parture my mother drove with me to Blasewitz,
where there was an elegant entertainment at which the lyric poet Julius
Hammer, the author of "Look Around You and Look Within You," who was
to become a dear friend of mine, extolled in enthusiastic verse the
delights of student liberty and the noble sisters Learning and Poesy.

The glowing words echoed in my heart and mind after I had torn myself
from the arms of my mother and of the woman who, next to her, was
dearest to me on earth, my aunt, and was travelling toward my goal. If
ever the feeling that I was born to good fortune took possession of me,
it was during that journey.

I did not know what weariness meant, and when, on reaching Gottingen, I
learned that the students' coffee-house was still closed and that no one
would arrive for three or four days, I went to Cassel to visit the royal
garden in Wilhelmshohe.

At the station I saw a gentleman who looked intently at me. His face,
too, seemed familiar. I mentioned my name, and the next instant he had
embraced and kissed me. Two Keilhau friends had met, and, with sunshine
alike in our hearts and in the blue sky, we set off together to see
everything of note in beautiful Cassel.

When it was time to part, Von Born told me so eagerly how many of our
old school-mates were now living in Westphalia, and how delightful it
would be to see them, that I yielded and went with him to the birthplace
of Barop and Middendorf. The hours flew like one long revel, and my
exuberant spirits made my old school-mates, who, engaged in business
enterprises, were beginning to look life solemnly in the face, feel as
if the carefree Keilhau days had returned. On going back to Gottingen, I
still had to wait a few days for the real commencement of the term, but
I was received at the station by the "Saxons," donned the blue cap, and
engaged pleasant lodgings--though the least adapted to serious study
in the "Schonhutte," a house in Weenderstrasse whose second story was
occupied by our corps room.

My expectations of the life with young men of congenial tastes were
completely fulfilled. Most of them belonged to the nobility, but the
beloved "blue, white, and blue" removed all distinctions of birth.

By far the most talented of its members was Count (now Prince) Otto von
Stolberg-Wernegerode, who was afterwards to hold so high a position in
the service of the Prussian Government.

Among the other scions of royal families were the hereditary P