_February 22._ After my mother left us we did not stay in Paris, but went to Ischl, which we made merely the point of departure for walking tours which often lasted for weeks. Several times I have spoken of the region to you, hoping to draw from you some remark proving a recollection of those days, but you always avoid reply. Yet I am sure they are not forgotten, for miles of the Tyrol and Alps are as familiar to me as the garnishings of a breakfast-table. My father had the tact and kindly humor that make a man equally at home and welcome in _Gasthaus_ and _Schloss_. Though we traveled with only a knapsack, his breeding and education were so patent to whomsoever we met that we spent many a night inside of doors with armorial coats of many quarterings carved above them, and many a day’s shooting and fishing followed. Yet pleasant as was this impromptu and “gentle” hospitality, I think we were all quite as happy when our evenings were spent among the peasants, drinking beer, talking of farming and forestry, singing songs, or listening to the blare of the peripatetic military band. My father was a fine German scholar, and you and I acquired the language as quickly and as easily as we learned French. We always had books in our pockets, and used to lie for hours under the trees, reading aloud. Long discussions followed over what we had conned, enriched by the thousand side-lights my father could throw on any subject. To most people reading is a resort to save themselves from thinking, but my father knew that pitfall, and made us use books as a basis for thought on our own part. After a volume was finished we would each write a criticism of it, and the comparison of my boyish attempts with his brilliant, comprehensive, and philosophic work taught me more of writing than all the tuition I ever had.