Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/30

 advertisements as my time would allow. The Philadelphia Ledger, which has since become a very excellent, influential, and important organ of public opinion, was at that time a small and ill-printed sheet, rather colorless in politics, which entertained its readers largely with serious editorial dissertations on such innocent subjects as “The Joys of Spring,” “The Beauties of Friendship,” “The Blessings of a Virtuous Life,” and the like—sometimes a little insipid, but usually very respectable in point of style. Then I proceeded to read English novels. The first one I took up was “The Vicar of Wakefield.” Then followed Walter Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray; then Macaulay's historical essays, and, as I thought of preparing myself for the legal profession, Blackstone's “Commentaries,” the clear, terse and vigorous style of which I have always continued to regard as a very great model. Shakespeare's plays, the enormous vocabulary of which presented more difficulties than all the rest, came last. But I did my reading with the utmost conscientiousness. I never permitted myself to skip a word the meaning of which I did not clearly understand, and I never failed to consult the dictionary in every doubtful case.

At the same time I practiced an exercise which I found exceedingly effective. I had become acquainted with the “Letters of Junius” through a German translation, and was greatly fascinated by the brilliancy of this style of political discussion. As soon as I thought myself sufficiently advanced in the knowledge of the language, I procured an English edition of Junius and translated a considerable number of the letters from the English text into German in writing; then I translated, also in writing, my German translation back into English, and finally compared this re-translation with the English original. This was very laborious work, but, so to speak, I felt in my bones how it helped me. Together with my reading, it gave me what