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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5593.txt b/5593.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6fb810b --- /dev/null +++ b/5593.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2025 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook The Story of My Life, by Georg Ebers, v1 +#154 in our series by Georg Ebers + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Story of My Life, Volume 1. + +Author: Georg Ebers + +Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5593] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on August 24, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY OF MY LIFE, BY EBERS, V1*** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORG EBERS + +THE STORY OF MY LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD TO MANHOOD + +Volume 1. + +Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford + + + + + TO MY SONS. + + When I began the incidents of yore, + Still in my soul's depths treasured, to record, + A voice within said: Soon, life's journey o'er, + Thy portrait sole remembrance will afford. + + And, ere the last hour also strikes for thee, + Search thou the harvest of the vanished years. + Not futile was thy toil, if thou canst see + That for thy sons fruit from one seed appears. + + Upon the course of thine own life look back, + Follow thy struggles upwards to the light; + Methinks thy errors will not seem so black, + If they thy loved ones serve to guide aright. + + And should they see the star which 'mid the dark + Illumed thy pathway to thy distant goal, + Thither they'll turn the prow of their life bark; + Its radiance their course also will control. + + Ay, when the ivy on my grave doth grow, + When my dead hand the helm no more obeys, + This book to them the twofold light will show, + To which I ne'er forget to turn my gaze. + + One heavenward draws, with rays so mild and clear, + Eyes dim with tears, when the world darkness veils, + Showing 'mid desert wastes the spring anear, + If, spent with wandering, your courage fails. + + Since first your lips could syllable a prayer, + Its mercy you have proved a thousandfold; + I too received it, though unto my share + Fell what I pray life ne'er for you may hold. + + The other light, whose power full well you know, + E'en though in words I nor describe nor name, + Alike for me and you its rays aye glow-- + Maternal love, by day and night the same. + + This light within your youthful hearts has beamed, + Ripening the germs of all things good and fair; + I also fostered them, and joyous dreamed + Of future progress to repay our care. + + Thus guarded, unto manhood you have grown; + Still upward, step by step, you steadfast rise + The oldest, healing's noble art has won; + The second, to his country's call replies; + + The third, his mind to form is toiling still; + And as this book to you I dedicate, + I see the highest wish life could fulfil + In you, my trinity, now incarnate. + + To pay it homage meet, my sons I'll guide + As I revere it, 'mid the world's turmoil, + Love for mankind, which putteth self aside, + In love for native land and blessed toil. + + GEORG EBERS. + + TOTZING ON THE STARNBERGER SEE, + October 1, 1892. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +In this volume, which has all the literary charm and deftness of +character drawing that distinguish his novels, Dr. Ebers has told the +story of his growth from childhood to maturity, when the loss of his +health forced the turbulent student to lead a quieter life, and +inclination led him to begin his Egyptian studies, which resulted, first +of all, in the writing of An Egyptian Princess, then in his travels in +the land of the Pharaohs and the discovery of the Ebers Papyrus (the +treatise on medicine dating from the second century B.C.), and finally in +the series of brilliant historical novels that has borne his name to the +corners of the earth and promises to keep it green forever. + +This autobiography carries the reader from 1837, the year of Dr. Ebers's +birth in Berlin, to 1863, when An Egyptian Princess was finished. +The subsequent events of his life were outwardly calm, as befits the +existence of a great scientist and busy romancer, whose fecund fancy +was based upon a groundwork of minute historical research. + +Dr. Ebers attracted the attention of the learned world by his treatise +on Egypt and the Book of Moses, which brought him a professorship at his +university, Gottingen, in 1864, the year following the close of this +autobiography. His marriage to the daughter of a burgomaster of Riga +took place soon afterward. During the long years of their union Mrs. +Ebers was his active helpmate, many of the business details relating to +his works and their American and English editions being transacted by +her. + +After his first visit to Egypt, Ebers was called to the University of +Leipsic to fill the chair of Egyptology. He went again to Egypt in 1872, +and in the course of his excavations at Thebes unearthed the Ebers +Papyrus already referred to, which established his name among the leaders +of what was then still a new science, whose foundations had been laid by +Champollion in 1821. + +Ebers continued to occupy his chair at the Leipsic University, but, while +fulfilling admirably the many duties of a German professorship, he found +time to write several of his novels. Uarda was published in 1876, twelve +years after the appearance of An Egyptian Princess, to be followed in +quick succession by Homo Sum, The Sisters, The Emperor, and all that long +line of brilliant pictures of antiquity. He began his series of tales of +the middle ages and the dawn of the modern era in 1881 with The +Burgomaster's Wife. In 1889 the precarious state of his health forced +him to resign his chair at the university. + +Notwithstanding his sufferings and the obstacles they placed in his path, +he continued his wonderful intellectual activity until the end. His last +novel, Arachne, was issued but a short time before his death, which took +place on August 7, 1898, at the Villa Ebers, in Tutzing, on the +Starenberg Lake, near Munich, where most of his later life was spent. +The monument erected to his memory by his own indefatigable activity +consists of sixteen novels, all of them of perennial value to historical +students, as well as of ever-fresh charm to lovers of fiction, many +treatises on his chosen branch of learning, two great works of reference +on Egypt and Palestine, and short stories, fairy tales, and biographies. + +The Story of my Life is characterized by a captivating freshness. Ebers +was born under a lucky star, and the pictures of his early home life, his +restless student days at that romantic old seat of learning, Gottingen, +are bright, vivacious, and full of colour. The biographer, historian, +and educator shows himself in places, especially in the sketches of the +brothers Grimm, and of Froebel, at whose institute, Keilhau, Ebers +received the foundation of his education. His discussion of Froebel's +method and of that of his predecessor, Pestalozzi, is full of interest, +because written with enthusiasm and understanding. He was a good German, +in the largest sense of the word, and this trait, too, is brought forward +in his reminiscences of the turbulent days of 1848 in Berlin. + +The story of Dr. Ebers's early life was worth the telling, and he has +told it himself, as no one else could tell it, with all the consummate +skill of his perfected craftsmanship, with all the reverent love of an +admiring son, and with all the happy exuberance of a careless youth +remembered in all its brightness in the years of his maturity. Finally, +the book teaches a beautiful lesson of fortitude in adversity, of +suffering patiently borne and valiantly overcome by a spirit that, +greatly gifted by Nature, exercised its strength until the thin silver +lining illuminated the apparently impenetrable blackness of the cloud +that overhung Georg Moritz Ebers's useful and successful life. + + + + +THE STORY OF MY LIFE. + +By Georg Ebers + +CONTENTS. + +BOOK 1. +I. -GLANCING BACKWARD. +II. -MY EARLIEST CHILDHOOD +III. -ON FESTAL DAYS +IV. -THE JOURNEY TO HOLLAND TO ATTEND THE GOLDEN WEDDING +V. -LENNESTRASSE.--LENNE--EARLY IMPRESSIONS + +BOOK 2. +VI. -MY INTRODUCTION TO ART, AND ACQUAINTANCES +VII. -WHAT A BERLIN CHILD ENJOYED ON THE SPREE AND GRANDMOTHER'S +VIII. -THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD +IX. -THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH + +BOOK3. +X. -AFTER THE NIGHT OF REVOLUTION +XI. -IN KEILHAU +XII -FRIEDRICH FROEBEL'S IDEAL OF EDUCATION + +BOOK 4. +XIII. -THE FOUNDERS OF THE KEILHAU INSTITUTE +XIV. -IN THE FOREST AND ON THE MOOR. +XV. -SUMMER PLEASURES AND RAMBLES +XVI. -AUTUMN, WINTER, EASTER, AND DEPARTURE + +BOOK 5. +XVII. -THE GYMNASIUM AND THE FIRST PERIOD OF UNIVERSITY LIFE +XVIII. -THE TIME OF EFFERVESCENCE AND MY SCHOOLMATES +XIX. -A ROMANCE WHICH REALLY HAPPENED +XX. -AT THE QUEDLINBURG GYMNASIUM + +BOOK 6. +XXI. -AT THE UNIVERSITY +XXII. -THE SHIPWRECK +XXIII. -THE HARDEST TIME IN THE SCHOOL OF LIFE +XXIV. -THE APPRENTICESHIP +XXV. -THE SUMMERS OF MY CONVALESCENCE +XXVI. -CONTINUANCE OF CONVALESCENCE AND THE FIRST NOVEL + + + + +THE STORY OF MY LIFE. + +BOOK 1. + +CHAPTER I. + +GLANCING BACKWARD. + +Though I was born in Berlin, it was also in the country. True, it was +fifty-five years ago; for my birthday was March 1, 1837, and at that time +the house--[No. 4 Thiergartenstrasse]--where I slept and played during +the first years of my childhood possessed, besides a field and a meadow, +an orchard and dense shrubbery, even a hill and a pond. Three big +horses, the property of the owner of our residence, stood in the stable, +and the lowing of a cow, usually an unfamiliar sound to Berlin children, +blended with my earliest recollections. + +The Thiergartenstrasse--along which in those days on sunny mornings, a +throng of people on foot, on horseback, and in carriages constantly moved +to and fro--ran past the front of these spacious grounds, whose rear was +bounded by a piece of water then called the "Schafgraben," and which, +spite of the duckweed that covered it with a dark-green network of +leafage, was used for boating in light skiffs. + +Now a strongly built wall of masonry lines the banks of this ditch, which +has been transformed into a deep canal bordered by the handsome houses of +the Konigin Augustastrasse, and along which pass countless heavily laden +barges called by the Berliners "Zillen." + +The land where I played in my childhood has long been occupied by the +Matthaikirche, the pretty street which bears the same name, and a portion +of Konigin Augustastrasse, but the house which we occupied and its larger +neighbour are still surrounded by a fine garden. + +This was an Eden for city children, and my mother had chosen it because +she beheld it in imagination flowing with the true Garden of Paradise +rivers of health and freedom for her little ones. + +My father died on the 14th of February, 1837, and on the 1st of March of +the same year I was born, a fortnight after the death of the man in whom +my mother was bereft of both husband and lover. So I am what is termed a +"posthumous" child. This is certainly a sorrowful fate; but though there +were many hours, especially in the later years of my life, in which I +longed for a father, it often seemed to me a noble destiny and one worthy +of the deepest gratitude to have been appointed, from the first moment of +my existence, to one of the happiest tasks, that of consolation and +cheer. + +It was to soothe a mother's heartbreak that I came in the saddest hours +of her life, and, though my locks are now grey, I have not forgotten the +joyful moments in which that dear mother hugged her fatherless little +one, and among other pet names called him her "comfort child." + +She told me also that posthumous children were always Fortune's +favorites, and in her wise, loving way strove to make me early familiar +with the thought that God always held in his special keeping those +children whose fathers he had taken before their birth. This confidence +accompanied me through all my after life. + +As I have said, it was long before I became aware that I lacked anything, +especially any blessing so great as a father's faithful love and care; +and when life showed to me also a stern face and imposed heavy burdens, +my courage was strengthened by my happy confidence that I was one of +Fortune's favorites, as others are buoyed up by their firm faith in their +"star." + +When the time at last came that I longed to express the emotions of my +soul in verse, I embodied my mother's prediction in the lines: + + The child who first beholds the light of day + After his father's eyes are closed for aye, + Fortune will guard from every threatening ill, + For God himself a father's place will fill. + +People often told me that as the youngest, the nestling, I was my +mother's "spoiled child"; but if anything spoiled me it certainly was not +that. No child ever yet received too many tokens of love from a sensible +mother; and, thank Heaven, the word applied to mine. Fate had summoned +her to be both father and mother to me and my four brothers and sisters- +one little brother, her second child, had died in infancy--and she proved +equal to the task. Everything good which was and is ours we owe to her, +and her influence over us all, and especially over me, who was afterward +permitted to live longest in close relations with her, was so great and +so decisive, that strangers would only half understand these stories of +my childhood unless I gave a fuller description of her. + +These details are intended particularly for my children, my brothers and +sisters, and the dear ones connected with our family by ties of blood and +friendship, but I see no reason for not making them also accessible to +wider circles. There has been no lack of requests from friends that I +should write them, and many of those who listen willingly when I tell +romances will doubtless also be glad to learn something concerning the +life of the fabulist, who, however, in these records intends to silence +imagination and adhere rigidly to the motto of his later life, "To be +truthful in love." + +My mother's likeness as a young woman accompanies these pages, and must +spare me the task of describing her appearance. It was copied from the +life-size portrait completed for the young husband by Schadow just prior +to his appointment as head of the Dusseldorf Academy of Art, and now in +the possession of my brother, Dr. Martin Ebers of Berlin. Unfortunately, +our copy lacks the colouring; and the dress of the original, which shows +the whole figure, confirms the experience of the error committed in +faithfully reproducing the fashion of the day in portraits intended for +future generations. It never fully satisfied me; for it very +inadequately reproduces what was especially precious to us in our mother +and lent her so great a charm--her feminine grace, and the tenderness of +heart so winningly expressed in her soft blue eyes. + +No one could help pronouncing her beautiful; but to me she was at once +the fairest and the best of women, and if I make the suffering Stephanus +in Homo Sum say, "For every child his own mother is the best mother," +mine certainly was to me. My heart rejoiced when I perceived that every +one shared this appreciation. At the time of my birth she was thirty- +five, and, as I have heard from many old acquaintances, in the full glow +of her beauty. + +My father had been one of the Berlin gentlemen to whose spirit of self- +sacrifice and taste for art the Konigstadt Theater owed its prosperity, +and was thus brought into intimate relations with Carl von Holtei, who +worked for its stage both as dramatist and actor. When, as a young +professor, I told the grey-haired author in my mother's name something +which could not fail to afford him pleasure, I received the most eager +assent to my query whether he still remembered her. "How I thank your +admirable mother for inducing you to write!" ran the letter. "Only I +must enter a protest against your first lines, suggesting that I might +have forgotten her. I forget the beautiful, gentle, clever, steadfast +woman who (to quote Shakespeare's words) 'came adorned hither like sweet +May,' and, stricken by the hardest blows so soon after her entrance into +her new life, gloriously endured every trial of fate to become the +fairest bride, the noblest wife, most admirable widow, and most faithful +mother! No, my young unknown friend, I have far too much with which to +reproach myself, have brought from the conflicts of a changeful life a +lacerated heart, but I have never reached the point where that heart +ceased to cherish Fanny Ebers among the most sacred memories of my +chequered career. How often her loved image appears before me when, in +lonely twilight hours, I recall the past!" + +Yes, Fate early afforded my mother an opportunity to test her character. +The city where shortly before my birth she became a widow was not her +native place. My father had met her in Holland, when he was scarcely +more than a beardless youth. The letter informing his relatives that +he had determined not to give up the girl his heart had chosen was not +regarded seriously in Berlin; but when the lover, with rare pertinacity, +clung to his resolve, they began to feel anxious. The eldest son of one +of the richest families in the city, a youth of nineteen, wished to bind +himself for life--and to a foreigner--a total stranger. + +My mother often told us that her father, too, refused to listen to the +young suitor, and how, during that time of conflict, while she was with +her family at Scheveningen, a travelling carriage drawn by four horses +stopped one day before her parents' unpretending house. From this coach +descended the future mother-in-law. She had come to see the paragon of +whom her son had written so enthusiastically, and to learn whether it +would be possible to yield to the youth's urgent desire to establish a +household of his own. And she did find it possible; for the girl's rare +beauty and grace speedily won the heart of the anxious woman who had +really come to separate the lovers. True, they were required to wait a +few years to test the sincerity of their affection. But it withstood the +proof, and the young man, who had been sent to Bordeaux to acquire in a +commercial house the ability to manage his father's banking business, did +not hesitate an instant when his beautiful fiancee caught the smallpox +and wrote that her smooth face would probably be disfigured by the +malignant disease, but answered that what he loved was not only her +beauty but the purity and goodness of her tender heart. + +This had been a severe test, and it was to be rewarded: not the smallest +scar remained to recall the illness. When my father at last made my +mother his wife, the burgomaster of her native city told him that he gave +to his keeping the pearl of Rotterdam. Post-horses took the young couple +in the most magnificent weather to the distant Prussian capital. It must +have been a delightful journey, but when the horses were changed in +Potsdam the bride and groom received news that the latter's father was +dead. + +So my parents entered a house of mourning. My mother at that time had +only the slight mastery of German acquired during hours of industrious +study for her future husband's sake. She did not possess in all Berlin a +single friend or relative of her own family, yet she soon felt at home in +the capital. She loved my father. Heaven gave her children, and her +rare beauty, her winning charm, and the receptivity of her mind quickly +opened all hearts to her in circles even wider than her husband's large +family connection. The latter included many households whose guests +numbered every one whose achievements in science or art, or possession of +large wealth, had rendered them prominent in Berlin, and the "beautiful +Hollander," as my mother was then called, became one of the most courted +women in society. + +Holtei had made her acquaintance at this time, and it was a delight to +hear her speak of those gay, brilliant days. How often Baron von +Humboldt, Rauch, or Schleiermacher had escorted her to dinner! Hegel +had kept a blackened coin won from her at whist. Whenever he sat down +to play cards with her he liked to draw it out, and, showing it to his +partner, say, "My thaler, fair lady." + +My mother, admired and petted, had thoroughly enjoyed the happy period of +my father's lifetime, entertaining as a hospitable hostess or visiting +friends, and she gladly recalled it. But this brilliant life, filled to +overflowing with all sorts of amusements, had been interrupted just +before my birth. + +The beloved husband had died, and the great wealth of our family, though +enough remained for comfortable maintenance, had been much diminished. + +Such changes of outward circumstances are termed reverses of fortune, +and the phrase is fitting, for by them life gains a new form. Yet real +happiness is more frequently increased than lessened, if only they do not +entail anxiety concerning daily bread. My mother's position was far +removed from this point; but she possessed qualities which would have +undoubtedly enabled her, even in far more modest circumstances, to retain +her cheerfulness and fight her way bravely with her children through +life. + +The widow resolved that her sons should make their way by their own +industry, like her brothers, who had almost all become able officials in +the Dutch colonial service. Besides, the change in her circumstances +brought her into closer relations with persons with whom by inclination +and choice she became even more intimately associated than with the +members of my father's family--I mean the clique of scholars and +government officials amid whose circle her children grew up, and whom +I shall mention later. + +Our relatives, however, even after my father's death, showed the same +regard for my mother--who on her side was sincerely attached to many of +them--and urged her to accept the hospitality of their homes. I, too, +when a child, still more in later years, owe to the Beer family many a +happy hour. My father's cousin, Moritz von Oppenfeld, whose wife was an +Ebers, was also warmly attached to us. He lived in a house which he +owned on the Pariser Platz, now occupied by the French embassy, and in +whose spacious apartments and elsewhere his kind heart and tender love +prepared countless pleasures for our young lives. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MY EARLIEST CHILDHOOD + +My father died in Leipzigerstrasse, where, two weeks after, I was born. +It is reported that I was an unusually sturdy, merry little fellow. One +of my father's relatives, Frau Mosson, said that I actually laughed on +the third day of my life, and several other proofs of my precocious +cheerfulness were related by this lady. + +So I must believe that--less wise than Lessing's son, who looked at life +and thought it would be more prudent to turn his back upon it--I greeted +with a laugh the existence which, amid beautiful days of sunshine, was to +bring me so many hours of suffering. + +Spring was close at hand; the house in noisy Leipzigerstrasse was +distasteful to my mother, her soul longed for rest, and at that time she +formed the resolutions according to which she afterward strove to train +her boys to be able men. Her first object was to obtain pure air for the +little children, and room for the larger ones to exercise. So she looked +for a residence outside the gate, and succeeded in renting for a term of +years No. 4 Thiergartenstrasse, which I have already mentioned. + +The owner, Frau Kommissionsrath Reichert, had also lost her husband a +short time before, and had determined to let the house, which stood near +her own, stand empty rather than rent it to a large family of children. + +Alone herself, she shrank from the noise of growing boys and girls. But +she had a warm, kind heart, and--she told me this herself--the sight of +the beautiful young mother in her deep mourning made her quickly forget +her prejudice. "If she had brought ten bawlers instead of five," she +remarked, "I would not have refused the house to that angel face." + +We all cherish a kindly memory of the vigorous, alert woman, with her +round, bright countenance and laughing eyes. She soon became very +intimate with my mother, and my second sister, Paula, was her special +favorite, on whom she lavished every indulgence. Her horses were the +first ones on which I was lifted, and she often took us with her in the +carriage or sent us to ride in it. + +I still remember distinctly some parts of our garden, especially the +shady avenue leading from our balcony on the ground floor to the +Schafgraben, the pond, the beautiful flower-beds in front of Frau +Reichert's stately house, and the field of potatoes where I--the gardener +was the huntsman--saw my first partridge shot. This was probably on the +very spot where for many years the notes of the organ have pealed +through the Matthaikirche, and the Word of God has been expounded to a +congregation whose residences stand on the playground of my childhood. + +The house which sheltered us was only two stories high, but pretty and +spacious. We needed abundant room, for, besides my mother, the five +children, and the female servants, accommodation was required for the +governess, and a man who held a position midway between porter and butler +and deserved the title of factotum if any one ever did. His name was +Kurschner; he was a big-boned, square-built fellow about thirty years +old, who always wore in his buttonhole the little ribbon of the order he +had gained as a soldier at the siege of Antwerp, and who had been taken +into the house by our mother for our protection, for in winter our home, +surrounded by its spacious grounds, was very lonely. + +As for us five children, first came my oldest sister Martha--now, alas! +dead--the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Curt von Brandenstein, and my +brother Martin, who were seven and five years older than I. + +They were, of course, treated differently from us younger ones. + +Paula was my senior by three years; Ludwig, or Ludo--he was called by his +nickname all his life--by a year and a half. + +Paula, a fresh, pretty, bright, daring child, was often the leader in our +games and undertakings. Ludo, who afterward became a soldier and as a +Prussian officer did good service in the war, was a gentle boy, somewhat +delicate in health--the broad-shouldered man shows no trace of it--and +the best of playfellows. We were always together, and were frequently +mistaken for twins. We shared everything, and on my birthday, gifts +were bestowed on him too; on his, upon me. + +Each had forgotten the first person singular of the personal pronoun, and +not until comparatively late in life did I learn to use "I" and "me" in +the place of "we" and "us." + +The sequence of events in this quiet country home has, of course, +vanished from my mind, and perhaps many which I mention here occurred in +Lennestrasse, where we moved later, but the memories of the time we spent +in the Thiergarten overlooked by our second home--are among the brightest +of my life. How often the lofty trees and dense shrubbery of our own +grounds and the beautiful Berlin Thiergarten rise before my mental +vision, when my thoughts turn backward and I see merry children playing +among them, and hear their joyous laughter! + + + + FAIRY TALES AND FACT. + +What happened in the holy of holies, my mother's chamber, has remained, +down to the smallest details, permanently engraved upon my soul. + +A mother's heart is like the sun--no matter how much light it diffuses, +its warmth and brilliancy never lessen; and though so lavish a flood of +tenderness was poured forth on me, the other children were no losers. +But I was the youngest, the comforter, the nestling; and never was the +fact of so much benefit to me as at that time. + +My parents' bed stood in the green room with the bright carpet. It had +been brought from Holland, and was far larger and wider than bedsteads of +the present day. My mother had kept it. A quilted silk coverlet was +spread over it, which felt exquisitely soft, and beneath which one could +rest delightfully. When the time for rising came, my mother called me. +I climbed joyfully into her warm bed, and she drew her darling into her +arms, played all sorts of pranks with him, and never did I listen to more +beautiful fairy tales than at those hours. They became instinct with +life to me, and have always remained so; for my mother gave them the form +of dramas, in which I was permitted to be an actor. + +The best one of all was Little Red Riding Hood. I played the little girl +who goes into the wood, and she was the wolf. When the wicked beast had +disguised itself in the grandmother's cap I not only asked the regulation +questions: "Grandmother, what makes you have such big eyes? Grandmother, +why is your skin so rough?" etc., but invented new ones to defer the +grand final effect, which followed the words, "Grandmother, why do you +have such big, sharp teeth?" and the answer, "So that I can eat you," +whereupon the wolf sprang on me and devoured me--with kisses. + +Another time I was Snow-White and she the wicked step-mother, and also +the hunter, the dwarf, and the handsome prince who married her. + +How real this merry sport made the distress of persecuted innocence, the +terrors and charm of the forest, the joys and splendours of the fairy +realm! If the flowers in the garden had raised their voices in song, if +the birds on the boughs had called and spoken to me--nay, if a tree had +changed into a beautiful fairy, or the toad in the damp path of our +shaded avenue into a witch--it would have seemed only natural. + +It is a singular thing that actual events which happened in those early +days have largely vanished from my memory; but the fairy tales I heard +and secretly experienced became firmly impressed on my mind. Education +and life provided for my familiarity with reality in all its harshness +and angles, its strains and hurts; but who in later years could have +flung wide the gates of the kingdom where everything is beautiful and +good, and where ugliness is as surely doomed to destruction as evil to +punishment? Even poesy in our times turns from the Castalian fount whose +crystal-clear water becomes an unclean pool and, though reluctantly, +obeys the impulse to make its abode in the dust of reality. Therefore I +plead with voice and pen in behalf of fairy tales; therefore I tell them +to my children and grandchildren, and have even written a volume of them +myself. + +How perverse and unjust it is to banish the fairy tale from the life of +the child, because devotion to its charm might prove detrimental to the +grown person! Has not the former the same claim to consideration as the +latter? + +Every child is entitled to expect a different treatment and judgment, +and to receive what is his due undiminished. Therefore it is unjust to +injure and rob the child for the benefit of the man. Are we even sure +that the boy is destined to attain the second and third stages--youth and +manhood? + +True, there are some apostles of caution who deny themselves every joy of +existence while in their prime, in order, when their locks are grey, to +possess wealth which frequently benefits only their heirs. + +All sensible mothers will doubtless, like ours, take care that their +children do not believe the stories which they tell them to be true. I +do not remember any time when, if my mind had been called upon to decide, +I should have thought that anything I invented myself had really +happened; but I know that we were often unable to distinguish whether the +plausible tale related by some one else belonged to the realm of fact or +fiction. On such occasions we appealed to my mother, and her answer +instantly set all doubts at rest; for we thought she could never be +mistaken, and knew that she always told the truth. + +As to the stories invented by myself, I fared like other imaginative +children. I could imagine the most marvellous things about every member +of the household, and while telling them--but only during that time--I +often fancied that they were true; yet the moment I was asked whether +these things had actually occurred, it seemed as if I woke from a dream. +I at once separated what I had imagined from what I had actually +experienced, and it would never have occurred to me to persist against my +better knowledge. So the vividly awakened power of imagination led +neither me, my brothers and sisters, nor my children and grandchildren +into falsehood. + +In after years I abhorred it, not only because my mother would rather +have permitted any other offence to pass unpunished, but because I had an +opportunity of perceiving its ugliness very early in life. When only +seven or eight years old I heard a boy--I still remember his name--tell +his mother a shameless lie about some prank in which I had shared. I did +not interrupt him to vindicate the truth, but I shrank in horror with the +feeling of having witnessed a crime. + +If Ludo and I, even in the most critical situations, adhered to the truth +more rigidly than other boys, we "little ones" owe it especially to our +sister Paula, who was always a fanatic in its cause, and even now endures +many an annoyance because she scorns the trivial "necessary fibs" deemed +allowable by society. + +True, the interesting question of how far necessary fibs are justifiable +among children, is yet to be considered; but what did we know of such +necessity in our sports in the Thiergarten? From what could a lie have +saved us except a blow from a beloved mother's little hand, which, it is +true, when any special misdeed was punished by a box on the ear, could +inflict a tolerable amount of pain by means of the rings which adorned +it. + +There is a tradition that once when she had slapped Paula's pretty face, +the odd child rubbed her cheek and said, with the droll calmness that +rarely deserted her, "When you want to strike me again, mother, please +take off your rings first." + + + + + THE GOVERNESS--THE CEMETERY. + +During the time we lived in the Thiergarten my mother's hand scarcely +ever touched my face except in a caress. Every memory of her is bright +and beautiful. I distinctly remember how merrily she jested and played +with us, and from my earliest recollections her beloved face always +greets me cheerily. Yet she had moved to the Thiergarten with a heart +oppressed by the deepest sorrow. + +I know from the woman who accompanied her there as the governess of the +two eldest children, and became a faithful friend, how deeply she needed +consolation, how completely her feelings harmonized with the widow's +weeds she wore, and in which she is said to have been so beautiful. + +The name of this rare woman was Bernhardine Kron. A native of +Mecklenburg, she united to rich and wide culture the sterling character, +warmth of feeling, and fidelity of this sturdy and sympathetic branch of +the German nation. She soon became deeply attached to the young widow, +to whose children she was to devote her best powers, and, in after years, +her eyes often grew dim when she spoke of the time during which she +shared our mother's grief and helped her in her work of education. + +Both liked to recall in later days the quiet evenings when, after the +rest of the household had retired, they read alone or discussed what +stirred their hearts. Each gave the other what she could. The German +governess went through our classic authors with her employer, and my +mother read to her the works of Racine and Corneille, and urged her to +speak French and English with her; for, like many natives of Holland, her +mastery of both languages was as thorough as if she had grown up in Paris +or London. The necessity of studying and sharing her own rich +intellectual possessions continued to be a marked trait in my mother's +character until late in life, and how much cause for gratitude we all +have for the share she gave us of her own knowledge and experience! + +Fraulein Kron always deeply appreciated the intellectual development she +owed to her employer, while the latter never forgot the comfort and +support bestowed by the faithful governess in the most sorrowful days of +her life. When I first became conscious of my surroundings, these days +were over; but in saying that my first recollections of my mother were +bright and cheerful, I forgot the hours devoted to my father's memory. +She rarely brought them to our notice; a certain chaste reserve, even +later in life, prevented her showing her deepest grief to others. She +always strove to cope with her sorest trials alone. Her sunny nature +shrank from diffusing shadow and darkness around her. + +On the 14th of February, the anniversary of my father's death, wherever +she might be, she always withdrew from the members of the household, and +even her own children. A second occasion of sharing her sorrowful +emotion was repeated several times every summer. This was the visit to +the cemetery, which she rarely made alone. + +The visits impressed us all strongly, and the one I first remember could +not have occurred later than my fifth year, for I distinctly recollect +that Frau Rapp's horses took us to the churchyard. My father was buried +in the Dreifaltigkeitskirchhof,--[Trinity churchyard]--just outside the +Halle Gate. I found it so little changed when I entered it again, two +years ago, that I could walk without a guide directly to the Ebers family +vault. But what a transformation had taken place in the way! + +When we visited it with my mother, which was always in carriages, for it +was a long distance from our home, we drove quickly through the city, the +gate, and as far as the spot where I found the stately pile of the brick +Kreuzkirche; then we turned to the right, and if we had come in cabs we +children got out, it was so hard for the horses to drag the vehicles over +the sandy road which led to the cemetery. + +During this walk we gathered blue cornflowers and scarlet poppies from +the fields, bluebells, daisies, ranunculus, and snapdragon from the +narrow border of turf along the roadside, and tied them into bouquets for +the graves. My mother moved silently with us between the rows of grassy +mounds, tombstones, and crosses, while we carried the pots of flowers and +wreaths, which, to afford every one the pleasure of helping, she had +distributed among us at the gravedigger's house, just back of the +cemetery. + +Our family burial place--my mother's stone cross now stands there beside +my father's--was one of those bounded in the rear by the church yard +wall; a marble slab set in the masonry bears the owner's name. It is +large enough for us all, and lies at the right of the path between Count +Kalckreuth's and the stately mausoleum which contains the earthly remains +of Moritz von Oppenfeld--who was by far the dearest of our father's +relatives--and his family. + +My mother led the way into the small enclosure, which was surrounded by +an iron railing, and prayed or thought silently of the beloved dead who +rested there. + +Is there any way for us Protestants, when love for the dead longs to find +expression in action, except to adorn with flowers the places which +contain their earthly remains? Their bright hues and a child's beaming +face are the only cheerful things which a mourner whose wounds are still +bleeding freshly beside a coffin can endure to see, and I might compare +flowers to the sound of bells. Both are in place and welcome in the +supreme moments of life. + +Therefore my mother, besides a heart full of love, always brought to my +father's grave children and flowers. When she had satisfied the needs of +her own soul, she turned to us, and with cheerful composure directed the +decoration of the mound. Then she spoke of our father, and if any of us +had recently incurred punishment--one instance of this kind is indelibly +impressed on my memory--she passed her arms around the child, and in +whispered words, which no one else could hear, entreated the son or +daughter not to grieve her so again, but to remember the dead. Such an +admonition on this spot could not fail to produce its effect, and brought +forgiveness with it. + +On our return our hands and hearts were free again, and we were at +liberty to use our tongues. During these visits my interest in +Schleiermacher was awakened, for his grave--he died in 1834, three years +before I was born--lay near our lot, and we often stopped before the +stone erected by his friends, grateful pupils, and admirers. It was +adorned with his likeness in marble; and my mother, who had frequently +met him, pausing in front of it, told us about the keen-sighted +theologian, philosopher, and pulpit orator, whose teachings, as I was to +learn later, had exerted the most powerful influence upon my principal +instructors at Keilhau. She also knew his best enigmas; and the +following one, whose terse brevity is unsurpassed: + + "Parted I am sacred, + United abominable"-- + +she had heard him propound himself. The answer, "Mein eid" (my oath), +and "Meineid" (perjury), every one knows. + +Nothing was further from my mother's intention than to make these visits +to the cemetery special memorial days; on the contrary, they were inter- +woven into our lives, not set at regular intervals or on certain dates, +but when her heart prompted and the weather was favourable for out-of- +door excursions. Therefore they became associated in our minds with +happy and sacred memories. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ON FESTAL DAYS + +The celebration of a memorial day by outward forms was one of my mother's +customs; for, spite of her sincerity of feeling, she favoured external +ceremonies, and tried when we were very young to awaken a sense of their +meaning in our minds. + +On all festal occasions we children were freshly dressed from top to toe, +and all of us, including the servants, had cakes at breakfast, and the +older ones wine at dinner. + +On the birthdays these cakes were surrounded by as many candles as we +numbered years, and provision was always made for a dainty arrangement of +gifts. While we were young, my mother distinguished the "birthday child" +--probably in accordance with some custom of her native country--by a +silk scarf. She liked to celebrate her own birthday, too, and ever since +I can remember--it was on the 25th of July--we had a picnic at that time. + +We knew that it was a pleasure to her to see us at her table on that day, +and, up to the last years of her life, all whose vocations permitted met +at her house on the anniversary. + +She went to church on Sunday, and on Good Friday she insisted that my +sisters as well as her self should wear black, not only during the +service, but throughout the rest of the day. + +Few children enjoyed a more beautiful Christmas than ours, for under the +tree adorned with special love each found the desire of his or her heart +gratified, while behind the family gift-table there always stood another, +on which several poorer people whom I might call "clients" of the +household, discovered presents which suited their needs. Among them, up +to the time I went as a boy of eleven to Keilhau, I never failed to see +my oldest sister's nurse with her worthy husband, the shoemaker Grossman, +and their well-behaved children. She gladly permitted us to share in the +distribution of the alms liberally bestowed on the needy. The seeming +paradox, "No one ever grew poor by giving," I first heard from her lips, +and she more than once found an opportunity to repeat it. + +We, however, never valued her gifts of money so highly as the trouble and +inconveniences she cheerfully encountered to aid or add to the happiness +of others by means of the numerous relations formed in her social life +and the influence gained mainly by her own gracious nature. Many who are +now occupying influential positions owe their first start or have had the +path smoothed for them by her kindness. + +As in many Berlin families, the Christmas Man came to us--an old man +disguised by a big beard and provided with a bag filled with nuts and +bonbons and sometimes trifling gifts. He addressed us in a feigned +voice, saying that the Christ Child had sent him, but the dainties he had +were intended only for the good children who could recite some thing for +him. Of course, provision for doing this had been made. Everybody +pressed forward, but the Christmas Man kept order, and only when each had +repeated a little verse did he open the bag and distribute its contents +among us. + +Usually the Christmas Man brought a companion, who followed him in the +guise of Knecht Ruprecht with his own bag of presents, and mingled with +his jests threats against naughty children. + +The carp served on Christmas eve in every Berlin family, after the +distribution of gifts, and which were never absent from my mother's +table, I have always had on my own in Jena, Leipsic, and Munich, or +wherever the evening of December 24th might find us. On the whole, we +remain faithful to the Christmas customs of my own home, which vary +little from those of the Germans in Riga, where my wife's family belong; +nay, it is so hard for me to relinquish such childish habits, that, when +unable to procure a Christmas tree for the two "Eves" I spent on the +Nile, I decked a young palm and fastened candles on it. My mother's +permission that Knecht Ruprecht should visit us was contrary to her +principle never to allow us to be frightened by images of horror. Nay, +if she heard that the servants threatened us with the Black Man and other +hobgoblins of Berlin nursery tales, she was always very angry. The +arguments by which my wife induced me to banish the Christmas Man and +Knecht Ruprecht seem still more cogent, now that I think I understand the +hearts of children. It is certainly far more beautiful and just as easy- +if we desire to utilize Christmas gifts for educational purposes--to +stimulate children to goodness by telling them of the pleasure it will +give the little Christ Child, rather than by filling them with dread of +Knecht Ruprecht. + +True, my mother did not fail to endeavor to inspire us with love for the +Christ Child and the Saviour, and to draw us near to him. She saw in +him, above all else, the embodiment of love, and loved him because her +loving heart understood his. In after years my own investigation and +thought brought me to the same conviction which she had reached through +the relation of her feminine nature to the person and teachings of her +Saviour. I perceived that the world as Jesus Christ found it owes him +nothing grander, more beautiful, loftier, or more pregnant with +importance than that he widened the circle of love which embraced only +the individual, the family, the city, or, at the utmost, the country of +which a person was a citizen, till it included all mankind, and this +human love, of which my mother's life gave us practical proof, is the +banner under which all the genuine progress of mankind in later years +has been made. + +Nineteen centuries have passed since the one that gave us Him who died on +the cross, and how far we are still from a perfect realization of this +noblest of all the emotions of the heart and spirit! And yet, on the day +when this human love has full sway, the social problems which now disturb +so many minds and will permit the brains of our best citizens to take no +rest, will be solved. + + + + + OTHER OBLIGATIONS TO MY MOTHER, AND A SUMMARY OF THE NEW + AND GREAT EVENTS WHICH BEFELL THE GERMANS DURING MY LIFE. + +I omit saying more of my mother's religious feelings and relations to +God, because I know that it would be contrary to her wishes to inform +strangers of the glimpse she afterward afforded me of the inmost depths +of her soul. + +That, like every other mother, she clasped our little hands in prayer is +a matter of course. I could not fall asleep until she had done this and +given me my good-night kiss. How often I have dreamed of her when, +before going to some entertainment, she came in full evening dress to +hear me repeat my little prayer and bid us good-bye! + +But she also provided most carefully for the outward life; nay, perhaps +she laid a little too much stress upon our manners in greeting strangers, +at table, and elsewhere. + +Among these forms I might number the fluent use of the French language, +which my mother early bestowed upon us as if its acquisition was mere +sport-bestowed; for, unhappily, I know of no German grammar school where +pupils can learn to speak French with facility; and how many never-to-be- +forgotten memories of travel, what great benefits during my period of +study in Paris I owe to this capacity! We obtained it by the help of +bonnes, who found it easier to speak French to us because our mother +always did the same in their presence. + +My mother considered it of the first importance to make us familiar with +French at a very early age, because, when she reached Berlin with a +scanty knowledge of German, her mastery of French secured numerous +pleasant things. She often told us how highly French was valued in the +capital, and we must believe that the language possesses an imperishable +charm for Germans when we remember that this was the case so shortly +after the glorious uprising against the terrible despotism of France. +True, French, in addition to its melody and ambiguity, possesses more +subtle turns and apt phrases than most other languages; and even the most +German of Germans, our Bismarck, must recognize the fitness of its +phrases, because he likes to avail himself of them. He has a perfect +knowledge of French, and I have noticed that, whenever he mingles it with +German, the former has some sentence which enables him to communicate in +better and briefer language whatever he may desire to express. What +German form of speech, for instance, can convey the idea of fulness which +will permit no addition so well as the French popular saying, "Full as an +egg," which pleased me in its native land, and which first greeted me in +Germany as an expression used by the great chancellor? + +My mother's solicitude concerning good manners and perfection in speaking +French, which so easily renders children mere dolls, fortunately could +not deprive us of our natural freshness and freedom from constraint. +But if any peril to the character does lurk in being unduly mindful of +external forms, we three brothers were destined to spend a large portion +of our boyhood amid surroundings which, as it were, led us back to +Nature. Besides, even in Berlin we were not forbidden to play like +genuine boys. We had no lack of playmates of both sexes, and with them +we certainly talked and shouted no French, but sturdy Berlin German. + +In winter, too, we were permitted to enjoy ourselves out of doors, and +few boys made handsomer snow-men than those our worthy Kurschner--always +with the order in his buttonhole--helped us build in Thiergartenstrasse. + +In the house we were obliged to behave courteously, and when I recall the +appearance of things there I become vividly aware that no series of years +witnessed more decisive changes in every department of life in Germany +than those of my boyhood. The furnishing of the rooms differed little +from that of the present day, except that the chairs and tables were +somewhat more angular and the cushions less comfortable. Instead of the +little knobs of the electric bells, a so-called "bell-rope," about the +width of one's hand, provided with a brass or metal handle, hung beside +the doors. + +The first introduction of gas into the city was made by an English +company about ten years before my birth; but how many oil lamps I still +saw burning, and in my school days the manufacturing city of Kottbus, +which at that time contained about ten thousand inhabitants, was lighted +by them! In my childhood gas was not used in the houses and theatres of +Berlin, and kerosene had not found its way to Germany. The rooms were +lighted by oil lamps and candles, while the servants burned tallow-dips. +The latter were also used in our nursery, and during the years which I +spent at school in Keilhau all our studying was done by them. + +Matches were not known. I still remember the tinder box in the kitchen, +the steel, the flint, and the threads dipped in sulphur. The sparks made +by striking fell on the tinder and caught it on fire here and there. +Soon after the long, rough lucifer matches appeared, which were dipped +into a little bottle filled, I believe, with asbestos wet with sulphuric +acid. + +We never saw the gardener light his pipe except with flint, steel, and +tinder. The gun he used had a firelock, and when he had put first +powder, then a wad, then shot, and lastly another wad into the barrel, he +was obliged to shake some powder into the pan, which was lighted by the +sparks from the flint striking the steel, if the rain did not make it too +damp. + +For writing we used exclusively goose-quills, for though steel pens were +invented soon after I was born, they were probably very imperfect; and, +moreover, had to combat a violent prejudice, for at the first school we +attended we were strictly forbidden to use them. So the penknife played +an important part on every writing-desk, and it was impossible to imagine +a good penman who did not possess skill in the art of shaping the quills. + +What has been accomplished between 1837 and the present date in the way +of means of communication I need not recapitulate. I only know how long +a time was required for a letter from my mother's brothers--one was a +resident of Java and the other lived as "Opperhoofd" in Japan--to reach +Berlin, and how often an opportunity was used, generally through the +courtesy of the Netherland embassy, for sending letters or little gifts +to Holland. A letter forwarded by express was the swiftest way of +receiving or giving news; but there was the signal telegraph, whose arms +we often saw moving up and down, but exclusively in the service of the +Government. When, a few years ago, my mother was ill in Holland, a reply +to a telegram marked "urgent" was received in Leipsic in eighteen +minutes. What would our grandparents have said to such a miracle? + +We were soon to learn by experience the number of days required to reach +my mother's home from Berlin, for there was then no railroad to Holland. + +The remarkable changes wrought during my lifetime in the political +affairs of Germany I can merely indicate here. I was born in despotic +Prussia, which was united to Austria and the German states and small +countries by a loosely formed league. As guardians of this wretched +unity the various courts sent diplomats to Frankfort, who interrupted +their careless mode of life only to sharpen distrust of other courts or +suppress some democratic movement. + +The Prussian nation first obtained in 1848 the liberties which had been +secured at an earlier date by the other German states, and nothing gives +me more cause for gratitude than the boon of being permitted to see the +realization and fulfilment of the dream of so many former generations, +and my dismembered native land united into one grand, beautiful whole. I +deem it a great happiness to have been a contemporary of Emperor William +I, Bismarck, and Von Moltke, witnessed their great deeds as a man of +mature years, and shared the enthusiasm they evoked and which enabled +these men to make our German Fatherland the powerful, united empire it +is to-day. + +The journey to Holland closes the first part of my childhood. I look +back upon it as a beautiful, unshadowed dream out of doors or in a +pleasant house where everybody loved me. But I could not single out the +years, months, or days of this retrospect. It is only a smooth stream +which bears us easily along. There is no series of events, only +disconnected images--a faithful dog, a picture on the wall, above all the +love and caresses of the mother lavished specially on me as the youngest, +and the most blissful of all sounds in the life of a German child, the +ringing of the little bell announcing that the Christmas tree is ready. + +Only in after days, when the world of fairyland and legend is left +behind, does the child have any idea of consecutive events and human +destinies. The stories told by mother and grandmother about Snow-White, +the Sleeping Beauty, the giants and the dwarfs, Cinderella, the stable at +Bethlehem where the Christ-Child lay in the manger beside the oxen and +asses, the angels who appeared to the shepherds singing "Glory to God in +the Highest," the three kings and the star which led them to the Christ- +Child, are firmly impressed on his memory. I don't know how young I was +when I saw the first picture of the kings in their purple robes kneeling +before the babe in its mother's lap, but its forms and hues were +indelibly stamped upon my mental vision, and I never forgot its meaning. +True, I had no special thoughts concerning it; nay, I scarcely wondered +to see kings in the dust before a child, and now, when I hear the summons +of the purest and noblest of Beings, "Suffer little children to come unto +me," and understand the sacred simplicity of a child's heart, it no +longer awakens surprise. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE JOURNEY TO HOLLAND TO ATTEND THE GOLDEN WEDDING. + +The rattle of wheels and the blast of the postilion's horn closed the +first period of my childhood. When I was four years old we went to my +mother's home to attend my grandparents' golden wedding. If I wished to +describe the journey in its regular order I should be forced to depend +upon the statements of others. So little of all which grown people +deem worth seeing and noting in Belgium, Holland, and on the Rhine has +remained in my memory, that I cannot help smiling when I hear people say +that they intend to take children travelling for their amusement and +instruction. In our case we were put in the carriage because my mother +would not leave us behind, and wanted to give our grandparents pleasure +by our presence. She was right, but in spite of my inborn love of travel +the month we spent on the journey seemed a period of very uncomfortable +restlessness. A child realizes only a single detail of beauty--a flower, +a radiant star, a human face. Any individual recollection of the journey +to Holland, aside from what has been told me, is getting into the +travelling carriage, a little green leather Bajazzo dressed in red and +white given to me by a relative, and the box of candies bestowed to take +on the trip by a friend of my mother. + +Of our reception in the Belgian capital at the house of Adolphe Jones, +the husband of my aunt Henriette, a sister of my mother, I retain many +recollections. + +Our pleasant host was a painter of animals, whom I afterward saw sharing +his friend Verboeckhoven's studio, and whose flocks of sheep were very +highly praised. At that time his studio was in his own house, and it +seems as if I could still hear the call in my aunt's shrill voice, +repeated countless times a day, "Adolphe!" and the answer, following +promptly in the deepest bass tones, "Henriette!" This singular freak, +which greatly amused us, was due, as I learned afterward, to my aunt's +jealousy, which almost bordered on insanity. + +In later years I learned to know him as a jovial artist, who in the days +of his youth very possibly might have given the strait-laced lady cause +for anxiety. Even when his locks were white he was ready for any +pleasure; but he devoted himself earnestly to art, and I am under +obligation to him for being the means of my mother's possessing the +friendship of the animal painter, Verboeckhoven, and that greatest of +more modern Belgian artists, Louis Gallait and his family, in whose +society and home I have passed many delightful hours. + +In recalling our arrival at the Jones house I first see the merry, +smiling face--somewhat faunlike in its expression--of my six-foot uncle, +and the plump figure of his wonderfully good and when undisturbed by +jealousy--no less cheery wife. There was something specially winning and +lovable about her, and I have heard that this lady, my mother's oldest +sister, possessed in her youth the same dazzling beauty. At the famous +ball in Brussels this so captivated the Duke of Wellington that he +offered her his arm to escort her back to her seat. My mother also +remembered the Napoleonic days, and I thought she had been specially +favoured in seeing this great man when he entered Rotterdam, and also +Goethe. + +I remember my grandfather as a stately old gentleman. He, as well as +the other members of the family, called me Georg Krullebol, which means +curly-head, to distinguish me from a cousin called Georg von Gent. I +also remember that when, on the morning of December 5th, St. Nicholas +day, we children took our shoes to put on, we found them, to our delight, +stuffed with gifts; and lastly that on Christmas Eve the tree which had +been prepared for us in a room on the ground floor attracted such a crowd +of curious spectators in front of the Jones house that we were obliged to +close the shutters. Of my grandparents' day of honor I remember nothing +except a large room filled with people, and the minutes during which +I repeated my little verse. I can still see myself in a short pink +skirt, with a wreath of roses on my fair curls, wings on my shoulders, a +quiver on my back, and a bow in my hand, standing before the mirror very +much pleased with my appearance. Our governess had composed little +Cupid's speech, my mother had drilled me thoroughly in it, so I do not +remember a moment of anxiety and embarrassment, but merely that it +afforded me the purest, deepest pleasure to be permitted to do something. + +I must have behaved with the utmost ease before the spectators, many of +whom I knew, for I can still hear the loud applause which greeted me, and +see myself passed from one to another till I fled from the kisses and pet +names of grandparents, aunts, and cousins to my mother's lap. Of the +bride and groom of this golden wedding I remember only that my +grandfather wore short trousers called 'escarpins' and stockings reaching +to the knee. My grandmother, spite of her sixty-six years--she married +before she was seventeen--was said to look remarkably pretty. Later I +often saw the heavy white silk dress strewn with tiny bouquets which she +wore as a bride and again remodelled at her silver wedding; for after her +death it was left to my mother. Modern wedding gowns are not treasured +so long. I have often wondered why I recollect my grandfather so +distinctly and my grandmother so dimly. I have a clear idea of her +personal appearance, but this I believe I owe much more to her portrait +which hung in my mother's room beside her husband's, and is now one of my +own most cherished possessions. Bradley, one of the best English +portrait painters, executed it, and all connoisseurs pronounce it a +masterpiece. + +This festival lives in my memory like the fresh spring morning of a day +whose noon is darkened by clouds, and which ends in a heavy thunderstorm. + +Black clouds had gathered over the house adorned with garlands and +flowers, echoing for days with the gay conversations, jests, and +congratulations of the relatives united after long separation and the +mirth of children and grandchildren. Not a loud word was permitted to be +uttered. We felt that something terrible was impending, and people +called it grandfather's illness. Never had I seen my mother's sunny face +so anxious and sad. She rarely came to us, and when she did for a short +time her thoughts were far away, for she was nursing her father. + +Then the day which had been dreaded came. Wherever we looked the women +were weeping and the eyes of the men were reddened by tears. My mother, +pale and sorrowful, told us that our dear grandfather was dead. + +Children cannot understand the terrible solemnity of death. This is a +gift bestowed by their guardian angels, that no gloomy shadows may darken +the sunny brightness of their souls. + +I saw only that cheerful faces were changed to sad ones, that the figures +about us moved silently in sable robes and scarcely noticed us. On the +tables in the nursery, where our holiday garments were made, black +clothes were being cut for us also, and I remember having my mourning +dress fitted. I was pleased because it was a new one. I tried to +manufacture a suit for my Berlin Jack-in-the-box from the scraps that +fell from the dressmaker's table. Nothing amuses a child so much as to +imitate what older people are doing. We were forbidden to laugh, but +after a few days our mother no longer checked our mirth. Of our stay at +Scheveningen I recollect nothing except that the paths in the little +garden of the house we occupied were strewn with shells. We dug a big +hole in the sand on the downs, but I retained no remembrance of the sea +and its majesty, and when I beheld it in later years it seemed as if I +were greeting for the first time the eternal Thalassa which was to become +so dear and familiar to me. + +My grandmother, I learned, passed away scarcely a year after the death of +her faithful companion, at the home of her son, a lawyer in The Hague. + +Two incidents of the journey back are vividly impressed on my mind. We +went by steamer up the Rhine, and stopped at Ehrenbreitstein to visit old +Frau Mendelssohn, our guardian's mother, at her estate of Horchheim. The +carriage had been sent for us, and on the drive the spirited horses ran +away and would have dashed into the Rhine had not my brother Martin, at +that time eleven years old, who was sitting on the box by the coachman, +saved us. + +The other incident is of a less serious nature. I had seen many a salmon +in the kitchen, and resolved to fish for one from the steamer; so I tied +a bit of candy to a string and dropped it from the deck. The fish were +so wanting in taste as to disdain the sweet bait, but my early awakened +love of sport kept me patiently a long time in the same spot, which was +undoubtedly more agreeable to my mother than the bait was to the salmon. +As, protected by the guards, and probably watched by the governess and my +brothers and sisters, I devoted myself to this amusement, my mother went +down into the cabin to rest. Suddenly there was a loud uproar on the +ship. People shouted and screamed, everybody rushed on deck and looked +into the river. Whether I, too, heard the fall and saw the life-boat +manned I don't remember; but I recollect all the more clearly my mother's +rushing frantically from the cabin and clasping me tenderly to her heart +as her rescued child. So the drama ended happily, but there had been a +terrible scene. + +Among the steamer's passengers was a crazy Englishman who was being +taken, under the charge of a keeper, to an insane asylum. While my +mother was asleep the lunatic succeeded in eluding this man's vigilance +and plunged into the river. Of course, there was a tumult on board, and +my mother heard cries of "Fallen into the river!" + +"Save!" "He'll drown!" Maternal anxiety instantly applied them to the +child-angler, and she darted up the cabin stairs. I need not describe +the state of mind in which she reached the deck, and her emotion when she +found her nestling in his place, still holding the line in his hand. + +As the luckless son of Albion was rescued unharmed, we could look back +upon the incident gaily, but neither of us forgot this anxiety--the first +I was to cause my mother. + +I have forgotten everything else that happened on our way home; but when +I think of this first journey, a long one for so young a child, and the +many little trips--usually to Dresden, where my grandmother Ebers lived-- +which I was permitted to take, I wonder whether they inspired the love of +travel which moved me so strongly later, or whether it was an inborn +instinct. If a popular superstition is correct, I was predestined to +journey. No less a personage than Friedrich Froebel, the founder of the +kindergarten system, called my attention to it; for when I met him for +the first time in the Institute at Keilhau, he seized my curly hair, bent +my head back, gazed at me with his kind yet penetrating eyes, and said: +"You will wander far through the world, my boy; your teeth are wide +apart." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +LENNESTRASSE.--LENNE.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS. + +Lennestrasse is the scene of the period of my life which began with my +return from Holland. If, coming from the Brandenburg Gate, you follow +the Thiergarten and pass the superb statue of Goethe, you will reach a +corner formed by two blocks of houses. The one on the left, opposite to +the city wall, now called Koniggratz, was then known as +Schulgartenstrasse. The other, on the right, whose windows overlooked +the Thiergarten, bore the name in my childhood of Lennestrasse, which it +owed to Lenne, the park superintendent, a man of great talent, but who +lives in my memory only as a particularly jovial old gentleman. He +occupied No. 1, and was one of my mother's friends. Next to Prince +Packler, he may certainly be regarded as one of the most inventive and +tasteful landscape gardeners of his time. He transformed the gardens of +Sans-Souci and the Pfaueninsel at Potsdam, and laid out the magnificent +park on Babelsberg for Emperor William I, when he was only "Prince of +Prussia." The magnificent Zoological Garden in Berlin is also his work; +but he prided himself most on rendering the Thiergarten a "lung" for the +people, and, spite of many obstacles, materially enlarging it. Every +moment of the tireless man's time was claimed, and besides King Frederick +William IV, who himself uttered many a tolerably good joke, found much +pleasure in the society of the gay, clever Rhinelander, whom he often +summoned to dine with him at Potsdam. Lenne undoubtedly appreciated this +honour, yet I remember the doleful tone in which he sometimes greeted my +mother with, "Called to court again!" + +Like every one who loves Nature and flowers, he was fond of children. +We called him "Uncle Lenne," and often walked down our street hand in +hand with him. + +It is well known that the part of the city on the other side of the +Potsdam Gate was called the "Geheimerath-Quarter." Our street, it is +true, lay nearer to the Brandenburg Gate, yet it really belonged to that +section; for there was not a single house without at least one +Geheimerath (Privy Councillor). + +Yet this superabundance of men in "secret" positions lent no touch of +mystery to our cheerful street, shaded by the green of the forest. +Franker, gayer, sometimes noisier children than its residents could not +be found in Berlin. I was only a little fellow when we lived there, and +merely tolerated in the "big boys'" sports, but it was a festival when, +with Ludo, I could carry their provisions for them or even help them make +fireworks. The old Rechnungsrath, who lived in the house owned by +Geheimerath Crede, the father of my Leipsic colleague, was their +instructor in this art, which was to prove disastrous to my oldest +brother and bright Paul Seiffart; for--may they pardon me the treachery-- +they took one of the fireworks to school, where--I hope accidentally--it +went off. At first this caused much amusement, but strict judgment +followed, and led to my mother's resolution to send her oldest son away +from home to some educational institution. + +The well-known teacher, Adolph Diesterweg, whose acquaintance she had +made at the house of a friend, recommended Keilhau, and so our little +band was deprived of the leader to whom Ludo and I had looked up with a +certain degree of reverence on account of his superior strength, his bold +spirit of enterprise, and his kindly condescension to us younger ones. + +After his departure the house was much quieter, but we did not forget +him; his letters from Keilhau were read aloud to us, and his descriptions +of the merry school days, the pedestrian tours, and sleigh-rides awakened +an ardent longing in Ludo and myself to follow him. + +Yet it was so delightful with my mother, the sun around which our little +lives revolved! I had no thought, performed no act, without wondering +what would be her opinion of it; and this intimate relation, though in an +altered form, continued until her death. In looking backward I may +regard it as a law of my whole development that my conduct was regulated +according to the more or less close mental and outward connection in +which I stood with her. The storm and stress period, during which my +effervescent youthful spirits led me into all sorts of follies, was the +only time in my life in which this close connection threatened to be +loosened. Yet Fate provided that it should soon be welded more firmly +than ever. When she died, a beloved wife stood by my side, but she was +part of myself; and in my mother Fate seemed to have robbed me of the +supreme arbitrator, the high court of justice, which alone could judge my +acts. + +In Lennestrasse it was still she who waked me, prepared us to go to +school, took us to walk, and--how could I ever forget it?--gathered us +around her "when the lamps were lighted," to read aloud or tell us some +story. But nobody was allowed to be perfectly idle. While my sisters +sewed, I sketched; and, as Ludo found no pleasure in that, she sometimes +had him cut figures out; sometimes--an odd fancy--execute a masterpiece +of crocheting, which usually shared the fate of Penelope's web. + +We listened with glowing cheeks to Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian +Nights, Gulliver's Travels and Don Quixote, both arranged for children, +the pretty, stories of Nieritz and others, descriptions of Nature and +travel, and Grimm's fairy tales. + +On other winter evenings my mother--this will surprise many in the case +of so sensible a woman--took us to the theatre. Two of our relatives, +Frau Amalie Beer and our beloved Moritz von Oppenfeld, subscribed for +boxes in the opera-house, and when they did not use them, which often +happened, sent us the key. + +So as a boy I heard most of the operas produced at that time, and I saw +the ballets, of which Frederick William IV was especially fond, and which +Taglioni understood how to arrange so admirably. + +Of course, to us children the comic "Robert and Bertram," by Ludwig +Schneider, and similar plays, were far more delightful than the grand +operas; yet even now I wonder that Don Giovanni's scene with the statue +and the conspiracy in the Huguenots stirred me, when a boy of nine or +ten, so deeply, and that, though possessing barely the average amount of +musical talent, Orpheus's yearning cry, "Eurydice!" rang in my ears so +long. + +That these frequently repeated pleasures were harmful to us children I +willingly admit. And yet--when in after years I was told that I +succeeded admirably in describing large bodies of men seized by some +strong excitement, and that my novels did not lack dramatic movement or +their scenes vividness, and, where it was requisite, splendour--I perhaps +owe this to the superb pictures, interwoven with thrilling bursts of +melody, which impressed themselves upon my soul when a child. + +Fortunately, the outdoor life at Keilhau counteracted the perils which +might have arisen from attending theatrical performances too young. What +I beheld there, in field and forest, enabled me in after life, when I +desired a background for my stories, not to paint stage scenes, but take +Nature herself for a model. + +I must also record another influence which had its share in my creative +toil--my early intercourse with artists and the opportunity of seeing +their work. + +The statement has been made often enough, but I should like to repeat it +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 + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY OF MY LIFE, BY EBERS, V1 *** + +********** This file should be named 5593.txt or 5593.zip ********* + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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