of the various club-colours. The 'Comment,' that compendium of
pedantic rules of conduct for the preservation of a defiant and
exclusive esprit de corps, as opposed to the bourgeois classes,
had its fantastic side, just as the most philistine peculiarities
of the Germans have, if you probe them deeply enough. To me it
represented the idea of emancipation from the yoke of school and
family. The longing to become a student coincided unfortunately
with my growing dislike for drier studies and with my ever-
increasing fondness for cultivating romantic poetry. The results
of this soon showed themselves in my resolute attempts to make a
change.

At the time of my confirmation, at Easter, 1827, I had
considerable doubt about this ceremony, and I already felt a
serious falling off of my reverence for religious observances.
The boy who, not many years before, had gazed with agonised
sympathy on the altarpiece in the Kreuz Kirche (Church of the
Holy Cross), and had yearned with ecstatic fervour to hang upon
the Cross in place of the Saviour, had now so far lost his
veneration for the clergyman, whose preparatory confirmation
classes he attended, as to be quite ready to make fun of him, and
even to join with his comrades in withholding part of his class
fees, and spending the money in sweets. How matters stood with me
spiritually was revealed to me, almost to my horror, at the
Communion service, when I walked in procession with my fellow-
communicants to the altar to the sound of organ and choir. The
shudder with which I received the Bread and Wine was so
ineffaceably stamped on my memory, that I never again partook of
the Communion, lest I should do so with levity. To avoid this was
all the easier for me, seeing that among Protestants such