In Drake's studio I saw statues, busts, and reliefs grow out of the rude
mass of clay; I saw the plaster cast turned into marble, and the master,
with his sure hand, evoking splendid forms from the primary limestone.
What I could not understand, the calm, kindly man explained with
unfailing patience, and so I got an early insight into the sculptor's
creative art.

It was these recollections of my childhood that suggested to me the
character of little Pennu in Uarda, of Polykarp in Homo Sum, of Pollux in
The Emperor, and the cheery Alexander in Per Aspera.

I often visited also, during my last years in Berlin, the studio of
another sculptor. His name was Streichenberg, and his workshop was in our
garden in the Linkstrasse.

If a thoughtful earnestness was the rule in Drake's studio, in that of
Prof. Streichenberg artistic gaiety reigned. He often whistled or sang at
his work, and his young Italian assistant played the guitar. But while I
still know exactly what Drake executed in our presence, so that I could
draw the separate groups of the charming relief, the Genii of the
Thiergarten, I do not remember a single stroke of Streichenberg's work,
though I can recall all the better the gay manner of the artist whom we
again met in 1848 as a demagogue.

At the Schmidt school Franz and Paul Meyerheim were among our comrades,
and how full of admiration I was when one of them--Franz, I think, who
was then ten or eleven years old--showed us a hussar he had painted
himself in oil on a piece of canvas! The brothers took us to their home,
and there I saw at his work their kindly father, the creator of so many
charming pictures of country and child life.