DUKE OF MEININGEN.)

I was born at Oberweissbach, a village in the Thuringian Forest, in the
small principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, on the 21st April, 1782.
My father was the principal clergyman, or pastor, there.[1] (He died in
1802.) I was early initiated into the conflict of life amidst painful
and narrowing circumstances; and ignorance of child-nature and
insufficient education wrought their influence upon me. Soon after my
birth my mother's health began to fail, and after nursing me nine months
she died. This loss, a hard blow to me, influenced the whole environment
and development of my being: I consider that my mother's death decided
more or less the external circumstances of my whole life.

The cure of five thousand souls, scattered over six or seven villages,
devolved solely on my father. This work, even to a man so active as my
father, who was very conscientious in the fulfilment of his duty as
minister, was all-absorbing; the more so since the custom of frequent
services still prevailed. Besides all this, my father had undertaken to
superintend the building of a large new church, which drew him more and
more from his home and from his children.

I was left to the care of the servants; but they, profiting by my
father's absorption in his work, left me, fortunately for me, to my
brothers, who were somewhat older than myself.[2] This, in addition
to a circumstance of my later life, may have been the cause of that
unswerving love for my family, and especially for my brothers, which
has, to the present moment, been of the greatest importance to me in
the conduct of my life. Although my father, for a village pastor, was
unusually well informed--nay, even learned and experienced--and was an
incessantly active man, yet in consequence of this separation from him
during my earliest years I remained a stranger to him throughout my
life; and in this way I was as truly without a father as without a
mother. Amidst such surroundings I reached my fourth year. My father
then married again, and gave me a second mother. My soul must have felt
deeply at this time the want of a mother's love,--of parental love,--for
in this year occurs my first consciousness of self. I remember that I
received my new mother overflowing with feelings of simple and faithful
child-love towards her. These sentiments made me happy, developed my
nature, and strengthened me, because they were kindly received and
reciprocated by her. But this