My Autobiography: A FragmentMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
My Autobiography: A Fragment
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Asianists -- Germany -- Biography; Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max), 1823-1900
intimate friends without any ceremony. It is a pity that children are
not taught a few rules of life-wisdom by their seniors. I know that
the Jews do not neglect that duty, and I remember being surprised at
my young Jewish friends at Dessau coming out with some very wise saws
which evidently had not been grown in their own hot-houses, but had
been planted out full grown by their seniors. The only rules of
worldly wisdom which I remember, came to me through proverbs and
little verses which we had either to copy or to learn by heart, such
as:
“Wer einmal lügt, dem glaubt man nicht
Und wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht.”
“Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde.”
“Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,
Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen.”
“Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied.”
Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried with me all through
life, and I still think they are very true and very terse:
“Im Glück nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,
Das Unvermeidliche mit Würde tragen,
Das Rechte thun, am Schönen sich erfreuen,
Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,
Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,
Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben.”
Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a journey through
life, and I often thought that a few more hints might have preserved
me from the painful process of what was called rubbing off one’s
horns. Again and again I had to say to myself, “That would have done
very well at home, but it was a mistake for all that.” My social
rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as the Dessau
dialect remained with me for life; at least I was assured by my
friends that though I had spoken French and English for so many years,
they could always detect in my German that I came from Dessau or
Leipzig.
CHAPTER III
SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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