Trojan War made a deeper impression upon me than
even the Arabian Nights. Homer's heroes seemed like giant oaks, which far
overtopped the little trees of the human wood. They towered like glorious
snow mountains above the little hills with which my childish imagination
was already filled; and how often we played the Trojan War, and aspired
to the honor of acting Hector, Achilles, or Ajax!

Of Herr Liebe, our teacher, I remember only three things. On his
daughter's birthday he treated us to cake and wine, and we had to sing a
festal song composed by himself, the refrain of which changed every year:

"Clara, with her fair hair thick,
Clara, with her eyes like heaven,
Can no more be called a chick,
For to-day she's really seven."

I remember, too, how when she was eight years old we had to transpose the
words a little to make the measure right. Karl von Holtei had a more
difficult task when, after the death of the Emperor Francis (Kaiser
Franz), he had to fit the name of his successor, Ferdinand, into the
beautiful "Gotterhalte Franz den Kaiser," but he got cleverly out of the
affair by making it "Gott erhalte Ferdinandum."--[God save the Emperor
Francis.]

My second recollection is, that we assisted Herr Liebe, who was a
churchwarden and had the honour of taking up the collection, to sort the
money, and how it delighted us to hear him scold--with good reason,
too--when we found among the silver and copper pieces--as, alas! we
almost always did--counters and buttons from various articles of
clothing.

In the third place, I must accuse Herr Liebe of having paid very little
attention to our behaviour out of school. Had he kept his eyes open, we
might have been spared many a bruise and our garments many a rent; for,
as often as we could manage it, instead of going directly home from the
Schulgartenstrasse, we passed through the Potsdam Gate to the square
beyond. There lurked the enemy, and we sought them out. The enemy were
the pupils of a humbler grade of school who called us Privy Councillor's
youngsters, which most of us were; and we called them, in return,
'Knoten,' which in its original meaning was anything but an insult,
coming as it does by a natural philological process from "Genote," the
older form of "Genosse" or comrade.

But to accuse us of arrogance on this account would be doing us wrong.
Children don't fight regularly with those whom they despise. Our "Knoten"
was only a s