Latin I was taught by my brother’s tutor, joining Wilhelm at his lessons, a plan adopted partly in order to give him the stimulant of emulation, but which became a source of unspeakable pleasure and profit to myself. I had such delight and displayed so much facility in the acquisition of a new language, that linguistic talent was supposed to be my special gift. No one understood, nor was I myself until long after aware, that it was language, and not languages, that was my real concern. Unconsciously, I was forging for my own use the weapon that was to serve me later on, and this peep into the beauties of the Latin tongue--for a mere peep it was, since I laboured under the disadvantage of having to plunge into its mysteries at the point at which my brother had arrived,--was yet of immense service to me, in enlarging my horizon, and affording me a cursory inspection of the treasures of another world. The grammar of that noble idiom I never rightly mastered, it is true, conscientiously as I battled with it. Many and many a night have I fallen asleep over my books, my head resting on the ponderous old dictionary in which I was seeking the key to some involved construction in the verse, whose majestic cadence enchanted my ear, even before I had fully apprehended its true significance. My brother’s tastes were very different from my own; it was not languages that interested him, but mathematics and the exact sciences. Inventions of all sorts were his special hobby, every new kind of machine had a special fascination for him, and he would have loved to be an engineer. The other course of lessons given us by Professor Preuner, on classic art, was perhaps of even greater efficiency in opening my eyes to the glories of the ancient world, since here there were no technical obscurities to interpose themselves between my vision and the masterpieces revealed. In a series of excellent drawings these were displayed to us, and their perfection pointed out and explained with so much enthusiasm by our professor, himself an ardent devotee of Grecian art, that we in turn learned to know and love these treasures of antiquity so thoroughly and well, my subsequent visits to the great European galleries containing the originals had nothing of strangeness or surprise,--it was but as if I were renewing acquaintance with old and well-loved friends, of whom I had lost sight for a while.