with firm moral resolutions, which I imprinted deep in my mind under the
light of the stars. My interest in the play made me seek acquaintance
with the actors, and especially with one of them, an earnest young man
who attracted my attention, and to whom I spoke about his profession. I
congratulated him on being a member of such a company, able to call up
such ennobling sentiments in the human soul; perhaps even expressed a
wish that I could become a member of such a company. Then the honest
fellow described the profession of an actor as a brilliant, deceitful
misery, and confessed to me that he had been only forced by necessity to
adopt this profession, and that he was soon about to abandon it. Once
again I learned by this to divide cause from effect, internal from
external things. My visits to the play brought upon me a most unpleasant
experience, for my father, when I spoke to him without concealment of my
playgoing, reproached me very bitterly for it. He looked upon my conduct
as deserving the highest punishment, which was in absolute contradiction
with my own view; for I placed the benefit I had derived from my
attendance at the play side by side with what I had received by my
attendance at church, and expressed something of the kind to my father.
As often happened in later life, so also on this occasion it was my
eldest brother who was the mediator between my father and myself.

On Midsummer Day 1799 my apprenticeship came to an end. The forester,
who could now have made my practical knowledge of service to himself,
wished to keep me another year. But I had by this time acquired higher
views; I wished to study mathematics and botany more thoroughly, and I
was not to be kept back from my purpose. When my apprenticeship was over
I left him, and returned to my father's house.

My master knew well that he had not done his duty towards me, and with
this probably humiliating consciousness before him, and in spite of the