When I look back over so many years and try to judge the results of that experience I find two very significant facts standing out clearly before my mind.

First, Strength is everything, you can have ideals, you can have belief, you can even have wealth and lands as far as the eyes can see but in the face of overwhelming strength it all become pointless.

Second, I learned to understand and grasp the true meaning of history. That history is only written from and for those who won. It is never true.

The purpose of teaching history is not the memorizing of some dates and facts, that the student is not interested in knowing the exact date of a battle or the birthday of some marshal or other, and not at all - or at least only very insignificantly - interested in knowing when the crown of his fathers was placed on the brow of some monarch. These are certainly not looked upon as important matters.

To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical events. The art of reading and studying consists in remembering the essentials and forgetting what is not essential.

Suffice it to say here that in the very early years of my youth I came to certain conclusions which I have never abandoned. Indeed I became more profoundly convinced of them as the years pa.s.sed. They were: That the dissolution of the Human Empire is a preliminary condition for the defence of all intelligent living being; further, that national feeling is by no means identical with dynastic patriotism; finally, and above all, that the aristocracy that the weak have build up as a way to control the ma.s.ses was destined to bring misfortune to the World.

All this helped to intensify my profound aversion for the career that my father had chosen for me; and this dislike became especially strong as the rough corners of youthful boorishness became worn off, a process which in my case caused a good deal of pain. I became more and more convinced that I should never be happy as an official for the aristocracy.

I wanted to become a leader and no power in the world could force me to become a servant. The only peculiar feature of the situation now was that as I grew bigger I became more and more interested in magical arts and ancient history.

When I was in my fifteenth year my father was suddenly taken from us. He was still in robust health when a stroke of apoplexy painlessly ended his earthly wanderings and left us all deeply bereaved. His most ardent longing was to be able to help his son to advance in a career and thus save me from the harsh ordeal that he himself had to go through. But it appeared to him then as if that longing were all in vain. And yet, though he himself was not conscious of it, he had sown the seeds of a future which neither of us foresaw at that time.

At first nothing changed outwardly.

My mother felt it her duty to continue my education in accordance with my father's wishes, which meant that she would have me study for the civil service.

For my mother's sake, I conceded and put my all into doing as she wanted.

Two years later my mother's death put a brutal end to all my fine projects. She succ.u.mbed to a long and painful illness which from the very beginning permitted little hope of recovery. Though expected, her death came as a terrible blow to me. I respected my father, but I loved my mother.

Poverty and stern reality forced me to decide promptly.

The meagre resources of the family had been almost entirely used up through my mother's severe illness. The allowance which came to me as an orphan was not enough for the bare necessities of life. Somehow or other I would have to earn my own bread.

With my clothes and linen packed in a valise and with an indomitable resolution in my heart, I left for the Demonic Continent. I hoped to forestall fate, as my father had done fifty years before. I was determined to become 'something' - but certainly not a civil servant."