I was rarely interrupted, for the report had spread that I wished to be alone while at work; yet even the first year I did not lack acquaintances.

Even during our first stay at Wildbad, which, with the Hirsau interruption, lasted more than three months, my mother had formed an intimate friendship with Frau von Burckhardt, in which I too was included.  The lady possessed rare tact in harmonizing the very diverse elements which her husband, the physician in charge, brought to her.  Every one felt at ease in her house and found congenial society there.  So it happened that for a long time the Villa Burckhardt was the rendezvous of the most eminent persons who sought the healing influence of the Wildbad spring.  Next to this, it was the Burckhardts who constantly drew us back to the Enz.

Were I to number the persons whom I met here and whose acquaintanceship I consider a benefit, the list would be a long one.  Some I shall mention later.  The first years we saw most frequently the song-writer Silcher, from Tubingen, Justus von Liebig, the Munich zoologist von Siebold, the Belgian artist Louis Gallait, the author Moritz Hartmann, Gervinus, and, lastly, the wife of the Stuttgart publisher Eduard Hallberger, and the never-to-be-forgotten Frau Puricelli and her daughter Jenny.

Silcher, an unusually attractive old man, joined us frequently.  No other composer’s songs found their way so surely to the hearts of the people.  Many, as “I know not what it means,” “I must go hence to-morrow,” are supposed to be folk-songs.  It was a real pleasure to hear him sing them in our little circle in his weak old voice.  He was then seventy, but his freshness and vivacity made him appear younger.  The chivalrous courtesy he showed to all ladies was wonderfully winning.

Justus Liebig’s manners were no less attractive, but in him genuine amiability was united to the elegance of the man of the world who had long been one of the most distinguished scholars of his day.  He must have been remarkably handsome in his youth, and though at that time past fifty, the delicate outlines of his profile were wholly unmarred.

Conversation with him was always profitable and the ease with which he made subjects farthest from his own sphere of investigation—­chemistry perfectly clear was unique in its way.  Unfortunately, I have been denied any deeper insight into the science which he so greatly advanced, but I still remember how thoroughly I understood him when he explained some results of agricultural chemistry.  He eagerly endeavoured to dissuade the gentlemen of his acquaintance from smoking after dinner, which he had found by experiment to be injurious.

For several weeks we played whist with him every evening, for Liebig, like so many other scholars, regarded card-playing as the best recreation after severe tension of the mind.  During the pauses and the supper which interrupted the game, he told us many things of former times.  Once he even spoke of his youth and the days which determined his destiny.  The following event seems to me especially worth recording.