My Life, vol 1 | Page 9

me. In the matter of the Classics, too, I paid
only just as much attention as was absolutely necessary to enable me to
get a grasp of them; for I was stimulated by the desire to reproduce
them to myself dramatically. In this way Greek particularly attracted
me, because the stories from Greek mythology so seized upon my
fancy that I tried to imagine their heroes as speaking to me in their
native tongue, so as to satisfy my longing for complete familiarity with
them. In these circumstances it will be readily understood that the
grammar of the language seemed to me merely a tiresome obstacle, and
by no means in itself an interesting branch of knowledge.
The fact that my study of languages was never very thorough, perhaps
best explains the fact that I was afterwards so ready to cease troubling
about them altogether. Not until much later did this study really begin
to interest me again, and that was only when I learnt to understand its
physiological and philosophical side, as it was revealed to our modern
Germanists by the pioneer work of Jakob Grimm. Then, when it was
too late to apply myself thoroughly to a study which at last I had
learned to appreciate, I regretted that this newer conception of the study
of languages had not yet found acceptance in our colleges when I was

younger.
Nevertheless, by my successes in philological work I managed to
attract the attention of a young teacher at the Kreuz Grammar School, a
Master of Arts named Sillig, who proved very helpful to me. He often
permitted me to visit him and show him my work, consisting of metric
translations and a few original poems, and he always seemed very
pleased with my efforts in recitation. What he thought of me may best
be judged perhaps from the fact that he made me, as a boy of about
twelve, recite not only 'Hector's Farewell' from the Iliad, but even
Hamlet's celebrated monologue. On one occasion, when I was in the
fourth form of the school, one of my schoolfellows, a boy named
Starke, suddenly fell dead, and the tragic event aroused so much
sympathy, that not only did the whole school attend the funeral, but the
headmaster also ordered that a poem should be written in
commemoration of the ceremony, and that this poem should be
published. Of the various poems submitted, among which there was
one by myself, prepared very hurriedly, none seemed to the master
worthy of the honour which he had promised, and he therefore
announced his intention of substituting one of his own speeches in the
place of our rejected attempts. Much distressed by this decision, I
quickly sought out Professor Sillig, with the view of urging him to
intervene on behalf of my poem. We thereupon went through it
together. Its well-constructed and well-rhymed verses, written in
stanzas of eight lines, determined him to revise the whole of it carefully.
Much of its imagery was bombastic, and far beyond the conception of a
boy of my age. I recollect that in one part I had drawn extensively from
the monologue in Addison's Cato, spoken by Cato just before his
suicide. I had met with this passage in an English grammar, and it had
made a deep impression upon me. The words: 'The stars shall fade
away, the sun himself grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,'
which, at all events, were a direct plagiarism, made Sillig laugh--a
thing at which I was a little offended. However, I felt very grateful to
him, for, thanks to the care and rapidity with which he cleared my
poem of these extravagances, it was eventually accepted by the
headmaster, printed, and widely circulated.
The effect of this success was extraordinary, both on my schoolfellows
and on my own family. My mother devoutly folded her hands in

thankfulness, and in my own mind my vocation seemed quite a settled
thing. It was clear, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that I was destined
to be a poet. Professor Sillig wished me to compose a grand epic, and
suggested as a subject 'The Battle of Parnassus,' as described by
Pausanias. His reasons for this choice were based upon the legend
related by Pausanias, viz., that in the second century B.C. the Muses
from Parnassus aided the combined Greek armies against the
destructive invasion of the Gauls by provoking a panic among the latter.
I actually began my heroic poem in hexameter verse, but could not get
through the first canto.
Not being far enough advanced in the language to understand the Greek
tragedies thoroughly in the original, my own attempts to construct a
tragedy in the Greek form were greatly influenced by the fact that quite
by accident I came