hoped this noble poet would again inspire me to get a real hold
on the language, but the hope was vain. I had not chosen the
right teacher, and, moreover, his sitting-room in which we
pursued our studies looked out on a tanyard, the repulsive odour
of which affected my nerves so strongly that I became thoroughly
disgusted both with Sophocles and Greek. My brother-in-law,
Brockhaus, who wanted to put me in the way of earning some
pocket-money, gave me the correcting of the proof-sheets of a new
edition he was bringing out of Becker's Universal History,
revised by Lobell. This gave me a reason for improving by private
study the superficial general instruction on every subject which
is given at school, and I thus acquired the valuable knowledge
which I was destined to have in later life of most of the
branches of learning so uninterestingly taught in class. I must
not forget to mention that, to a certain extent, the attraction
exercised over me by this first closer study of history was due
to the fact that it brought me in eightpence a sheet, and I thus
found myself in one of the rarest positions in my life, actually
earning money; yet I should be doing myself an injustice if I did
not bear in mind the vivid impressions I now for the first time
received upon turning my serious attention to those periods of
history with which I had hitherto had a very superficial
acquaintance. All I recollect about my school days in this
connection is that I was attracted by the classical period of
Greek history; Marathon, Salamis, and Thermopylae composed the
canon of all that interested me in the subject. Now for the first
time I made an intimate acquaintance with the Middle Ages and the
French Revolution, as my work in correcting dealt precisely with
the two volumes which contained these two periods. I remember in
particular that the description of the Revolution filled me with