It was he who induced me to give to my first romance, which I had intended to call Nitetis, the title An Egyptian Princess.
The stars of the admirable Dresden stage also found their way to my aunt's.
One day I was permitted to listen to the singing of Emmy La Gruas, and the next to the peerless Schroder-Devrient.

Every conversation with the cultured physician Geheimerath von Ammon was instructive and fascinating; while Rudolf von Reibisch, the most intimate friend of the family, whose great talents would have rendered him capable of really grand achievements in various departments of art, examined our skulls as a phrenologist or read aloud his last drama.

Here, too, I met Major Serre, the bold projector of the great lottery whose brilliant success called into being and insured the prosperity of the Schiller Institute, the source of so much good.
This simple-hearted yet energetic man taught me how genuine enthusiasm and the devotion of a whole personality to a cause can win victory under the most difficult circumstances.

True, his clever wife shared her husband's enthusiasm, and both understood how to attract the right advisers.

I afterwards met at their beautiful estate, Maxen, among many distinguished people, the Danish author Andersen, a man of insignificant personal appearance, but one who, if he considered it worth while and was interested in the subject, could carry his listeners resistlessly with him.