Every detail of this first journey has remained stamped on my memory.  I even know what we ordered for supper at the hotel where we spent the night.  But my mother had a severe headache, so we saw none of the sights of Weimar except the Goethe house in the city and the other one in the park.  I cannot tell what my feelings were, they are too strongly blended with later impressions.  I only know that the latter especially seemed to me very small.  I had imagined the “Goethe House” like the palace of the Prince of Prussia or Prince Radziwill in Wilhelmstrasse.  The Grand Duke’s palace, on the contrary, appeared aristocratic and stately.  We looked at it very closely, because it was the birthplace of the Princess of Prussia, of whom Fraulein Lamperi had told us so much.

The next morning my mother was well again.  The railroad connecting Weimar and Rudolstadt, near which Keilhau is located, was built long after, so we continued our journey in an open carriage and reached Rudolstadt about noon.

After we had rested a short time, the carriage which was to take us to Keilhau drove up.

As we were getting in, an old gentleman approached, who instantly made a strong impression upon me.  In outward appearance he bore a marked resemblance to Wilhelm Grimm.  I should have noticed him among hundreds; for long grey locks, parted in the middle, floated around a nobly formed head, his massive yet refined features bore the stamp of a most kindly nature, and his eyes were the mirror of a pure, childlike soul.  The rare charm of their sunny sparkle, when his warm heart expanded to pleasure or his keen intellect had succeeded in solving any problem, comes back vividly to my memory as I write, and they beamed brightly enough when he perceived our companion.  They were old acquaintances, for my mother had been to Keilhau several times on Martin’s account.  She addressed him by the name of Middendorf, and we recognized him as one of the heads of the institute, of whom we had heard many pleasant things.

He had driven to Rudolstadt with the “old bay,” but he willingly accepted a seat in our carriage.

We had scarcely left the street with the hotel behind us, when he began to speak of Schiller, and pointed out the mountain which bore his name and to which in his “Walk” he had cried: 

          “Hail! oh my Mount, with radiant crimson peak.”

Then he told us of the Lengefeld sisters, whom the poet had so often met here, and one of whom, Charlotte, afterward became his wife.  All this was done in a way which had no touch of pedagogy or of anything specially prepared for children, yet every word was easily understood and interested us.  Besides, his voice had a deep, musical tone, to which my ear was susceptible at an early age.  He understood children of our disposition and knew what pleased them.

In Schaale, the first village through which we passed, he said, pointing to the stream which flowed into the Saale close by:  “Look, boys, now we are coming into our own neighbourhood, the valley of the Schaal.  It owes its name to this brook, which rises in our own meadows, and I suppose you would like to know why our village is called Keilhau?”