divided my time between Hosterwitz, Blasewitz, and Dresden. In the latter
city I met among other persons, principally old friends, the son of my
uncle Brandenstein, an Austrian lieutenant on leave of absence. I spent
many a pleasant evening with him and his comrades, who were also on
leave. These young gentlemen considered the Italians, against whom they
fought, as rebels, while a cousin of my uncle, then Colonel von
Brandenstein, but afterwards promoted in the Franco-Austrian war in 1859
and 1866 to the rank of master of ordnance, held a totally different
opinion. This clever, warmhearted soldier understood the Italians and
their struggle for unity and freedom, and judged them so justly and
therefore favorably, that he often aroused the courteous opposition of
his younger comrades. I did not neglect old friends, however, and when I
did not go to the theatre in the evening I ended the day with my aunt at
Blasewitz. But, on my mother's account, I was never long absent from
Hosterwitz. I enjoyed being with her so much. We drove and walked
together, and discussed everything the past had brought and the future
promised.

Yet I longed for academic freedom, and especially to sit at the feet of
an Ernst Curtius, and be initiated by Waitz into the methodical study of
history.

The evening before my departure my mother drove with me to Blasewitz,
where there was an elegant entertainment at which the lyric poet Julius
Hammer, the author of "Look Around You and Look Within You," who was to
become a dear friend of mine, extolled in enthusiastic verse the delights
of student liberty and the noble sisters Learning and Poesy.

The glowing words echoed in my heart and mind after I had torn myself
from the arms of my mother and of the woman who, next to her, was dearest
to me on earth, my aunt, and was travelling toward my goal. If ever the
feeling that I was born to good fortune took possession of me, it was
during that journey.

I did not know what weariness meant, and when, on reaching Gottingen, I
learned that the students' coffee-house was still closed and that no one
would arrive for three or four days, I went to Cassel to visit the royal
garden in Wilhelmshohe.

At the station I saw a gentleman who looked intently at me. His face,
too, seemed familiar. I mentioned my name, and the next instant he had
embraced and kissed me. Two Keilhau friends had met, and, with sunshine
alike in our hearts and in the blue sky, we set off together to see
everything of note in beautiful Cassel.

When it was time to part, Von Born told me so eagerly how many of our old
school-mates were now living in Westphalia, and how delightful it would
be to see them, that I yielded and went with him to the birthplace of
Barop and Middendorf. The hours flew like one long revel, and my
exuberant spirits made my old school-mates, who, engaged in business
enterprises, were beginning to look life solemnly in the face, feel as if
the carefree Keilhau days had returned. On going back to Gottingen, I
still had to wait a few days for the real commencement of the term, but I
was received at the station by the "Saxons," donned the blue cap, and
engaged pleasant lodgings--though the least adapted to serious study in
the "Schonhutte," a house in Weenderstrasse whose second story was
occupied by our corps room.

My expectations of the life with young men of congenial tastes were
completely fulfilled. Most of them belonged to the nobility, but the
beloved "blue, white, and blue" removed all distinctions of birth.

By far the most talented of its members was Count (now Prince) Otto von
Stolberg-Wernegerode, who was afterwards to hold so high a position in
the service of the Prussian Government.

Among the other scions of royal families were the hereditary Prince Louis
of Hesse-Darmstadt and his brother Henry. Both were vivacious, agreeable
young men, who entered eagerly into all the enjoyments of student and
corps life. The older brother, who died as Grand Duke, continued his
friendship for me while sovereign of his country. I was afterwards
indebted to him for the pleasure of making the acquaintance of his wife
Alice, one of the most remarkable women whom I have ever met.--[Princess
Alice of England, the daughter of Queen Victoria.-TR.]

Oh, what delightful hours we spent in the corps room, singing and
revelling, in excursions through the beautiful scenes in the
neighbourhood, and on the fencing ground, testing our strength and skill,
man to man! Every morning we woke to fresh pleasures, and every evening
closed a spring festal day, radiant with the sunlight of liberty and the
magic of friendship.

Our dinner was eaten together at the "Krone" with the most jovial of
hosts, old Betmann, whose card bore the pictures of a bed and a man. Then
came coffee, drunk at the museum or at some restaurant outside of the
city, riding, or a duel, or there was some excursion, or the
entertainment of a fellow-student from some other university, and finally
the tavern.

Many an evening also found me with some friends at the Schuttenhof, where
the young Philistines danced with the little burgher girls and pretty
dressmakers. They were all, however, of unsullied reputation, and how
merrily I swung them around till the music ceased! These innocent
amusements could scarcely have injured my robust frame, yet when some
unusual misfortune happens it is a trait of human nature to seek its
first germ in the past. I, too, scanned the period immediately preceding
my illness, but reached the conclusion that it was due to acute colds,
the first of which ran into a very violent fever.

Had the result been otherwise I certainly should not have permitted my
sons to enjoy to the utmost the happy period which in my case was too
soon interrupted.

True, the hours of the night which I devoted to study could scarcely have
been beneficial to my nervous system; for when, with burning head and
full of excitement, I returned from the tavern which was closed, by rule,
at eleven--from the "Schuttenhof," or some ball or entertainment, I never
went to rest; that was the time I gave the intellect its due. Legal
studies were pursued during the hours of the night only at the
commencement of my stay in Gottingen, for I rarely attended the lectures
for which I had entered my name, though the brevity of the Roman
definitions of law, with which Ribbentropp's lectures had made me
familiar, afforded me much pleasure. Unfortunately, I could not attend
the lectures of Ernst Curtius, who had just been summoned to Gottingen,
on account of the hours at which they were given. My wish to join Waitz's
classes was also unfulfilled, but I went to those of the philosopher
Lotze, and they opened a new world to me. I was also one of the most
eager of Professor Unger's hearers.

Probably his "History of Art" would have attracted me for its own sake,
but I must confess that at first his charming little daughter was the
sole magnet which drew me to his lectures; for on account of displaying
the pictures he delivered them at his own house.

Unfortunately, I rarely met the fair Julie, but, to make amends, I found
through her father the way to that province of investigation to which my
after-life was to be devoted.

In several lessons he discussed subtly and vividly the art of the
Egyptians, mentioning Champollion's deciphering of the hieroglyphics.

This great intellectual achievement awakened my deepest interest. I went
at once to the library, and Unger selected the books which seemed best
adapted to give me further instruction.

I returned with Champollion's Grammaire Hieroglyphique, Lepsius's Lettre
a Rosellini, and unfortunately with some misleading writings by
Seyffarth.

How often afterward, returning in the evening from some entertainment, I
have buried myself in the grammar and tried to write hieroglyphics.

True, I strove still more frequently and persistently to follow the
philosopher Lotze.

Obedient to a powerful instinct, my untrained intellect had sought to
read the souls of men. Now I learned through Lotze to recognize the body
as the instrument to which the emotions of the soul, the harmonies and
discords of the mental and emotional life, owe their origin.

I intended later to devote myself earnestly to the study of physiology,
for without it Lotze could be but half understood; and from physiologists
emanated the conflict which at that time so deeply stirred the learned
world.

In Gottingen especially the air seemed, as it were, filled with
physiological and other questions of the natural sciences.

In that time of the most sorrowful reaction the political condition of
Germany was so wretched that any discussion concerning it was gladly
avoided. I do not remember having attended a single debate on that topic
in the circles of the students with which I was nearly connected.

But the great question "Materialism or Antimaterialism" still agitated
the Georgia Augusta, in whose province the conflict had assumed still
sharper forms, owing to Rudolf Wagner's speech during the convention of
the Guttingen naturalists three years prior to my entrance.

Carl Vogt's "Science and Bigotry" exerted a powerful influence, owing to
the sarcastic tone in which the author attacked his calmer adversary. In
the honest conviction of profound knowledge, the clever, vigorous
champion of materialism endeavoured to brand the opponents of his dogmas
with the stigma of absurdity, and those who flattered themselves with the
belief that they belonged to the ranks of the "strong-minded" followed
his standard.

Hegel's influence was broken, Schelling's idealism had been thrust aside.
The solid, easily accessible fare of the materialists was especially
relished by those educated in the natural sciences, and Vogt's maxim,
that thought stands in a similar relation to the brain as the gall to the
liver and the excretions of the other organs, met with the greater
approval the more confidently and wittily it was promulgated. The
philosopher could not help asserting that the nature of the soul could be
disclosed neither by the scalpel nor the microscope; yet the discoveries
of the naturalist, which had led to the perception of the relation
existing between the psychical and material life seemed to give the most
honest, among whom Carl Vogt held the first rank; a right to uphold their
dogmas.

Materialism versus Antimaterialism was the subject under discussion in
the learned circles of Germany. Nay, I remember scarcely any other
powerful wave of the intellect visible during this period of stagnation.

Philosophy could not fail to be filled with pity and disapproval to see
the independent existence of the soul, as it were, authoritatively
reaffirmed by a purely empirical science, and also brought into the field
all the defensive forces at her command. But throngs flocked to the camp
of Materialism, for the trumpets of her leaders had a clearer, more
confident sound than the lower and less readily understood opposing cries
of the philosophers.

Vogt's wrath was directed with special keenness against my teacher,
Lotze. These topics were rarely discussed at the tavern or among the
members of the corps. I first heard them made the subject of an animated
exchange of thought in the Dirichlet household, where Professor Baum
emerged from his aristocratic composure to denounce vehemently
materialism and its apostles. Of course I endeavoured to gain information
about things which so strongly moved intellectual men, and read in
addition to Lotze's books the polemical writings which were at that time
in everybody's hands.

Vogt's caustic style charmed me, but it was not due solely to the
religious convictions which I had brought from my home and from Keilhau
that I perceived that here a sharp sword was swung by a strong arm to cut
water. The wounds it dealt would not bleed, for they were inflicted upon
a body against which it had as little power as Satan against the cross.

When, before I became acquainted with Feuerbach, I flung my books aside,
wearied or angered, I often seized in the middle of the night my monster
Poem of the World, my tragedy of Panthea and Abradatus, or some other
poetical work, and did not retire till the wick of the lamp burned out at
three in the morning.

When I think how much time and earnest labour were lavished on that poem,
I regret having yielded to the hasty impulse to destroy it.

I have never since ventured to undertake anything on so grand a scale. I
could repeat only a few lines of the verses it contained; but the plan of
the whole work, as I rounded it in Gottingen and Hosterwitz, I remember
perfectly, and I think, if only for the sake of its peculiarity and as
the mirror of a portion of my intellectual life at that time, its main
outlines deserve reproduction here.

I made Power and Matter, which I imagined as a formless element; the
basis of all existence. These two had been cast forth by the divine Ruler
of a world incomprehensible to human intelligence, in which the present
is a moment, space a bubble, as out of harmony with the mighty conditions
and purposes of his realm. But this supreme Ruler offered to create for
them a world suited to their lower plane of existence. Power I imagined a
man, Matter a woman. They were hostile to each other, for he despised his
quiet, inert companion, she feared her restless, unyielding partner; yet
the power of the ruler of the higher world forced them to wed.

From their loveless union sprang the earth, the stars-in short, all
inorganic life.

When the latter showed its relation to the father, Power, by the
impetuous rush of the stars through space, by terrible eruptions, etc.,
the mother, Matter, was alarmed, and as, to soothe them, she drew into
her embrace the flaming spheres, which dashed each other to pieces in
their mad career, and restrained the fiercest, her chill heart was warmed
by her children's fire.

Thus, as it were, raised to a higher condition, she longed for less
unruly children, and her husband, Power, who, though he would have gladly
cast her off, was bound to her by a thousand ties, took pity upon her,
because her listlessness and coldness were transformed to warmth and
motion, and another child sprang from their union, love.

But she seemed to have been born to misery, and wandered mournfully
about, weeping and lamenting because she lacked an object for which to
labour. True, she drew from the flaming, smoking bodies which she kissed
a soft, beneficent light, she induced some to give up their former
impetuosity and respect the course of others, and plants and trees sprang
from the earth where her lips touched it, yet her longing to receive
something which would be in harmony with her own nature remained
unsatisfied.

But she was a lovely child and the darling of her father, whom, by her
entreaties, she persuaded to animate with his own nature the shapes which
she created in sport, those of the animals.

From this time there were living creatures moved by Power and Love. But
again they brought trouble to the mother; for they were stirred by fierce
passions, under whose influence they attacked and rent each other. But
Love did not cease to form new shapes until she attained the most
beautiful, the human form.

Yet human beings were stirred by the same feelings as the animals, and
Love's longing for something in which she could find comfort remained
unsatisfied, till, repelled by her savage father and her listless mother,
she flung herself in despair from a rock. But being immortal, she did not
perish.

Her blood sprinkled the earth, and from her wounds exhaled an exquisite
fragrance, which rose higher and higher till it reached the realm whence
came her parents; and its supreme ruler took pity on the exile's child,
and from the blood of Love grew at his sign a lily, from which arose,
radiant in white garments, Intellect, which the Most High had breathed
into the flower.

He came from that higher world to ours, but only a vague memory of his
former home was permitted, lest he should compare his present abode with
the old one and scorn it.

As soon as he met Love he was attracted towards her, and she ardently
accepted his suit; yet the first embrace chilled her, and her fervour
startled and repelled him. So, each fearing the other's tenderness, they
shunned each other, though an invincible charm constantly drew them
together.

Love continued to yearn for him even after she had sundered the bond; but
he often yielded to the longing for his higher home, of whose splendours
he retained a memory, and soared upward. Yet whenever he drew near he was
driven back to the other.

There he directed sometimes with Love, sometimes alone, the life of
everything in the universe, or in unison with her animated men with his
breath.

He did this sometimes willingly, sometimes reluctantly, with greater or
less strength, according to the nearness he had attained to his heavenly
home; but when he had succeeded in reaching its circle of light, he
returned wonderfully invigorated. Then whoever Love and he joined in
animating with their breath became an artist.

There was also a thoroughly comic figure and one with many humorous
touches. Intellect's page, Instinct, who had risen from the lily with
him, was a comical fellow. When he tried to follow his master's flight he
fell after the first few strokes of his wings, and usually among nettles.
Only when some base advantage was to be gained on earth did this servant
succeed better than his master. The mother, Matter, whom for the sake of
the verse I called by her Greek name Hyle, was also invested with a shade
of comedy as a dissatisfied wife and the mother-in-law of Intellect.

In regard to the whole Poem of the World I will observe that, up to the
time I finished the last line, I had never studied the kindred systems of
the Neo-Platonics or the Gnostics.

The verses which described the moment when Matter drew her fiery children
to her heart and thus warmed it, another passage in which men who were
destitute of intellect sought to destroy themselves and Love resolved to
sacrifice her own life, and, lastly, the song where Intellect rises from
the lily, besides many others, were worthy, in my opinion, of being
preserved.

What first diverted my attention from the work was, as has been
mentioned, the study of Feuerbach, to which I had been induced by a
letter from the geographer Karl Andree. I eagerly seized his books, first
choosing his "Axioms of the Philosophy of the Future," and afterwards
devoured everything he had written which the library contained. And at
that time I was grateful to my friend the geographer for his advice.
True, Feuerbach seemed to me to shatter many things which from a child I
had held sacred; yet I thought I discovered behind the falling masonry
the image of eternal truth.

The veil which I afterwards saw spread over so many things in Feuerbach's
writings at that time produced the same influence upon me as the mist
whence rise here the towers, yonder the battlements of a castle. It might
be large or small; the grey mist which forbids the eye from definitely
measuring its height and width by no means prevents the traveller, who
knows that a powerful lord possesses the citadel, from believing it to be
as large and well guarded as the power of its ruler would imply.

True, I was not sufficiently mature for the study of this great thinker,
whom I afterwards saw endanger other unripe minds. As a disciple of this
master there were many things to be destroyed which from childhood had
become interlaced by a thousand roots and fibres with my whole
intellectual organism, and such operations are not effected without pain.

What I learned while seeking after truth during those night hours ought
to have taught me the connection between mind and body; yet I was never
farther from perceiving it. A sharp division had taken place in my
nature. By night, in arduous conflict, I led a strange mental life, known
to myself alone; by day all this was forgotten, unless--and how rarely
this happened--some conversation recalled it.

From my first step out of doors I belonged to life, to the corps, to
pleasure. What was individual existence, mortality, or the eternal life
of the soul! Minerva's bird is an owl. Like it, these learned questions
belonged to the night. They should cast no shadow on the brightness of my
day. When I met the first friend in the blue cap no one need have sung
our corps song, "Away with cares and crotchets!"

At no time had the exuberant joy in mere existence stirred more strongly
within me. My whole nature was filled with the longing to utilize and
enjoy this brief earthly life which Feuerbach had proved was to end with
death.

Better an hour's mad revel,
E'en a kiss from a Moenad's lip,
Than a year of timid doubting,
Daring only to taste and sip,

were the closing lines of a song which I composed at this time.

So my old wantonness unfolded its wings, but it was not to remain always
unpunished.

My mother had gone to Holland with Paula just before Advent, and as I
could not spend my next vacation at home, she promised to furnish me with
means to take a trip through the great German Hanse cities.

In Bremen I was most cordially received in the family of Mohr, a member
of my corps, in whose circle I spent some delightful hours, and also an
evening never to be forgotten in the famous old Rathskeller.

But I wished to see the harbour of the great commercial city, and the
ships which ploughed the ocean to those distant lands for which I had
often longed.

Since I had shot my first hare in Komptendorf and brought down my first
partridge from the air, the love of sport had never slumbered; I
gratified it whenever I could, and intended to take a boat from
Bremerhaven and go as near as possible to the sea, where I could shoot
the cormorants and the bald-headed eagles which hunters on the seashore
class among the most precious booty.

In Bremerhaven an architect whose acquaintance I had made on the way
became my cicerone, and showed me all the sights of the small but very
quaint port. I had expected to find the bustle on shore greater, but what