Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/421

 CHAPTER XIII

BOUT the mid d le of June I arrived in London. Kinkel had already selected rooms for me on St. John's Wood Terrace, not far from his house, and he had also found pupils for me to whom I was to give lessons in the German language and in music, the proceeds of which would be more than sufficient to cover my modest wants. The well-known paradox that you can have more in London for a shilling and less for a pound, than anywhere else, that is to say, that you can live very cheaply and comparatively well in modest circumstances, while life on a grand scale is very expensive, was at that time as well founded as undoubtedly it still is. I could have found a great many more pupils if I had been able to speak English. But, strange as this appeared to myself in later life, my musical ear still rebelled against the sound of the English language, and could not conquer its repugnance. The peculiar charm of its cadence I began to appreciate only as I learned to speak it with fluency. In the social circles to which I was admitted, and of which I shall say something later, German and French were sufficient. In teaching German to others the Princess De Beaufort's method in teaching me French proved of great use to me.

Some of my pupils took a very lively interest in old German literature, and requested me to read with them the Nibelungenlied; and, as not seldom happens, in my rôle of teacher I learned more of the subject I had to teach than I had known before, and than I would have learned otherwise. I taught and learned with real enthusiasm, for—I may