At the Esterhazy country-house Schubert seems at first to have felt more at home in the kitchen than in the drawing-room. A letter to Schober, written in September, 1818, says:--"The cook is a pleasant fellow; the ladies' maid is thirty; the housemaid very pretty, and often pays me a visit; the nurse is somewhat ancient; the butler is my rival; the two grooms get on better with the horses than with us. The Count is a little rough; the Countess proud, but not without heart; the young ladies good children." It was not long before Schubert found himself a great favorite with the whole household, from the count down to the grooms. From this time until his death he was always welcome whenever he chose to come, Baron von Schönstein, the singer already mentioned, had hitherto sung nothing but Italian music, but he was now converted to the German Lied, and for the rest of his life devoted himself to Schubert's songs, until for his magnificent rendering of them he acquired a fame scarcely second to Vogl. During the winter seasons in Vienna, Schubert continued to give music lessons in the Esterhazy family, but his home was apt to be in the humble room with Mayrhofer, or afterwards again with Schober. He was as regular with his work of composing music as Anthony Trollope with his novel-writing or Sainte-Beuve with his "Causeries du Lundi." When Ferdinand Hiller was about sixteen years old he made a visit to Vienna and called upon Schubert. "Do you write much?" asked Hiller,--a question which now sounds odd enough, and shows how little knowledge of the great composer there was outside of his own town. "I write every morning," said Schubert, "and as soon as I have finished one thing I begin another." This regularity was simply an outcome of the fact that the fount of inspiration was never dry. It was not because it was work done for much needed money, for the larger part of Schubert's work never brought him any money. It was primarily because singing was as spontaneous with him on first awaking as with a bird; sometimes he could not wait to get up and dress, but seized a sheet of music paper and jotted down his first exuberant thoughts while still in bed. After a piece was finished, he sometimes heard it sung or played, and sometimes did not; in either case it was apt soon to be tucked away in a cupboard drawer and forgotten; there are several anecdotes of his listening to old songs of his own without recognizing them.