The atmosphere of Quedlinburg was far different from that of the Mark
factory town of Kottbus. How fresh, how healthful, how stimulating to
industry and out-door exercise it was!
Everything in the senior class was just as it should be.
In Kottbus the pupils addressed each other formally. There were at the
utmost, I think, not more than half a dozen with whom I was on terms of
intimacy. In Quedlinburg a beautiful relation of comradeship united all
the members of the school. During study hours we were serious, but in
the intervals we were merry enough.
Its head, Professor Richter, the learned editor of the fragments of
Sappho, did not equal Tzschirner in keenness of intellect and bewitching
powers of description, yet we gladly followed the worthy man’s
interpretations.
Many a leisure day and hour we spent in the beautiful Hartz Mountains.
But, best of all, was my home in Quedlinburg, the house of my tutor,
Professor Adalbert Schmidt, an admirable man of forty, who seemed
extremely gentle and yielding, but when necessary could be very
peremptory, and allowed those under his charge to make no trespass on
his authority.
His wife was a model of amiable, almost timid womanliness. Her
sister-in-law, the widow of a magistrate, Frau Pauline Schmidt, shared
the care of the pupils and the beautiful, large garden; while her
pretty, bright young sons and daughters increased the charm of the
intercourse.
How pleasant were the evenings we spent in the family circle! We read,
talked, played, and Frau Pauline Schmidt was a ready listener when ever
I felt disposed to communicate to any one what I had written.
Among my school friends were some who listened to my writings and showed
me their own essays. My favorite was Carl Hey, grandson of Wilhelm
Hey, who understood child nature so well, and wrote the pretty verses
accompanying the illustrations in the Speckter Fables, named for the
artist, a book still popular with little German boys and girls. I was
also warmly attached to the enthusiastic Hubotter, who, under the name
of “Otter,” afterwards became the ornament of many of the larger German
theatres. Lindenbein, Brosin, the talented Gosrau, and the no less
gifted Schwalbe, were also dear friends.
At first I had felt much older than my companions, and I really had
seen more of life; but I soon perceived that they were splendid, lovable
fellows. My wounded heart speedily healed, and the better my physical
and mental condition became the more my demon stirred within me. It was
no merit of mine if I was not dubbed “the foolhardy Ebers” here also.
The summer in Quedlinburg was a delightful season of mingled work and
pleasure. An Easter journey through the Hartz with some gay companions,
which included an ascent of the Brocken--already once climbed from
Keilhau--is among my most delightful memories.
Like the Thuringian Mountains, the Hartz are also wreathed with a
garland of legends and historical memories. Some of its fairest blossoms
are in the immediate vicinity of Quedlinburg. These and the delight in
nature with which I here renewed my old bond tempted more than one of us
to write, and very different poems, deeper and with more true feeling,
than those produced in Kottbus. A poetic atmosphere from the Hercynian
woods and the monuments of ancient days surrounded our lives. It was
delightful to dream under the rustling beeches of the neighbouring
forest; and in the church with its ancient graves and the crypt of St.
Wiperti Cloister, the oldest specimen of Christian art in that region,
we were filled with reverence for the days of old.
The life of the great Henry, which I had celebrated in verse at Kottbus,
became a reality to me here; and what a powerful influence a visit to
the ancient cloister exerted on our young souls! The nearest relatives
of mighty sovereigns had dwelt as abbesses within its walls. But two
generations ago Anna Amalie, the hapless sister of Frederick the Great,
died while holding this office.
A strange and lasting impression was wrought upon me by a corpse and
a picture in this convent. Both were in a subterranean chamber which
possessed the property of preserving animal bodies from corruption. In
this room was the body of Countess Aurora von Konigsmark, famed as the
most beautiful woman of her time. After a youth spent in splendour she
had retired to the cloister as superior, and there she now lay unveiled,
rigid, and yellow, although every feature had retained the form it had
in death. Beside the body hung her portrait, taken at the time when a
smile on her lips, a glance from her eyes, was enough to fire the heart
of the coldest man.
A terrible antithesis!
Here the portrait of the blooming, beautiful husk of a soul exulting in
haughty arrogance; yonder that husk itself, transformed by the hand of
death into a rigid, colourless caricature, a mummy without embalming.
Art, too, had a place in Quedlinburg. I still remember with pleasure
Steuerwald’s beautiful winter landscapes, into which he so cleverly
introduced the mediaeval ruins of the Hartz region.
Thus, Quedlinburg was well suited to arouse poetic feelings in young
hearts, steep the soul with love for the beautiful, time-honoured
region, and yet fill it with the desire to make distant lands its own.
Every one knows that this was Klopstock’s birthplace; but the greatest
geographer of all ages, Karl Ritter, whose mighty mind grasped the whole
universe as if it were the precincts of his home, also first saw the
light of the world here.
Gutsmuths, the founder of the gymnastic system, Bosse, the present
Minister of Public Worship and Instruction, and Julius Wolff, are
children of Quedlinburg and pupils of its gymnasium.
The long vacation came between the written and verbal examinations,
and as I had learned privately that my work had been sufficiently
satisfactory, my mother gave me permission to go to the Black Forest, to
which pleasant memories attracted me. But my friend Hey had seen nothing
of the world, so I chose a goal more easily attained, and took him with
me to the Rhine. I went home by the way of Gottingen, and what I
saw there of the Saxonia corps filled me with such enthusiasm that I
resolved to wear the blue, white, and blue ribbon.
The oral was also successfully examination passed, and I returned to
my mother, who received me at Hosterwitz with open arms. The resolve
to devote myself to the study of law and to commence in Gottingen was
formed, and received her approval.
For what reason I preferred the legal profession it would be hard
to say. Neither mental bias nor interest gained by any searching
examination of the science to which I wished to devote myself, turned
the scale. I actually gave less thought to my profession and my whole
mental and external life than I should have bestowed upon the choice of
a residence.
In the ideal school, as I imagine it, the pupils of the senior class
should be briefly made acquainted with what each one of the principal
professions offers and requires from its members. The principal of the
institution should also aid by his counsel the choice of the young
men with whose talents and tastes long intercourse had rendered him
familiar.
[It should never contain more than seventy pupils. Barop, when I
met him after I attained my maturity, named sixty as the largest
number which permitted the teacher to know and treat individually
the boys confided to his care. He would never receive more at
Keilhau.]
Of course I imagine this man not only a teacher but an educator,
familiar not alone with the school exercises, but with the mental
and physical characteristics of those who are to graduate from the
university.
Had not the heads of the Keilhau Institute lost their pupils so young,
they would undoubtedly have succeeded in guiding the majority to the
right profession.