THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
achievement as if it had been his own, winked at me across the table and whispered audibly, “May I not tell?” This alone would have been sufficient to betray me, but another member sitting near recognized my handwriting. And now there was a great hurrah. From all sides they rushed upon me; there was no end of congratulation and handshaking; and Petrasch, looking around at the assembled company, called out: “There, now, what did I tell you?”
It has always been a relief to me that the poetic productions of my youth somehow disappeared; but I confess that I would like very much to see this one again, for at the time it rendered me an inestimable service. Its success aroused my dormant self-reliance and transformed me from an awkward country lad, who was in a good way to remain a ridiculous figure, into a respectable and respected young man. My shyness rapidly ceased in the intercourse with my comrades, and many delightful friendships were the outcome of it all.
Much time I could indeed not give to my friends during my first university year at Bonn, for the graduation examinations at the Cologne gymnasium, upon which my whole future depended, were still ahead, and they ever stood before me like a threatening specter. Aside from the historical and philological lectures by Aschbach and Ritschl, which I attended, I had to acquire all that was taught in the upper class of the gymnasium by way of self-instruction, and with the exception of higher mathematics and of natural science I succeeded in doing this, but, of course, not without much labor. At last, in September, 1847, the crisis came, and I journeyed to Cologne, accompanied by the prayers of my family and the cordial wishes of all good friends. Fortune favored me again, and all went well. I knew the sixth canto of the Iliad by heart, and it so happened that the examiner in Greek gave me a part of
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