The Campaner Thal and Other Writings Part 13

ARMY-CHAPLAIN SCHMELZLE'S JOURNEY TO FLaTZ;

WITH

A RUNNING COMMENTARY OF NOTES.

TRANSLATED BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

PREFACE

This, I conceive, may be managed in two words. The _first_ word must relate to the Circular Letter of Army-Chaplain Schmelzle, wherein he describes to his friends his Journey to the metropolitan city of Flatz; after having, in an Introduction, premised some proofs and a.s.surances of his valor. Properly speaking, the _Journey_ itself has been written purely with a view that his courageousness, impugned by rumor, may be fully evinced and demonstrated by the plain facts which he therein records. Whether, in the mean time, there shall not be found certain quick-scented readers, who may infer, directly contrariwise, that his breast is not everywhere bomb-proof, especially in the left side,--on this point I keep my judgment suspended.

For the rest, I beg the judges of literature, as well as their satellites, the critics of literature, to regard this _Journey_, for whose literary contents I, as Editor, am answerable, solely in the light of a Portrait (in the French sense), a little Sketch of Character. It is a voluntary or involuntary comedy-piece, at which I have laughed so often, that I purpose in time coming to paint some similar Pictures of Character myself. And, for the present, when could such a little comic toy be more fitly imparted and set forth to the world than in these very days, when the sound both of heavy money and of light laughter has died away from among us,--when, like the Turks, we count and pay merely with sealed _purses_, and the coin within them has vanished?

Despicable would it seem to me, if any clownish squire of the goose-quill should publicly and censoriously demand of me in what way this self-cabinet-piece of Schmelzle's has come into my hands. I know it well, and do not disclose it. This comedy-piece, for which I, at all events, as my Bookseller will testify, draw the profit myself, I got hold of so unblamably, that I await, with unspeakable composure, what the Army-Chaplain shall please to say against the publication of it, in case he say anything at all. My conscience bears me witness, that I acquired this article at least by more honorable methods than are those of the learned persons who steal with their ears, who, in the character of spiritual auditory-thieves, and cla.s.s-room cut-purses and pirates, are in the habit of disloading their plundered Lectures, and vending them up and down the country as productions of their own. Hitherto, in my whole life, I have stolen little, except now and then in youth some--glances.

The _second_ word must explain or apologize for the singular form of this little Work, standing as it does on a substratum of Notes. I myself am not contented with it. Let the world open, and look, and determine, in like manner. But the truth is, this line of demarcation, stretching through the whole book, originated in the following accident: certain thoughts (or digressions) of my own, with which it was not permitted me to disturb those of the Army-Chaplain, and which could only be allowed to fight behind the lines, in the shape of Notes, I, with a view to conveniency and order, had written down in a separate paper; at the same time, as will be observed, regularly providing every Note with its Number, and thus referring it to the proper page of the main Ma.n.u.script. But, in the copying of the latter, I had forgotten to insert the corresponding numbers in the Text itself. Therefore, let no man, any more than I do, cast a stone at my worthy Printer, inasmuch as he (perhaps in the thought that it was my way, that I had some purpose in it) took these Notes, just as they stood, pellmell, without arrangement of Numbers, and clapped them under the Text; at the same time, by a praiseworthy, artful computation, taking care, at least, that at the bottom of every page in the Text there should some portion of this glittering Note-precipitate make its appearance. Well, the thing at any rate is done, nay, perpetuated, namely, printed. After all, I might almost partly rejoice at it. For, in good truth, had I meditated for years (as I have done for the last twenty) how to provide for my digression-comets new orbits, if not focal suns, for my episodes new epopees,--I could scarce possibly have hit upon a better or more s.p.a.cious Limbo for such Vanities than Chance and Printer here accidentally offer me ready-made. I have only to regret that the thing has been printed before I could turn it to account. Heavens! what remotest allusions (had I known it before printing) might not have been privily introduced in every Text-page and Note-number; and what apparent incongruity in the real congruity between this upper and under side of the cards! How vehemently and devilishly might one not have cut aloft, and to the right and left, from these impregnable casemates and covered-ways; and what _laesio ultra dimidium_ (injury beyond the half of the Text) might not, with these satirical injuries, have been effected and completed!

But Fate meant not so kindly with me; of this golden harvest-field of satire I was not to be informed till three days before the Preface.

Perhaps, however, the writing world, by the little blue flame of this accident, may be guided to a weightier acquisition, to a larger subterranean treasure, than I, alas! have dug up. For, to the writer, there is now a way pointed out of producing in one marbled volume a group of altogether different works; of writing in one leaf, for both s.e.xes at the same time, without confounding them, nay, for the five faculties all at once, without disturbing their limitations; since now, instead of boiling up a vile, fermenting shove-together, fit for n.o.body, he has nothing to do but draw his note-lines or part.i.tion-lines; and so on his five-story leaf give board and lodging to the most discordant heads. Perhaps one might then read many a book for the fourth time, simply because every time one had read but a fourth part of it.

On the whole, this Work has at least the property of being a short one; so that the reader, I hope, may almost run through it, and read it at the bookseller's counter, without, as in the case of thicker volumes, first needing to buy it. And why, indeed, in this world of Matter should anything whatever be great, except only what belongs not to it, the world of Spirit?

Jean Paul Fr. Richter.

_Bayreuth, in the Bay and Peace Month_, 1707.

SCHMELZLE'S JOURNEY TO FLaTZ.

_Circular Letter of the proposed Catechetical Professor_ Attila Schmelzle _to his Friends; containing some Account of a Holidays'

Journey to Flatz, with an Introduction, touching his Flight, and his Courage as former Army-Chaplain_.

Nothing can be more ludicrous, my esteemed Friends, than to hear people stigmatizing a man as cowardly and hare-hearted, who perhaps is struggling all the while with precisely the opposite faults, those of a lion; though indeed the African lion himself, since the time of Sparrmann's Travels, pa.s.ses among us for poltroon. Yet this case is mine, worthy Friends; and I purpose to say a few words thereupon, before describing my journey.

108. Good princes easily obtain good subjects; not so easily good subjects good princes; thus Adam, in the state of innocence, ruled over animals all tame and gentle, till simply through his means they fell and grew savage.

You in truth are all aware that, directly in the teeth of this calumny, it is courage, it is desperadoes (provided they be not braggarts and tumultuous persons), whom I chiefly venerate; for example, my brother-in-law, the Dragoon, who never in his life bastinadoed one man, but always a whole social circle at the same time. How truculent was my fancy, even in childhood, when I, as the parson was toning away to the silent congregation, used to take it into my head: "How now, if thou shouldst start up from thy pew, and shout aloud, I am here too, Mr.

Parson!" and to paint out this thought in such glowing colors, that, for very dread, I have often been obliged to leave the church! Anything like Rugenda's battle-pieces; horrid murder-tumults, sea-fights or Stormings of Toulon, exploding fleets; and, in my childhood, Battles of Prague on the harpsichord; nay, in short, every map of any remarkable scene of war; these are perhaps too much my favorite objects; and I read--and purchase nothing sooner; and doubtless they might lead me into many errors, were it not that my circ.u.mstances restrain me. Now, if it be objected that true courage is something higher than mere thinking and willing, then you, my worthy friends, will be the first to recognize mine, when it shall break forth into not barren and empty, but active and effective words, while I strengthen my future Catechetical Pupils, as well as can be done in a course of College Lectures, and steel them into Christian heroes.

5. For a good Physician saves, if not always from the disease, at least from a bad Physician.

It is well known that, out of care for the preservation of my life, I never walk within at least ten fields of any sh.o.r.e full of bathers or swimmers; merely because I foresee to a certainty, that, in case one of them were drowning, I should that moment (for the heart overbalances the head) plunge after the fool to save him, into some bottomless depth or other, where we should both perish. And if dreaming is the reflex of waking, let me ask you, true Hearts, if you have forgotten my relating to you dreams of mine, which no Caesar, no Alexander or Luther, need have felt ashamed of? Have I not, to mention a few instances, taken Rome by storm; and done battle with the Pope and the whole elephantine body of the Cardinal College, at one and the same time? Did I not once on horseback, while simply looking at a review of military, dash headlong into a _bataillon quarre_; and then capture, in Aix-la-Chapelle, the Peruke of Charlemagne, for which the town pays yearly ten reichsthalers of barber-money; and carrying it off to Halberstadt von Gleim, there in like manner seize the Great Frederick's Hat; put both Peruke and Hat on my head, and yet return home, after I had stormed their batteries and turned the cannon against the cannoneers themselves? Did I not once submit to be made a Jew of, and then be regaled with hams; though they were ape-hams on the Orinoco (see Humboldt)? And a thousand such things; for I have thrown the Consistorial President of Flatz out of the Palace window; those alarm-fulminators, sold by Heinrich Backofen in Gotha, at six groschen the dozen, and each going off like a cannon, I have listened to so calmly that the fulminators did not even awaken me; and more of the like sort.

100. In books lie the Phoenix-ashes of a past Millennium and Paradise; but War blows, and much ashes are scattered away.

But enough! It is now time briefly to touch that further slander of my chaplains.h.i.+p, which unhappily has likewise gained some circulation in Flatz, but which, as Caesar did Alexander, I shall now by my touch dissipate into dust. Be what truth in it there can, it is still little or nothing. Your great Minister and General in Flatz (perhaps the very greatest in the world, for there are not many Schabackers) may indeed, like any other great man, be turned against me; but not with the Artillery of Truth; for this Artillery I here set before you, my good Hearts, and do you but fire it off for my advantage! The matter is this. Certain foolish rumors are afloat in the Flatz country, that I, on occasion of some important battles, took leg-bail (such is their plebeian phrase), and that afterwards, on the Chaplain's being called for to preach a Thanksgiving sermon for the victory, no chaplain whatever was to be found. The ridiculousness of this story will best appear, when I tell you that I never was in any action; but have always been accustomed, several hours prior to such an event, to withdraw so many miles to the rear, that our men, so soon as they were beaten, would be sure to find me. A good retreat is reckoned the masterpiece in the art of war; and at no time can a retreat be executed with such order, force, and security as just before the battle, when you are not yet beaten.

102. Dear Political or Religious Inquisitor! Art thou aware that Turin tapers never rightly begin s.h.i.+ning till thou breakest them, and then they take fire?

It is true, I might perhaps, as expectant Professor of Catechetics, sit still and smile at such nugatory speculations on my courage; for if by Socratic questioning I can hammer my future Catechist Pupils into the habit of asking questions in their turn, I shall thereby have tempered _them_ into heroes, seeing they have nothing to fight with but children--(Catechists at all events, though dreading fire, have no reason to dread light, since in our days, as in London illuminations, it is only the _unlighted_ windows that are battered in; whereas, in other ages, it was with nations and light as it is with dogs and water; if you give them none for a long time, they at last get a horror at it);--and on the whole, for Catechists, any park looks kindlier, and smiles more sweetly, than a sulphurous park of artillery; and the Warlike Foot, which the age is placed on, is to them the true Devil's cloven-foot of human nature.

86. Very true! In youth we love and enjoy the most ill-a.s.sorted friends, perhaps more than, in old age, the best a.s.sorted.

But for my part I think not so; almost as if the party spirit of my Christian name, Attila, had pa.s.sed into me more strongly than was proper, I feel myself impelled still further to prove my courageousness; which, dearest Friends! I shall here in a few lines again do. This proof I could manage by mere inferences and learned citations. For example, if Galen remarks that animals with large hind-quarters are timid, I have nothing to do but turn round, and show the enemy my back and what is under it, in order to convince him that I am not deficient in valor, but in flesh. Again, if by well-known experiences it has been found that flesh-eating produces courage, I can evince that in this particular I yield to no officer of the service; though it is the habit of these gentlemen not only to run up long scores of roast-meat with their landlords, but also to leave them unpaid, that so at every hour they may have an open doc.u.ment in the hands of the enemy himself (the landlord), testifying that they have eaten their own share (with some of other people's too), and so put common butcher-meat on a War-footing, living not like others _by_ bravery, but _for_ bravery. As little have I ever, in my character of chaplain, shrunk from comparison with any officer in the regiment, who may be a true lion, and so s.n.a.t.c.h every sort of plunder, but yet, like this King of the Beasts, is afraid of _fire_; or who,--like King James of England,[72] that scampered off at sight of drawn swords, yet so much the more gallantly, before all Europe, went out against the storming Luther with book and pen,--does, from a similar idiosyncrasy, attack all warlike armaments, both by word and writing. And here I recollect, with satisfaction, a brave sub-lieutenant, whose confessor I was (he still owes me the confession-money), and who, in respect of stout-heartedness, had in him perhaps something of that Indian dog which Alexander had presented to him as a sort of Dog-Alexander. By way of trying this crack dog, the Macedonian made various heroic or heraldic beasts be let loose against him; first a stag; but the dog lay still; then a sow; he lay still; then a bear; he lay still. Alexander was on the point of condemning him; when a lion was let forth; the dog rose, and tore the lion in pieces. So likewise the sub-lieutenant. A challenger, a foreign enemy, a Frenchman, are to him only stag, and sow, and bear, and he lies still in his place; but let his oldest enemy, his creditor, come and knock at his gate, and demand of him actual smart-money for long bygone pleasures, thus presuming to rob him both of past and present; the sub-lieutenant rises, and throws his creditor down-stairs. I, alas! am still standing by the sow; and thus, naturally enough, misunderstood.

128. In Love there are Summer Holidays; but in Marriage also there are Winter Holidays, I hope.