I was always associated with my brother, who was a year and a half older.

We were early taught to skate, too, and how many happy hours we passed,
frequently with our sisters, on the ice by the Louisa and Rousseau
Islands in the Thiergarten! The first ladies who at that time
distinguished themselves as skaters were the wife and daughter of the
celebrated surgeon Dieffenbach--two fine, supple figures, who moved
gracefully over the ice, and in their fur-bordered jackets and Polish
caps trimmed with sable excited universal admiration.

On the whole, we had time enough for such things, though we lost many a
free hour in music lessons. Ludo was learning to play on the piano, but
I had chosen another instrument. Among our best friends, the three fine
sons of Privy-Councillor Oesterreich and others, there was a pleasant boy
named Victor Rubens, whose parents were likewise friends of my mother.
In the hospitable house of this agreeable family I had heard the composer
Vieuxtemps play the violin when I was nine years old. I went home fairly
enraptured, and begged my mother to let me take lessons. My wish was
fulfilled, and for many years I exerted myself zealously, without any
result, to accomplish something on the violin. I did, indeed, attain to
a certain degree of skill, but I was so little satisfied with my own
performances that I one day renounced the hope of becoming a practical
musician, and presented my handsome violin--a gift from my grandmother--
to a talented young virtuoso, the son of my sisters' French teacher.

The actress Crelinger, when she came to see my mother, made a great
impression on me, at this time, by her majestic appearance and her deep,
musical voice. She, and her daughter, Clara Stich, afterward Frau
Liedtcke, the splendid singer, Frau Jachmann-Wagner, and the charming
Frau Schlegel-Koster, were the only members of the theatrical profession