The sea with its endless variety of moods and scenes opened to him the secrets of his favorite poet Homer. He says: "I count it among the greatest privileges of my life that I could dream myself into my favorite poet, while the Greek original was still a book of seven seals." Following the steps of his great German model, Goethe, he tested his talents for the stage both at home, where he was playwright, manager, stage director, prompter and actor, all in one, and later on the real stage at Magdeburg only to find that he was not called to wear the buskin. In his school days he began to read the authors of German fiction and poetry: Tieck, Arnim, Brentano, Stifter, Zschokke, Steffens, Goethe's _Hermann and Dorothea_ and _Faust_ (First Part), Lessing, Uhland, Heine's _Book of Songs_, Freiligrath, Herwegh. He also browsed about in other literatures: Byron's _Don Juan_ he read first when he was seven years of age; of Walter Scott he says: "In speaking this precious name I mention perhaps not the most distinguished, but nevertheless the greatest and most sympathetic, stimulator of my mind at that time. * * * In comparison with this splendid Walter Scott, the other English and American novelists, Cooper, Ainsworth, Marryat, and whatever their names whose novels came into my hands at that time are stars of the second and third magnitude." He regards Bulwer alone as the peer of the Scottish Bard. The English influence of the time was reflected also in the life about him, especially in the sport-life, with its horse-racing, pigeon-shooting, card-playing (Tarok, L'Hombre, Whist or Boston) and kindred pastimes. He knew "that Blacklock was sired by Brownlock from Semiramis, and Miss Jane was bred of the Bride of Abydos by Robin Hood"--an interesting sidelight on the Byronic influence of the time. This sport-life so zealously cultivated by the gentry, and his visits to the manor houses of his school friends during the vacations, afforded him glimpses into the customs and traditions of the agrarian gentry of Pomerania, and the manorial economy and reckless life of the nobles with their castles, dependents, laborers, overseers, apprentices, volunteers and the like--the first impressions of his _Problematic Characters_.