owed him; and when my bill had almost reached the price of
Logier's book I had to make a clean breast of the matter to my
family, who thus not only learnt of my financial difficulties in
general, but also of my latest transgression into the domain of
music, from which, of course, at the very most, they expected
nothing better than a repetition of Leubald und Adelaide.

There was great consternation at home; my mother, sister, and
brother-in-law, with anxious faces, discussed how my studies
should be superintended in future, to prevent my having any
further opportunity for transgressing in this way. No one,
however, yet knew the real state of affairs at school, and they
hoped I would soon see the error of my ways in this case as I had
in my former craze for poetry.

But other domestic changes were taking place which necessitated
my being for some little time alone in our house at Leipzig
during the summer of 1829, when I was left entirely to my own
devices. It was during this period that my passion for music rose
to an extraordinary degree. I had secretly been taking lessons in
harmony from G. Muller, afterwards organist at Altenburg, an
excellent musician belonging to the Leipzig orchestra. Although
the payment of these lessons was also destined to get me into hot
water at home later on, I could not even make up to my teacher
for the delay in the payment of his fees by giving him the
pleasure of watching me improve in my studies. His teaching and
exercises soon filled me with the greatest disgust, as to my mind
it all seemed so dry. For me music was a spirit, a noble and
mystic monster, and any attempt to regulate it seemed to lower it
in my eyes. I gathered much more congenial instruction about it