Bygone Days (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: $art. CHAPTER I. PROFESSIONAL STUDIES. Spite of all perils, we arrived without accidents in Dresden; and a rich portion of my early life lay behind me?the whole school-time, with its chaotic diversity of institutions and teachers, of events of universal historical interest and childlike adventures; the beautiful time when we live for the day, and without an object, and when, like a wealthy man, we see nothing, desire nothing, but enjoyment. A new life was now to begin; still a scholar's life, to be sure, but with distinct and recognisable objects. When as a little child I had to wind yarn, I knew not why I did so, and had no other feeling about the matter than the desire not to be called idle. Then came the school- time with all its manifold objects of learning, with which I busied myself only because I wished to take home good testimonials. What I was now to learnwas of another nature. It was to enable me at some future period to earn my bread, and if possible to climb those heights of renown and of freedom to which Professor Sachse had directed my gaze. These seemed nobler objects, and I looked forward with joy to the new labour and its fruits. The Royal Academy of Arts, occupying on the Briihl Terrace one of the most prominent positions of the city, had been to me from childhood an object of reverence and desire. How often in passing I had looked up to those lofty windows, behind which Olympian figures of gods and heroes were visible, and had deemed the youths happy who were entitled to go freely and openly in and out as I in my school! Those halls were now opened to me, and any one who chanced to be on the Terrace might easily have seen that I entered the academy as one well entitled to do so, and thanking no one for the privilege. The gentlemen and ladies who were wa...