EARLY YOUTH 29 



older lawyer, Karl Haeckel, in the twenties. The 

 first-fruit of this marriage was Ernst HaeckeFs 

 elder brother, the Provincial Councillor Haeckel 

 who died a few years ago, a high-minded and 

 sensitive man. He remained throughout life 

 faithful to the strict traditional forms of religious 

 experience, in spite of all his admiration for his 

 gifted zoological brother. 



The second and last child did not appear until 

 ten years later. Ernst Haeckel was born on the 

 16th of February, 1834, shortly after the death 

 of Schleiermacher, as I have explained. Most of 

 what I know of his earliest years was told me by 

 his venerable aunt Bertha. 



His father died long ago, in 1871. Gustav 

 Freytag has pointed out how eagerly he drank 

 in the morning air of the dawning freedom before 

 1813. For many years he was at a later date 

 a very close friend of Gneisenau. He was an 

 earnest, conscientious, upright man, wdth no 

 particular artistic arabesques to his life, and at 

 the same time no errors. The victories of 1870 

 lit up the red sunset of his days. He was one of 

 those happy folk who thought that all was accom- 

 plished in the great achievements of those days, 

 and had little suspicion of what was still to come. 

 The mother survived him for many years. Her 

 son's Indian Travels was dedicated to her on her 

 eighty-fourth birthday, November 22, 1882. The 

 dedication ran : ' ' Thou it was who from early 

 childhood fostered in me a sense for the infinite 

 beauties of nature : thou hast ever w^atched my 



