My short stay with my relations provided me with many experiences of musical life.  It was there that I met a new freak, whose influence upon me I have never been able to forget.  He was a musical conductor of the name of Kuhnlein, a most extraordinary person.  Already advanced in years, delicate and, unfortunately, given to drink, this man nevertheless impressed one by something striking and vigorous in his expression.  His chief characteristics were an enthusiastic worship of Mozart and a passionate depreciation of Weber.  He had read only one book—­ Goethe’s Faust—­and in this work there was not a page in which he had not underlined some passage, and made some remark in praise of Mozart or in disparagement of Weber.  It was to this man that my brother-in-law confided the compositions which I had brought with me in order to learn his opinion of my abilities.  One evening, as we were sitting comfortably in an inn, old Kuhnlein came in, and approached us with a friendly, though serious manner.

I thought I read good news in his features, but when my brother-in-law asked him what he thought of my work, he answered quietly and calmly, ‘There is not a single good note in it!’ My brother-in-law, who was accustomed to Kuhnlein’s eccentricity, gave a loud laugh which reassured me somewhat.  It was impossible to get any advice or coherent reasons for his opinion out of Kuhnlein; he merely renewed his abuse of Weber and made some references to Mozart which, nevertheless, made a deep impression upon me, as Kuhnlein’s language was always very heated and emphatic.

On the other hand, this visit brought me a great treasure, which was responsible for leading me in a very different direction from that advised by Kuhnlein.  This was the score of Beethoven’s great Quartette in E flat major, which had only been fairly recently published, and of which my brother-in-law had a copy made for me.  Richer in experience, and in the possession of this treasure, I returned to Leipzig to the nursery of my queer musical studies.  But my family had now returned with my sister Rosalie, and I could no longer keep secret from them the fact that my connection with the school had been entirely suspended, for a notice was found saying that I had not attended the school for the last six months.  As a complaint addressed by the rector to my uncle about me had not received adequate attention, the school authorities had apparently made no further attempts to exercise any supervision over me, which I had indeed rendered quite impossible by absenting myself altogether.

A fresh council of war was held in the family to discuss what was to be done with me.  As I laid particular stress on my bent for music, my relations thought that I ought, at any rate, to learn one instrument thoroughly.  My brother-in-law, Brockhaus, proposed to send me to Hummel, at Weimar, to be trained as a pianist, but as I loudly protested that by ‘music’ I meant ‘composing,’ and not ‘playing