a great deal remained to do. My dissertation represented only about 

 half of the work to be done, though it was a complete unit in itself. 

 As soon as the second semester began, I took up botany with Professor 

 Pfitzer, continuing in zoology and palaeontology with Biitscheli and 

 in comparative anatomy with Gegenbaur. Most of my time and eflort, 

 however, were devoted to study in my own rooms. Letters from Dr. 

 McCosh made it a practical certainty that I should receive an appoint- 

 ment in June, as assistant to Dr. Guyot, but urging me to take the 

 degree, none the less. 



Dr. McCosh also directed me to get recommendations from such of 

 my instructors as might be willing to give them. I therefore wrote to 

 Huxley and Balfour on the subject. Huxley's reply began by saying 

 that, on principle, he never gave letters of recommendation and then 

 proceeded to give me a very flattering one, but "saved his face" by 

 addressing it to me and teUing me to make any use of it that I chose. 

 Balfour's letter was also most gratifying, and from Gegenbaur I asked 

 permission to send the certificate of successful work, which he had 

 given me to present to the Philosophical Faculty. 



In her youthful days, Fraulein Gretchen had been a governess in a 

 Prussian noble family and had gained the lasting affection of her pupil. 

 The pupil, the widow of an officer who died from the effects of a wound 

 received in France in 1870, was accustomed to visit Heidelberg every 

 year, on her way to and from Italy. In May 1880, she came to our 

 pension with her younger sister and little girl. I was extremely glad 

 of the opportunity to meet this family, for they were Junkers of the 

 straitest sect and had all the failings and prejudices of their caste. 

 Frau von S. was a great friend of Treitschke's and not only admired him, 

 but had a warm affection for him. She was reserved and cautious in 

 the expression of her views, but the sister could not restrain her hatred 

 and contempt of England. What these people thought was important; 

 not that they were especially influential, but that their opinions were 

 those of the most powerful class in Germany, which exercised a strong 

 influence upon the army. 



Compared with the nobles of Baden, these people seemed brusque and 

 overbearing, but they had, nevertheless, admirable qualities, conspicu- 

 ous in which were a strong sense of duty and honour, loyalty and 

 patriotism. They were highly cultivated, too, and had a genuine love 

 of art and a reverence for learning that were not characteristic of the 

 upper classes in England. At first, rather repelled, I came to have a 



C "9 ] 



