Most charmingly Hebbel describes his first experience of love, when but four years old. "It was in Susanna's dull schoolroom, also, that I learned the meaning of love; it was, indeed, in the very hour when I first entered it, at the age of four. First love! Who is there who will not smile as he reads these words? Who will fail to recall memories of some Anne or Margaret, who once seemed to him to wear a crown of stars, and to be clad in the blue of heaven and the gold of dawn; and now--but it would be malicious to depict the contrast! Who will fail to admit that it seemed to him then as if he passed on the wing through the garden of the earth, flitting from flower to flower, sipping from their honey-cups; passing too swiftly, indeed, to become intoxicated, but pausing long enough at each to inhale its divine perfume!... It was some time before I ventured to raise my eyes, for I felt that I was under inspection, and this embarrassed me. But at length I looked up, and my first glance fell upon a pale and slender girl who sat opposite me: her name was Emily, and she was the daughter of the parish-clerk. A passionate trembling seized me, the blood rushed to my heart; but a sentiment of shame was also intermingled with my first sensations, and I lowered my eyes to the ground once more, as rapidly as if I had caught sight of something horrible. From that moment Emily was ever in my thoughts; and the school, so greatly dreaded in anticipation, became a joy to me, because it was there only that I could see her. The Sundays and holidays which separated me from her were as greatly detested by me as in other circumstances they would have been greatly desired; one day when she stayed away from school, I felt utterly miserable. In imagination she was always before my eyes, wherever I went; when alone, I was never weary of repeating her name; above all, her black eyebrows and intensely red lips were ever before my eyes, whereas I do not remember that at this time her voice had made any impression on me, although later this became all-important."