I grew up pious and superstitious. I had no idea of want or need; to be
sure my parents had only sufficient to live from day to day, but I at
least had plenty of every thing; an old woman altered my father's
clothes for me. Now and then I went with my parents to the theatre,
where the first representations which I saw were in German. "Das
Donauweibchen" was the favorite piece of the whole city; there,
however, I saw, for the first time, Holberg's Village Politicians
treated as an opera.

The first impression which a theatre and the crowd assembled there made
upon me was, at all events, no sign of any thing poetical slumbering in
me; for my first exclamation on seeing so many people, was, "Now, if we
only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would
eat lots of butter!" The theatre, however, soon became my favorite
place, but, as I could only very seldom go there, I acquired the
friendship of the man who carried out the playbills, and he gave me one
every day. With this I seated myself in a corner and imagined an entire
play, according to the name of the piece and the characters in it. That
was my first, unconscious poetising.

My father's favorite reading was plays and stories, although he also
read works of history and the Scriptures. He pondered in silent thought
afterwards upon that which he had read, but my mother did not
understand him when he talked with her about them, and therefore he
grew more and more silent. One day, he closed the Bible with the words,
"Christ was a man like us, but an extraordinary man!" These words
horrified my mother, and she burst into tears. In my distress I prayed
to God that he would forgive this fearful blasphemy in my father.
"There is no other devil than that which we have in our own hearts," I
heard my father say one day and I made myself miserable about him and