lighted me to bed in the evening with her candle, but never a
night passed in which I was not a prey to the most horrible
ghostly visions, my dread of which would leave me in a bath of
perspiration.

The personality of the three chief occupants of this storey was
admirably adapted to materialise the ghostly impressions of the
house into a reality that resembled some strange fairy-tale.

Jeannette Thome was very small and stout; she wore a fair Titus
wig, and seemed to hug to herself the consciousness of vanished
beauty. My aunt, her faithful friend and guardian, who was also
an old maid, was remarkable for the height and extreme leanness
of her person. The oddity of her otherwise very pleasant face was
increased by an exceedingly pointed chin.

My uncle Adolph had chosen as his permanent study a dark room in
the courtyard. There it was that I saw him for the first time,
surrounded by a great wilderness of books, and attired in an
unpretentious indoor costume, the most striking feature of which
was a tall, pointed felt cap, such as I had seen worn by the
clown who belonged to the troupe of rope-dancers at Eisleben. A
great love of independence had driven him to this strange
retreat. He had been originally destined for the Church, but he
soon gave that up, in order to devote himself entirely to
philological studies. But as he had the greatest dislike of
acting as a professor and teacher in a regular post, he soon
tried to make a meagre livelihood by literary work. He had
certain social gifts, and especially a fine tenor voice, and
appears in his youth to have been welcome as a man of letters