the truest sense of the words, eaten my bread with bitter tears.

"I must here mention, that my first resolution to become a preacher was
extinguished by this man. 'Law, law,' he often exclaimed to me. What
that meant was very mysterious to me. At last, however, when I heard
that there were law professors, I understood it. It was now settled;
but what attracted me in the Professorship was the opportunity of
speaking in public. If there was a vocation that suited me it was this.

"Thus passed the years from 1782 to 1786. In the beginning of 1787, my
brother, still not fourteen years old, was put into a counting-house at
Chemnitz. Inexpressibly sorrowful was our parting. We loved each other
as brothers, and if we had small quarrels, in which I was more to blame
than he, we never let the sun set without being reconciled. But now
follows an important chapter in my juvenile life.

"The picture of a perfect tutor is indeed charming. More than father
and mother can do, can be effected by a noble, pious teacher, of simple
life, full of judgment and moral power; only that scarcely one out of a
hundred can be found to realise this ideal.'

"A heavy load was lifted from my breast when I felt myself free from
this tutor's discipline! A feeling I had never experienced before
stirred in me! I was already half-grown up! Was it an impulse to
unrestrained roving? or a longing for dissipation? or youthful
presumption which fancied it needed no guide? In truth no thoughts of
this kind entered my mind! It was the pure consciousness of having
suffered injustice; it was the honest feeling that I was not so bad, as
he in his frantic humour had often said I was; it was the glad prospect
of being able to strive independently; it was the desire to show that I
no longer needed leading-strings. Still do I remember the evening of
the 5th of April, 1787,--Maunday Thursday,--how beautiful the sunset
was, and I spoke with open heart to my playfellows of the new life that
was opening to me.

"My father put me under the teaching of the Conrector Mueller, and his
old friend the Subrector Jary, and in this he did well.

"To the Conrector Mueller I owe most thanks. I passed from tyrannical
oppression to his liberal intellectual sway. His kindliness and his
noble open countenance, speaking of pure goodness of heart, attracted
me to him when first we spoke together. He understood how to elevate my
feeling for learning. He knew everything thoroughly. He