Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/62

 a model institution. The schoolrooms were in an old Franciscan monastery, and I remember with a shudder the tortures to my sensitive musical ear when my father, in order to present me to the principal, led me through a long corridor, in each window-recess of which stood a young man practising finger-exercises on the violin, so that at least a dozen instruments giving out discordant sounds were to be heard at the same time. The instruction I received from the well-equipped master was excellent, and at the same time I continued my lessons in Latin and my musical studies. I also began to live among strangers, boarding during the winter in the modest home of a butcher's widow. In the summer I walked to school from Liblar to Brühl and back every day of the week—a walk of about eight miles.

And then came a heavy blow. One gloomy winter's day, returning from school to my lodging, I found my father awaiting me with tears in his eyes. Several times his voice failed in attempting to tell me that my brother Heribert, after an illness of only a few days, had died. Only the Monday before I had left him a picture of health. This was a dreadful shock. My father and I wandered home through the forest holding one another by the hand and weeping silently as we walked. For a long time I could not console myself over this loss. Whenever I was alone in the woods I would call my brother loudly by name and pray God, if He would not give him back, at least to allow his spirit to appear to me.

Then I felt a want of mental occupation on my lonely way between Brühl and Liblar and so I accustomed myself to reading while I walked. My father, whose literary judgment was somewhat determined by current tradition, counted Klopstock among the great German poets, whom one “must have read,” and so he gave me the “Messiah” as appropriate