the scholar whom I have named to learn from him what
were the best books on those subjects which promised to be useful to me,
and my first care was to become possessed of them. Architecture was now
vigorously studied, and other books, too, were not suffered to lie idle.

The following books took great hold upon me: Proeschke's "Fragments on
Anthropology" (a small unpretending book), Novalis' Works, and Arndt's
"Germany" and "Europe."[31] The first of these at one stroke drew
together, so that I could recognise in them myself as a connected whole,
my outer existence, my inner character, my disposition, and the course
of my life. I for the first time realised myself and my life as a single
entity in contrast to the whole world outside of me.[32] The second book
lay before me the most secret emotions, perceptions, and intentions of
my inmost soul, clear, open, and vivid. If I parted with that book it
seemed as if I had parted with myself; if anything happened to the book
I felt as though it had happened to me, only more deeply and with
greater pain. The third book taught me of man in his broad historical
relations, set before me the general life of my kind as one great whole,
and showed me how I was bound to my own nation, both to my ancestors and
my contemporaries. Yet the service this last book had done me was hardly
recognised at this time; for my thoughts were bent on a definite outward
aim, that of becoming an architect. But I could at all events recognise
the new eager life which had seized me, and to mark this change to
myself, I now began to use as a Christian name the last instead of the
first of my baptismal names.[33] Other circumstances also impelled me to
make this change; and, further, it freed me from the memory of the many
disagreeable impressions of my boyhood which clustered round the name I
was then called.

The time had come when I could no longer remain satisfied with my
present occupation; and I therefore sent in my resignation. The
immediate outward circumstance which decided me was this. I had kept up
a correspondence with the young man whom I had known as a private tutor
when I held a Government clerkship in Bamberg, and who left his
situation to go to Frankfurt, and then on into France.[34] He had
afterwards lived some time in Frankfurt, occupying himself with
teaching, and now was again a private tutor in a merchant's house in the
Netherlands. I imparted to him my desire to leave my present post