I even ventured while at Leipzig to play sometimes at public concerts in the neighbourhood. But when I began to look forward to what I should make of my life, and how I should carve out for myself a useful career, I saw that music was out of the question. There was another consideration which determined my choice. There was much deafness in my family. My mother became deaf when she was still quite young, my grandmother, several of my uncles and cousins, all had lost their hearing, and this induced me, young as I was, to choose a profession which would be possible even if I should share the same misfortune. I could not think of medicine, or law, or the Church—so I said to myself, keep to Greek and Latin, try to be a scholar. A professorship was my highest ambition, but I thought that even if that should fail, I might find a quiet Benedictine cell somewhere, and support myself by my pen. So music had to step into the background, not altogether, but so as not to interfere with more serious work. No, music, though somewhat slighted, has remained a true and faithful friend to me through life. I have enjoyed music until very late in life when I began to feel satisfied, and would much rather hum a symphony to myself than hear it played, often not half so well as I remembered it at Dessau, at the Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig, and at the marvellous Conservatoire Concerts in Paris. These were the perfection of instrumental music. Never has any other performance come near them. It was difficult to get a ticket. People used to form _queue_ and stand the whole night in order to secure the next morning an _abonnement_ for the season. To buy a ticket was beyond my means, for when I was at Paris I had entirely to support myself. But a friend of mine took me to the Conservatoire, and I often sat in the corridor without seeing the orchestra, listening as if to organ music. It was perfect. Every instrument of the orchestra was first-rate—the players had mostly passed through the same school, the conductor was an old man with a German name which I forget. Was it Habeneck? He reminded me of Schneider, and certainly his orchestra marched like a regiment of soldiers.