Next morning, then, in pursuance of our plan, Strauss and I started with the first train for Apolda, whence we went on foot across the fields to Doornburg. There we breakfasted in Goethe's room, saw the poet's handwriting on the wall, walked along his favorite terrace-walk, where I, for the time as much of a hero-worshipper as Strauss himself, recited aloud the beautiful song, _Da droben auf jenem Berge_, &c., which Goethe is said to have composed on this very spot. I expected Strauss to be moved almost to tears, instead of which he burst out in a most incontrollable fit of laughter, in which I as incontrollably joined when he told me the cause, which was this:--In Munich or Ludwigsburg, I forget which, there was once a house of public entertainment, called from its sign "The Lamb's Wool," as its proprietor was called "The Lamb's Wool landlord." This landlord had, it seems, been one of his own best customers, in consequence of which he soon became bankrupt, which sad event a poet of the same town, most probably another of the landlord's best customers, commemorated in a few stanzas entitled, _Des Lamswollswirthes Klagelied_ (The Host of the Lamb's Wool's Lament), a parody on the above song of Goethe's, and suggested, doubtless, by these two lines-- "Ich bin _herunter gekommem_, Und weiss doch selber nicht wie!"[9] Nothing could exceed the humor with which Strauss told me this droll anecdote, and, for my part, I feel that I shall never again be able to recite Goethe's pathetic song with becoming gravity.