Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/47

 was awkward and her spelling by no means faultless. Of literature she knew little, and with grammar and style she had never been troubled. But many of her letters, written to me at different times and in different situations of life, were not only filled with noble thought and sentiment, but possessed rare poetic beauty of expression; the unconscious greatness of her soul found its own language. Her very being exercised a constantly elevating and stimulating influence, although she could aid her children but little in the acquisition of what is commonly called knowledge.

All the more zealous was my father in this direction. The low whitewashed walls of the small, modestly furnished livingroom of our house, in which we also took our meals, were hung with the portraits of Schiller, Goethe, Wieland, Körner, Tasso and Shakespeare; for poets, historians and scientists were my father's heroes, and he early told me of their creations and achievements. He read every book he could lay his hands upon and had collected a few of his own, among them Becker's “Universal History,” some German classics and some translations from Voltaire and Rousseau. But these books were still beyond my childish comprehension; and so others were obtained for me from a circulating library at Brühl. There we found a series of folklore tales, pretty well-told old legends of Emperor Octavianus, and the four Haimons children, and the horned Siegfried, and strong Roland, etc., and some of the popular knight-stories, the contents of some of which I still could tell.

Then a new world opened itself to me. The old head gardener of the count, who had observed my love of reading, gave me one day that most magnificent of juvenile books, “Robinson Crusoe.” It may be said without exaggeration that to “Robinson Crusoe” the youth of all civilized peoples have