All young poets in Germany were then liberal and more than liberal, all dreamt and sang of a united Germany. But being thirty years ahead of Bismarck, they were unmercifully sent to prison, and often their whole career was ruined for life. Living much in that society, I too, a harmless boy of eighteen, was sent to prison as a person highly dangerous to the peace of Europe. The confinement in the academic career was not very severe, however, except in one respect. From time to time one was allowed to go out, provided one kept on good terms with the attendants. But the serious thing was that as one became a popular character all one’s friends came to visit one, and they expected of course to be hospitably entertained. The consumption of beer and tobacco was considerable, and so was the bill at the end of my political incarceration. More of that perhaps by-and-by. Nearly all the political poetry of that time, much as it then stirred the people, is now forgotten; even the names of the poets are known to but few, though they have found their way into the various histories of German literature. I remember as one of the best, Herwegh, who came to Leipzig when I was a student, and who, of course, was _fêted_ by the Burschenschaft at a brilliant supper. Much beer was drunk, much tobacco was smoked, many speeches were made. The police were present, and the names of all who had taken part were entered in the Black Book, mine among the rest. Herwegh was a real poet, unfortunately he spent nearly all his poetical genius on political invective. How well I remember his poem in which every verse ended with the words:— Wir haben lang genug geliebt, Wir wollen endlich hassen! But there were some poems of his which well deserved a longer life. One began with the words: “Ich möchte hingehen wie das Abendroth.” Very beautiful, but my memory does not serve me further, and my copy of his poems has vanished from my library like many other volumes which I lent to my friends.[6] I well remember the pleasure which Herwegh’s poems gave me, but the words themselves are gone. It is the same with so many of our recollections. I can still feel the intense delight, the hushed reverence with which I looked the first time at Raphael’s Madonna di San Sisto, and looked at it again and again whenever I passed through Dresden. But whether the colour of the Virgin’s dress is red or blue I cannot tell. I dare say it is all there, in the treasure-house of my memory. Nay, sometimes it suddenly appears, only never when I call for it. What is forgotten, however, does not seem to be entirely forfeited; it can be gotten again, and it probably forms, though unknown, the fertile soil for new harvests: that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.