plan at the same hour and on the same spot,
and we were so struck by this unwonted coincidence that we determined
to carry the plan out forthwith. We resolved to found a kind of small
club which would consist of ourselves and a few friends, and the
object of which would be to provide us with a stable and binding
organisation directing and adding interest to our creative impulses in
art and literature; or, to put it more plainly: each of us would be
pledged to present an original piece of work to the club once a
month,--either a poem, a treatise, an architectural design, or a
musical composition, upon which each of the others, in a friendly
spirit, would have to pass free and unrestrained criticism.

We thus hoped, by means of mutual correction, to be able both to
stimulate and to chasten our creative impulses and, as a matter of
fact, the success of the scheme was such that we have both always felt
a sort of respectful attachment for the hour and the place at which it
first took shape in our minds.

This attachment was very soon transformed into a rite; for we all
agreed to go, whenever it was possible to do so, once a year to that
lonely spot near Rolandseck, where on that summer's day, while sitting
together, lost in meditation, we were suddenly inspired by the same
thought. Frankly speaking, the rules which were drawn up on the
formation of the club were never very strictly observed; but owing to
the very fact that we had many sins of omission on our conscience
during our student-year in Bonn, when we were once more on the banks
of the Rhine, we firmly resolved not only to observe our rule, but
also to gratify our feelings and our sense of gratitude by reverently
visiting that spot near Rolandseck on the day appointed.

It was, however, with some difficulty that we were able to carry our
plans into execution; for, on the very day we had selected for our
excursion, the large and lively students' association, which always
hindered us in our flights, did their utmost to put obstacles in our
way and to hold us back. Our association had organised a general
holiday excursion to Rolandseck on the very day my friend and I had
fixed upon, the object of the outing being to assemble all its members
for the last time at the close of the half-year and to send them home
with pleasant recollections of their last hours together.

The day was a glorious one; the weather was of the kind which, in our
climate at least, only falls