The first year he spent at the gymnasium in Neu-Ruppin. The
following year (1833) he was sent to an industrial school in Berlin.
There he lived with his uncle August, whose character and financial
management remind one of our poet's father. Theodor was irregular in
his attendance at school and showed more interest in the newspapers
and magazines than in his studies. At the age of sixteen he became the
apprentice of a Berlin apothecary with the expectation of eventually
succeeding his father in business. After serving his apprenticeship he
was employed as assistant dispenser by apothecaries in Berlin, Burg,
Leipzig, and Dresden. When he reached the age of thirty he became a
full-fledged dispenser and was in a position to manage the business of
his father, but the latter had long ago retired and moved to the
village of Letschin. The Fontane home was later broken up by the
mutual agreement of the parents to dissolve their unhappy union. The
father went first to Eberswalde and then to Schiffmuehle, where he died
in 1867; the mother returned to Neu-Ruppin and died there in 1869.
The beginning of Theodor's first published story appeared in the
_Berliner Figaro_ a few days before he was twenty years of age. The
same organ had previously contained some of his lyrics and ballads.
The budding poet had belonged to a Lenau Club and the fondness he had
there acquired for Lenau's poetry remained unchanged throughout his
long life, which is more than can be said of many literary products
that won his admiration in youth.
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