divisible whole.

I have gazed from this spot into the distance at every hour of the day
and season of the year. But the fairest time of all on the Steiger was
at sunset, on clear autumn days, when the scene close at hand, where
the threads of gossamer were floating, was steeped in golden light,
the distance in such exquisite tints-from crimson to the deepest violet
blue, edged with a line of light-the Saale glimmered with a silvery
lustre amid its fringe of alders, and the sun flashed on the glittering
panes of the Leuchtenburg.

We were now old enough to enjoy the magnificence of this prospect. My
young heart swelled at the sight; and if in after years my eyes could
grasp the charm of a beautiful landscape and my pen successfully
describe it, I learned the art here.

It was pleasant, too, that my mother saw all this with us, though she
must often have gone to rest very much wearied from her rambles. But
teachers and pupils vied with each other in attentions to her. She had
won all hearts. We noticed and rejoiced in it till the day came when she
left us.

She was obliged to start very early in the morning, in order to
reach Berlin the same evening. The other boys were not up, but Barop,
Middendorf, and several other teachers had risen to take leave of her.
A few more kisses, a wave of her handkerchief, and the carriage vanished
in the village. Ludo and I were alone, and I vividly remember the moment
when we suddenly began to weep and sob as bitterly as if it had been an
eternal farewell. How often one human being becomes the sun of another's
life! And it is most frequently the mother who plays this beautiful
part.

Yet the anguish of parting did not last very long, and whoever had
watched the boys playing ball an hour later would have heard our voices
among the merriest. Afterwards we rarely had attacks of homesickness,
there were so many new things in Keilhau, and even familiar objects
seemed changed in form and purpose.

From the city we were in every sense transferred to the woods.

True, we had grown up in the beautiful park of the Thiergarten, but
only on its edge; to live in and with Nature, "become one with her," as
Middendorf said, we had not learned.

I once read in a novel by Jensen, as a well-attested fact, that during
an inquiry made in a charity school in the capital a considerable number
of the pupils had never seen a butterfly or a sunset. We were certainly
not to be classed among such children