while Rudolf von Reibisch, the most intimate friend of the family,
whose great talents would have rendered him capable of really grand
achievements in various departments of art, examined our skulls as a
phrenologist or read aloud his last drama. Here, too, I met Major Serre,
the bold projector of the great lottery whose brilliant success called
into being and insured the prosperity of the Schiller Institute, the
source of so much good.

This simple-hearted yet energetic man taught me how genuine enthusiasm
and the devotion of a whole personality to a cause can win victory under
the most difficult circumstances. True, his clever wife shared her
husband's enthusiasm, and both understood how to attract the right
advisers. I afterwards met at their beautiful estate, Maxen, among many
distinguished people, the Danish author Andersen, a man of insignificant
personal appearance, but one who, if he considered it worth while and was
interested in the subject, could carry his listeners resistlessly with
him. Then his talk sparkled with clever, vivid, striking, peculiar
metaphors, and when one brilliant description of remarkable experiences
and scenes followed another he swiftly won the hearts of the women who
had overlooked him, and it seemed to the men as if some fiend were aiding
him.

During the first years of my convalescence I could enjoy nothing save
what came or was brought to me. But the cheerful patience with which I
appeared to bear my sufferings, perhaps also the gratitude and eagerness
with which I received everything, attracted most of the men and women for
whom I really cared.

If there was an entertaining conversation, arrangements were always made
that I should enjoy it, at least as a listener. The affection of these