In May 1805, while on my journey, I visited my eldest brother, of whom I have so often spoken, and shall have yet so often to speak, and found him in another district, to which he had been appointed minister.  He was as kind and full of affection as ever; and instead of blaming me, spoke with especial approval of my new plans.  He told me of projects which had allured him in his youth, and still allured, but which he had lacked the strength of mind to speak of.  His father’s advice and authority had overawed him in youth, and now the chain of a settled position in life held him fast.  To follow the inward voice faithfully and without swerving was the advice he offered me, and he wrote this memorandum in my album when I left him, as a life motto:—­“The task of man is a struggle towards an end.  Do your duty as a man, dear brother, with firmness and resolution, fight against the difficulties which will thrust themselves in your path, and be assured you will attain the end.”

Thus cheered by sympathy and approval, I went my way from my brother’s, strengthened and confirmed in my determination.  My road lay over the Wartburg.[36] Luther’s life and fame were then not nearly so well appreciated and so generally understood as now, after the Tercentenary festival of the Reformation.[37] My early education had not been of the kind to give me a complete survey of Luther’s life and its struggle; I was hardly thoroughly acquainted indeed with the separate events of it.  Yet I had learnt in some sort to appreciate this fighter for the truth, by having in my last years at school to read aloud the Augsburg Confession to the assembled congregation during the afternoon service on certain specified Sundays, according to an old-fashioned Church custom.[38] I was filled with a deep sense of reverence as I climbed “Luther’s path,” thinking at the same time that Luther had left much behind still to be done, to be rooted out, or to be built up.

Shortly before Midsummer Day, as I had arranged with my friend, I reached Frankfurt.  During my many weeks’ journey in the lovely springtime, my thoughts had had time to grow calm and collected.  My friend, too, was true to his word; and we at once set to work together to prepare a prosperous future for me.  The plan of seeking a situation with an architect was still firmly held to, and circumstances seemed favourable for its realisation; but my friend at last advised me to secure a livelihood by giving lessons for a time, until we should find something more definite than had yet appeared.  Every prospect of a speedy fulfilment of my wishes seemed to offer, and yet in proportion as my hopes grew more clear, a certain feeling of oppression manifested itself more and more within me.  I soon began seriously to ask myself, therefore:—­

“How is this?  Canst thou do work in architecture worthy of a man’s life?  Canst thou use it to the culture and the ennoblement of mankind?”

I answered my own question to my satisfaction.  Yet I could not conceal from myself that it would be difficult to follow this profession conformably with the ideal I had now set before me.  Notwithstanding this, I still remained faithful to my original scheme, and soon began to study under an architect with a view to fitting myself for my new profession.