As soon as I saw this quite clearly, my own activity of mind urged me to make use of the really excellent books on forestry and geometry which I found lying to my hand.  I also made acquaintance with the doctor of a little town near by, who studied natural science for his amusement; and this friend lent me books on botany, through which I learnt also about other plants than just those of the forest.  A great deal of my time during the absence of the forester (when I was left quite to myself) I devoted to making a sort of map of the neighbourhood I lived in; but botany was my special occupation.  My life as forester’s apprentice was a four-fold one:  firstly, there was the homelier and more practical side of life; then the life spent with Nature, especially forest-nature; then also a life of the study, devoted to work at mathematics and languages; and lastly, the time spent in gaining a knowledge of plants.  My chosen profession and the other circumstances of my position might have brought me into contact with many kinds of men; but nevertheless my life remained retired and solitary.  My religious church life now changed to a religious communion with Nature, and in the last half-year I lived entirely amongst and with my plants, which drew me towards them with fascination, notwithstanding that as yet I had no sense of the inner life of the plant world.  Collecting and drying specimens of plants was a work I prosecuted with the greatest care.  Altogether this time of my life was devoted in many various ways to self-education, self-instruction, and moral advancement.  Especially did I love to indulge my old habit of self-observation and introspection.

I must mention yet another event of the greatest importance from the point of view of my inner life.  An hour’s walk from where I then lived was a small country town.  A company of strolling actors arrived there, and played in the prince’s castle in the town.  After I had seen one of their performances, hardly any of those which followed passed without my attendance.  These performances made a deep and lively impression upon me, and this the more that I felt as if my soul at last received nourishment for which it had long hungered.  The impressions thus gained lasted so much the longer, and had so much the greater influence on my self-culture, in that after each performance my hour’s walk home by dark or in the starlight allowed me to recapitulate what I had heard, and so to digest the meaning of the play.  I remember especially how deeply a performance of Iffland’s Huntsmen moved me, and how it inspired me with firm moral resolutions, which I imprinted deep in my mind under the light of the stars.  My interest in the play made me seek acquaintance with the actors, and especially with one of them, an earnest young man who attracted my attention, and to whom I spoke about his profession.  I congratulated him on being a member of such a company, able to call up such ennobling sentiments in the human soul; perhaps even expressed