his step-father; and that it impelled him to
aspire to greatness.

His inclinations however did not at first turn to music. He was rather
disposed to study and was sent to the celebrated Kreuzschule. Music
was only cultivated indifferently. A private teacher was engaged to
give him piano lessons, but, as in drawing, he was averse to the
technicalities of the art, and preferred to play by ear, and in this
way mastered the overture to "Der Freischuetz." His teacher upon
hearing this expressed the opinion that nothing would become of him.
It is true, he could not in this way acquire fingering and scales, but
he gained a peculiar intonation arising from his own deep feeling,
that has been rarely possessed by any other artist. He was very
partial to the overture to "The Magic Flute," but "Don Juan" made no
impression on him.

All this, however, was only of secondary importance. The study of
Greek, Latin, mythology, and ancient history so completely captivated
the active mind of the boy, that his teacher advised him seriously to
devote himself to philological studies. As he had played music by
imitation so he now tried to imitate poetry. A poem, dedicated to a
dead schoolmate, even won a prize, although considerable fustian had
to be eliminated. His richness of imagination and feeling displayed
itself in early youth. In his eleventh year he would be a poet! A
Saxon poet, Apel, imitated the Greek tragedies, why should he not do
the same? He had already translated the first twelve books of Homer's
"Odyssey," and had made a metrical version of Romeo's monologue,
after having, simply to understand Shakspeare, thoroughly acquired a
knowledge of English. Thus at an early age he mastered the language
which "thinks and meditates for us," and Shakspeare became his
favorite model. A grand tragedy based on the themes of Hamlet and
King Lear was immediately undertaken, and although in its progress
he killed off forty-two of the _dramatis personae_ and was compelled
in the denouement, for want of characters to let their ghosts
reappear, we can not but regard it as a proof of the superabundance
of his inborn power.

One advantage was secured by this absurd attempt at poetry: it led
him to music, and in its intense earnestness he first learned to
appreciate the seriousness of art, which until then had appeared to
him of such small importance in contrast with his other studies, that
he regarded "Don Juan" for instance as silly, because