Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/96

 refrain from occasionally uttering our sentiments. I was in the Upper Secunda when our professor of German—it was no longer my friend Pütz—gave us, as the subject of a composition, a memorial oration on the battle of Leipzig. Believing it to be my duty to write exactly what I thought about that event, I expressed with entire frankness my feelings about the ill-treatment the German people had suffered after their heroic efforts on that battlefield, and my hope of a complete regeneration of the German fatherland. I was profoundly in earnest. I wrote that memorial oration, so to speak, with my heart's blood. When the professor, at one of the next lessons, returned the papers to us in the class room, with critical remarks, he handed mine to me in silence. It bore this footnote: “Style good; but views expressed nebulous and dangerous.” After the adjournment of the class he called me to his side, put his hand upon my shoulder and said, “What you wrote has a fine sound; but how can such things be allowed at a royal Prussian gymnasium? Take care that it does not happen again.” From that time on he refrained from giving subjects to the class which might tempt us to political discussion.

In the meantime I continued zealously my literary studies, and my creative impulses were constantly stimulated by the applause of intimate friends. I wrote a large number of short poems, and also some tragedies on historic subjects. No record of these sins of my youth have remained in existence to embitter my subsequent life—or perhaps also to contribute to its merriment. We are easily ashamed of our premature productions and of the sublime conceit that must have inspired them. But I cannot look back without a certain feeling of tender emotion upon the time when I surrendered myself to those poetic impulses with the hope, certainly with the desire,