Another trait of Struensee's character forms the keynote of his catastrophe. He was from an early age gifted with an enterprising and restless mind, and an unbridled ambition. This fact aroused in his father a well-founded apprehension, when he heard of his son's rapid progress in the world. "My son," he said to a friend, "will not be able to bear the favour of his monarch." These words contain Struensee's whole fate. Moreover, he had always an immoderate propensity for pleasure, and very liberal views as regards morality. Such faults are wont to assume enormous proportions in the intoxication of fortune: they are the more dangerous for a man whose career attracts the general attention; they lead him into serious errors; and any statesman ought carefully to try and keep them in submission.[93] With what remarkable abilities the young man must have been endowed is proved by the fact that he was able to matriculate at the University of Halle in his fourteenth year, and had not completed his twentieth when he received his degree as Doctor. In 1757, the call of his father to be chief preacher in the town church of Altona had a material influence on Struensee's fate. The young doctor accompanied his father there, and remained for a time in the house of his parents. Ere long, however, he entered the public service, for, on October 20 of the same year, he was appointed by the government town physician of Altona, and country physician of the lordship of Pinneberg and the county of Rantzau. When his father, who had become celebrated as a theologian, was appointed by the government superintendent-general of the two duchies, and removed first to Rendsburg and then to Schleswig, the young doctor bought a house in Altona, and set up his own household. His table was laid at dinner for six persons, at supper for four, and the meals were accompanied by clever conversation. The host often gave free course to his satire, though without offending any one, and his guests were principally men of letters and officers. In a small pamphlet I have picked up,[94] there is a curious anecdote, which serves to show the humorous side of Struensee's character. He once invited to dinner four persons, all of whom he knew to be on unfriendly terms. He delighted in the sour face cut by each new corner on seeing his aversion, but tried to reconcile them. Each of the guests whispered in his ear, "Why did you not tell me you were going to ask them, and then I would have come to you another time?" He laughed, and justly ridiculed an animosity which pedants are so fond of keeping up. Another curious circumstance is, that two skeletons stood by Struensee's bedside, holding burning candles in their hands. Whether he really read at night in this anything but agreeable company in order to habituate himself with death, cannot be positively asserted.