ttle town raises itself to higher and ever higher prosperity, and all
things are made to serve towards mental culture, as well as towards a
right citizen-like business activity. I permit myself this digression,
because these results were paralleled as a life-experience in my own
life.

In this manner I lived, up to my confirmation; all but a few weeks, that
is, which I spent at my parents' house during the long holidays. Here,
too, everything seemed to take a gentler turn, and the domestic, thrifty
activity which filled the place, and always struck me anew in my
periodical visits home, wrought upon me with most beneficial effect. The
copper-plate engravings in my father's library were the first things I
sought out, especially those representing scenes in the history of the
world. A table showing our (German) alphabet in its relations with many
others made a surprising impression upon me. It enabled me to recognise
the connection and the derivation of our letters from the old Phoenician
characters. This gave me a dim conception of the inner connection of all
those languages of which, as my brother had studied and was still
studying them, I often heard, and saw in print. Especially the Greek
language lost much of its strangeness in my eyes, now that I could
recognise its characters in the German alphabet. All this, however, had
no immediate consequence in my life; these things, as echoes from my
youth, produced their effect upon me at a later time.

At this time, too, I read all sorts of boys' books. The story of Samuel
Lawill impressed me most vividly; I, too, longed for such a ring, which
by its warning pressure on my finger could hinder my hand from effecting
unworthy purposes, and I was very angry with the youthful owner of the
ring in the story, who threw it away in irritation because it pressed
him right hard at a moment when he wished to commit a passionate
deed.[16]

My confirmation, and the preparation for it, all conducted by my uncle,
was over. I had received from it the most impressive and the most
far-reaching influence in my whole life, and all my life-threads found
in it their point of union and repose. I had now to be prepared for some
business calling, and the question was raised, for which? That I should
not study at the university had already been decided long before by the
express determination of my step-mother. For since two of my
brothers[17] had devoted themselves to study, she feared that the
f