gathering together of the relatives of the penniless bride-elect did not seem to trouble her remarkably kind-hearted fiance.  But my sister may have become uneasy on the subject, for she soon gave me to understand that she was not taking it quite in good part.  Her desire to secure an entree into the higher social circles of bourgeois life naturally produced a marked change in her manner, at one time so full of fun, and of this I gradually became so keenly sensible that finally we were estranged for a time.  Moreover, I unfortunately gave her good cause to reprove my conduct.  After I got to Leipzig I quite gave up my studies and all regular school work, probably owing to the arbitrary and pedantic system in vogue at the school there.

In Leipzig there were two higher-class schools, one called St. Thomas’s School, and the other, and the more modern, St. Nicholas’s School.  The latter at that time enjoyed a better reputation than the former; so there I had to go.  But the council of teachers before whom I appeared for my entrance examination at the New Year (1828) thought fit to maintain the dignity of their school by placing me for a time in the upper third form, whereas at the Kreuz Grammar School in Dresden I had been in the second form.  My disgust at having to lay aside my Homer—­from which I had already made written translations of twelve songs—­and take up the lighter Greek prose writers was indescribable.  It hurt my feelings so deeply, and so influenced my behaviour, that I never made a friend of any teacher in the school.  The unsympathetic treatment I met with made me all the more obstinate, and various other circumstances in my position only added to this feeling.  While student life, as I saw it day by day, inspired me ever more and more with its rebellious spirit, I unexpectedly met with another cause for despising the dry monotony of school regime.  I refer to the influence of my uncle, Adolph Wagner, which, though he was long unconscious of it, went a long way towards moulding the growing stripling that I then was.

The fact that my romantic tastes were not based solely on a tendency to superficial amusement was shown by my ardent attachment to this learned relative.  In his manner and conversation he was certainly very attractive; the many-sidedness of his knowledge, which embraced not only philology but also philosophy and general poetic literature, rendered intercourse with him a most entertaining pastime, as all those who knew him used to admit.  On the other hand, the fact that he was denied the gift of writing with equal charm, or clearness, was a singular defect which seriously lessened his influence upon the literary world, and, in fact, often made him appear ridiculous, as in a written argument he would perpetrate the most pompous and involved sentences.  This weakness could not have alarmed me, because in the hazy period of my youth the more incomprehensible any literary extravagance was, the more I admired it; besides which, I had more