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

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

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

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

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks: 

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

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORG EBERS

THE STORY OF MY LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD TO MANHOOD

Volume 2.

CHAPTER VI.

My introduction to art, and acquaintances great and small in the Lennestrasse.

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