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All the open spaces of the city and the long range of the quays were covered with booths; many of which contained sweetmeats, gingerbread cakes of the quaintest designs, toys and fancy wares of all kinds, while others displayed excellent textile goods and articles for domestic use. There seemed to be almost as many shows as there were booths, for the music-hall was still unthought of, and it was only at fairs that wandering minstrels, athletes, tumblers, conjurors, and jugglers, trained dogs and monkeys and birds and menageries, made their appearance. In these days of easy locomotion and widespread luxury, when every facility is given to every class in every country to indulge in every kind of cheap and good amusement, it is impossible to imagine how great was our excitement and gratification at witnessing the sights of the Fair. There was a kind of play I then saw which impressed me fearfully because of its gruesome and mysterious character, and to this hour I could not explain how it was enacted. It was the pantomimic representation of an ancient trial. The principal actor was sentenced to death, he laid his head on the block, and it was struck off by the executioner with an axe, and held up to the audience while blood poured from the body. But of all the attractions none equalled the circus. London already had its Astley’s but in Germany a circus was only to be seen at the Fairs, and no words of mine could express my ecstasy at the antics of the clowns.

At that time our house was one of the cheeriest and most popular in Frankfort, for both my Parents liked seeing their friends at home, and appreciated the conversation of clever and accomplished persons whom they welcomed under their roof. As my Sisters grew up my Mother was anxious to enlarge the scope of her hospitality, but my Father though he was partial to his rubber of whist and often dined out, disliked society in the general sense of the word and as he advanced in years he gradually developed a thorough aversion to receptions of all kinds. When we settled in Vienna in the ‘fifties’ no amount of coaxing could ever induce him to give a dance, and a stiff dinner now and then was the utmost concession he made to my Mother’s requests. Even in the ‘forties’ the craftiest diplomacy had to be employed by my Mother and Sisters to obtain his consent to a ball, from which at the last minute he would often plead some excuse to absent himself. Yet he was still comparatively amenable to his social duties and allowed receptions of various kinds. Though half a century has elapsed since those days, the impression these receptions made on my mind were so deep at the time that I could mention most of the names of the ladies who attended them, and describe not only their appearance but their gowns and the turbans that some of them still wore.

The fashionable dinner hour was five, but my parents when alone dined later, and the evening parties began about nine. To reward me when I was a good boy I was allowed to come down for a short while into the drawing-room, and I enjoyed nothing so much as looking at the smart folk, while indulging my taste for ices and sweetmeats which, after the German custom, were handed round on trays.