Consequently I determined to devote the following day to sightseeing, and ordered horses at the inn for the day following.  On the morning of the next day visitors of all sorts put in an appearance, among them the amiable and respected Chancellor Mueller, and, above all, my fellow-countryman Hummel, who for many years had been occupying the position of musical director in Weimar.  He had left Vienna before my poetry had attracted attention, so that we had not become acquainted with each other.  It was almost touching to witness the joy with which this ordinarily unsociable man greeted me and took possession of me.  In the first place I probably revived in him memories of his native city, which he had left with reluctance; then, too, it probably gave him satisfaction to find his literary countryman honored and respected in Weimar, where he heard nothing but disparaging opinions regarding the intellectual standing of Austria.  And, finally, he had an opportunity of conversing with a Viennese in his home dialect, which he had preserved pure and unadulterated while living among people who spoke quite differently.  I do not know whether it was the contrast, or whether this really was the worst German I had ever heard in my life.  While we were planning to visit some points of interest in Weimar, and while Chancellor Mueller, who had probably noticed my depression, was assuring me that Goethe’s formality was nothing but the embarrassment always displayed by him on meeting a stranger for the first time, the waiter entered and handed me a card containing an invitation from Goethe to dine with him the next day.  I therefore had to prolong my stay and to countermand the order for the horses.  The morning was passed in visiting the places that had become famous through their literary associations.  Schiller’s house interested me most of all, and I was especially delighted to find in the poet’s study, really an attic-room in the second story, an old man who is said to have acted as prompter at the theatre in Schiller’s time, teaching his grandson to read.  The little boy’s open and intelligently animated expression prompted the illusion that out of Schiller’s study a new Schiller might some day emerge—­an illusion which, to be sure, has not been realized.

The exact order of events is now confused in my mind.  I believe it was on this first day that I dined with Hummel en famille.  There I found his wife, formerly the pretty singer, Miss Roeckel, whom I could well remember in page’s attire and close-fitting silk tights.  Now she was an efficient, respected housewife, who vied with her husband in amiability.  I felt myself strongly drawn to the whole family and, in spite of his rather mechanical disposition, I honored and venerated Hummel as the last genuine pupil of Mozart.