EARLY YOUTH 21 



it be so. Perhaps any man might have found 

 Zipangu, while only the genius could reach 

 America. 



When Gustav Freytag, who had a most happy 

 quality for writing memoirs, was composing his 

 admirable Pictures from the Past of Germany, he 

 sought in each period some prominent man of 

 plain and downright character, yet who had some- 

 thing typical of his age in his sentiments, as if 

 the time-spirit spoke through him. In this quest 

 he twice (in the fourth volume, for the period 

 from the close of the eighteenth century to the 

 Wars of Freedom) lit upon earlier members of 

 Haeckel's family. The first was Haeckel's 

 grandfather on the mother's side, Christoph 

 Sethe ; the second was his father. Councillor 

 Haeckel. 



This simple fact shows the stufE of Haeckel's 

 race. The older Sethe was an important man 

 in his time. He left to his children manuscript 

 memoirs of his eventful life, which have, un- 

 fortunately, been only sparsely used by Freytag, 

 though the whole deserved to be regarded as a 

 source of history. The general facts in relation 

 to him were collected by Hermann Hiiffer, who 

 was not merely interested in the jurist because 

 he was one himself, but was brought into touch 

 with him as a result of his brilliant study of Heine. 

 Sethe's eldest son. Christian, the uncle of Ernst 

 Haeckel, is the well-known friend of Heine's youth 

 to whom the poet dedicated the '* Fresco-sonnets " 



