I had to sit down by the road.”
Rather casually, he reports of a praising letter to his mother from the school at Leipzig. The next paragraph begins (p.103-104):
“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.”
This information is then followed by a small lecture on the differences between schools in Anhalt-Dessau and schools in Prussia. This is an effective technique to wrap up disadvantageous facts that cannot be concealed and lead the readers to an entertaining story whose factual validity will generally not be questioned and/or cannot be verified if the story is told plausibly and palatably.
In this chapter titled “School-days at Leipzig” in his autobiography Max Müller does tell us almost nothing on the “school-days” of Friedrich Maximilian at Leipzig. After all, he spends important years of his life ‘in the house of the Professor Carus’, which, no doubt, formed his later personality. And we do comprehend the structure of his personality that is wrapped around his narrations. The famous Nikolai-Schule does not change his basic personality remarkably. Nothing-unusual things have happened in that school that could change his basic personality.
Excepting for the remark we have just learnt between two consumable narrations that:
“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.”
We recall his sufferings at Dessau due to poverty, negligence by both of the families, his social isolation, his social discriminations and the regular attacks of severe migraines. We recall also Adelheid’s ambitions, projected on her children, and her depressions. We recall the original words by Max Müller as well:
“My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was heart-broken.”
“My father was a rising poet, ... Contemporaries and friends of father, particularly Baron Simolin, a very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house, ...”
“Even the life insurance, which is obligatory on every civil servant, and the pension granted by the duke, gave my mother but a very small income, fabulously small, when one considers that she had to bring up two children on it. It has been a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.”
“The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by it.”
“On my mother’s side my relatives were more civilized, and they had but little social intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives.”
“... but for many years my mother never went into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her two children day after day to the beautiful Gottesacker (God’s Acre), where she stood for hours at our father’s grave, and sobbed and cried. ... At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my chief happiness was to be with my mother, I shared her grief without understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her children and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of life to her, she gave it to us, she lived for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness.”
“As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and though I watched carefully I could not trace it to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week and as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was scolded and punished, really without any fault of mine own.”
All these aspects remain in this chapter un-referred to. We remember we have only one source of information. Stories written down by Max Müller, two years before he dies. In this Chapter of “My Autobiography” Max Müller actually proposes to remember back and to present phases of development of Friedrich Maximilian from his childhood to a young man; the development of an unfortunate morbid-depressive boy to young man. He does not do it in actuality. Instead, he writes a palatable chapter on general topics under the heading: “School-days at Leipzig”. He reports nicely that Friedrich Maximilian writes poetry and recites them in public gatherings while he went to Nicolai-Schule at Leipzig. Then he elaborates on his strong affinity for music.
Unless one has become sceptical one reads further without getting time to read an episode a second time and lured by another palatable episode. A critical review of the school days at Dessau is also called for. We cannot overlook that Max Müller did not even indicate that Friedrich Maximilian was developing strong affinity towards music and poetry in Dessau. We remember also that Wilhelm Müller wrote lyrics and Adelheid Müller was a good singer. Yet, he did not develop any special affinity towards music. But all on a sudden at Leipzig, we recall (p. 104 ff.):
“During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of Professor Carus, and afterwards as a student at the university, my chief enjoyment was certainly music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but I pity the man who has not known the charm of it. At that time Leipzig was really the centre of music in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there and most of the distinguished artists and composers of the day came there to spend some time with him and to assist at the famous Gewandhaus concerts. I find among my letters a few descriptions of concerts and other musical entertainments, which even at present may be of some interest. I was asked to be present at some concerts where quartets and other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn, Hiller, Kalliwoda, David and Eckart. Liszt also made his triumphant entry into Germany at Leipzig, ... . The house of Professor Carus was always open to musical geniuses, and many an evening men like Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckert &c., came there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang most charmingly. I too was asked sometimes to play at these evening parties.”
Max Müller has evolved to a master in wrapping and covering of one simple but important fact. The childhood of Friedrich Maximilian at Dessau and his school-days at Leipzig were obviously not at all remarkable and noteworthy. And so far it had been a rather dull life without promising any successes. He has been in one of the best schools in Germany, Nicolai-Schule at Leipzig, since he was 12 years old. However, he is not merited enough to get his Abitur (school final) from the Nicolai-Schule:
“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt.”
First of all we must ascertain that “Zerbst in Anhalt”, to put it mildly, is absolutely wrong. Zerbst was an adjacent separate “province” in Prussia in the north of Anhalt-Dessau. Then: why at Zerbst and why not at Dessau? He does not explain. We look into his biographies. None of his later biographers takes note of this key-information in their writings. So, no one questions. And no questions, no answers. We won’t like to speculate. We raise this question and demand from the recent biographers