where, after spending some time in sight-seeing, he was placed in the
school of Mr. Lancaster at Wimbledon. Here he remained for three months,
from July to September, laying the foundation of his knowledge of the
English language, while his parents proceeded to Scotland. English
formality, and what he conceived to be English hypocrisy, did not
contrast favourably with his earlier and gayer experiences in France,
and made an extremely unfavourable impression upon his mind; which found
expression in letters to his friends and to his mother.

On returning to Hamburg after this extended excursion abroad,
Schopenhauer was placed in the office of a Hamburg senator called
Jenisch, but he was as little inclined as ever to follow a commercial
career, and secretly shirked his work so that he might pursue his
studies. A little later a somewhat unexplainable calamity occurred. When
Dantzic ceased to be a free city, and Heinrich Schopenhauer at a
considerable cost and monetary sacrifice transferred his business to
Hamburg, the event caused him much bitterness of spirit. At Hamburg his
business seems to have undergone fluctuations. Whether these further
affected his spirit is not sufficiently established, but it is certain,
however, that he developed peculiarities of manner, and that his temper
became more violent. At any rate, one day in April 1805 it was found
that he had either fallen or thrown himself into the canal from an upper
storey of a granary; it was generally concluded that it was a case of
suicide.

Schopenhauer was seventeen at the time of this catastrophe, by which he
was naturally greatly affected. Although by the death of his father the
influence which impelled him to a commercial career was removed, his
veneration for the dead man remained with him through life, and on one
occasion found expression in a curious tribute to his memory in a