Now, I
determined to venture up to Broechner. But I had not the courage to
mention it to my mother beforehand, for fear speaking of it should
frighten me from my resolution, so uneasy did I feel about the step I
was taking. When the day which I had fixed upon for the attempt arrived
--it was the 2nd of September, 1861,--I walked up and down in front of
the house several times before I could make up my mind to go upstairs; I
tried to calculate beforehand what the professor would say, and what it
would be best for me to reply, interminably.
The tall, handsome man with the appearance of a Spanish knight, opened
the door himself and received the young fellow who was soon to become
his most intimate pupil, very kindly. To my amazement, as soon as he
heard my name, he knew which school I had come from and also that I had
recently become a student. He vigorously dissuaded me from going through
a course of Plato and Aristotle, saying it would be too great a strain--
said, or implied, that I should be spared the difficult path he had
himself traversed, and sketched out a plan of study of more modern
Philosophy and Aesthetics. His manner inspired confidence and left
behind it the main impression that he wished to save the beginner all
useless exertion. All the same, with my youthful energy, I felt, as I
went home, a shade disappointed that I was not to begin the History of
Philosophy from the beginning.
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