Translations from the German Part 25

[Note 8: In great Saloons, the real stove is masked into a pretty ornamented sham stove; so likewise, it is fit and pretty that a virgin _Love_ should always hide itself in an interesting virgin _Friends.h.i.+p_.]

[Note 12: Nations--unlike rivers, which precipitate their impurities in level places and when at rest--drop their baseness just whilst in the most violent motion; and become the dirtier the farther they flow along through lazy flats.]

Thus lovingly we both reached home; and perhaps in the sequel of this Fair day might still have enjoyed a glorious after-midnight, had not the Devil led my eye to the ninth volume of Lichtenberg's Works, and the 206th page, where this pa.s.sage occurs: "It is not impossible that at a future period, our Chemists may light on some means of suddenly decomposing the Atmosphere by a sort of Ferment. In this way the world may be destroyed." Ah! true indeed! Since the Earth-ball is lapped up in the larger Atmospheric ball, let but any chemical scoundrel, in the remotest scoundrel-island, say in New Holland, devise some decomposing substance for the Atmosphere, like what a spark of fire would be for a powder-wagon: in a few seconds, the monstrous devouring world-storm catches me and you in Flatz by the throat; my breathing, and the like, in this choke-air is over, and the whole game ended! The Earth becomes a boundless gallows, where the very cattle are hanged: worm-powder, and bug-liquor, Bradly ant-ploughs, and rat-poison, and wolf-traps are, in this universal world-trap and world-poison, no longer specially needful; and the Devil takes the whole, in the Bartholomew-night, when this cursed "Ferment" is invented.

From the true soul, however, I concealed these deadly Night Thoughts; seeing she would either painfully have sympathised in them, or else mirthfully laughed at them. I merely gave orders that next morning (Sat.u.r.day) she was to be standing booted and ready, at the outset of the returning coach; if so were she would have me speedily fulfil her wishes in regard to that stock of Raths.h.i.+ps which lay so near her heart. She rejoiced in my purpose, gladly surrendering the market for such prospects. I too slept sound, my great toe tied to her finger, the whole night through.

[Note 28: When Nature takes the huge old Earth-round, the Earth-loaf, and kneads it up again, for the purpose of introducing under this pie-crust new stuffing and Dwarfs,--she then, for most part, as a mother when baking will do to her daughters, gives in jest a little fraction of the dough (two or three thousand square leagues of such dough are enough for a child) to some Poetical or Philosophical, or Legislative polisher, that so the little elf may have something to be shaping and manufacturing beside its mother. And when the other young ones get a taste of sisterkin's baking, they all clap hands, and cry: "Aha, Mother! canst; bake, like _Suky_ here?"]

The Dragoon, next morning, twitched me by the ear, and secretly whispered into it that he had a pleasant fairing to give his sister; and so would ride off somewhat early, on the nag he had yesterday purchased of the horse-dealer. I thanked him beforehand.

At the appointed hour, all gaily started from the Staple, I excepted; for I still retained, even in the fairest daylight, that nocturnal Devil's-Ferment and Decomposition (of my cerebral globe as well as of the Earth-globe) fermenting in my head; a proof that the night had not affected me, or exaggerated my fear. The Blind Pa.s.senger, whom I liked so ill, also mounted along with us, and looked at me as usual, but without effect; for on this occasion, when the destruction not of myself only, but of worlds, was occupying my thoughts, the Pa.s.senger was nothing to me but a joke and a show: as a man, while his leg is being sawed off, does not feel the throbbing of his heart; or amid the humming of cannon, does not guard himself from that of wasps; so to me any Pa.s.senger, with all the fire-brands he might throw into my near or distant Future, could appear but ludicrous, at a time when I was reflecting that the "Ferment" might, even in my journey between Flatz and Neusattel, be, by some American or European man of science, quite guiltlessly experimenting and decomposing, hit upon by accident and let loose. The question, nay prize-question now, however, were this: "In how far, since Lichtenberg's threatening, it may not appear world-murderous and self-murderous, if enlightened Potentates of chemical nations do not enjoin it on their chemical subjects, who in their decompositions and separations may so easily separate the soul from their body, and unite Heaven with Earth,--not in future to make any other chemical experiments than those already made, which hitherto have profited the State rather than harmed it?"

Unfortunately, I continued sunk in this Domsday of the Ferment with all my thoughts and meditations, without, in the whole course of our return from Flatz to Neusattel, suffering or observing anything, except that I actually arrived there, and at the same time saw the Blind Pa.s.senger once more go his ways.

My Bergelchen alone had I constantly looked at by the road, partly that I might still see her, so long as life and eyes endured; partly that, even at the smallest danger to her, be it a great, or even all-over-sweeping Deluge and World's-doom, I might die, if not _for_ her, at least _by_ her, and so united with that stanch true heart, cast away a plagued and plaguing life, in which, at any rate, not half of my wishes for her have been fulfilled.

So then were my Journey over,--crowned with some _Historiolae_; and in time coming, perhaps, still more rewarded through you, ye Friends about Flatz, if in these pages you shall find any well-ground pruning-knives, whereby you may more readily out-root the weedy tangle of Lies, which for the present excludes me from the gallant Schabacker:--Only this cursed Ferment still sits in my head. Farewell then, so long as there are Atmospheres left us to breathe. I wish I had that Ferment out of my head.

Yours always,

ATTILA SCHMELZLE.

P.S.--My Brother-in-law has kept his promise well, and Berga is dancing.

Particulars in my next!

LIFE OF QUINTUS FIXLEIN,

DOWN TO OUR OWN TIMES;

EXTRACTED FROM

FIFTEEN LETTER-BOXES BY JEAN PAUL.

LETTER TO MY FRIENDS,

INSTEAD OF PREFACE.

Merchants, Authors, young Ladies and Quakers, call all persons, with whom they have any business, Friends; and my readers accordingly are my table and college Friends. Now, at this time, I am about presenting so many hundred Friends with just as many hundred gratis copies; and my Bookseller has orders to supply each on request, after the Fair, with his copy--in return for a trifling consideration and _don gratuit_ to printers, pressmen and other such persons. But as I could not, like the French authors, send the whole Edition to the binder, the blank leaf in front was necessarily wanting; and thus to write a complimentary word or two upon it was out of my power. I have therefore caused a few white leaves to be inserted directly after the t.i.tle-page: on these we are now printing.

My Book contains the Life of a Schoolmaster, extracted and compiled from various public and private doc.u.ments. With this Biography, dear Friends, it is the purpose of the Author not so much to procure you a pleasure, as to teach you how to enjoy one. In truth, King Xerxes should have offered his prize-medals not for the invention of new pleasures, but for a good methodology and directory to use the old ones.

Of ways for becoming happier (not happy) I could never inquire out more than three. The first, rather an elevated road, is this: To soar away so far above the clouds of life, that you see the whole external world, with its wolf-dens, charnel-houses and thunder-rods, lying far down beneath you, shrunk into a little child's garden. The second is: Simply to sink down into this little garden; and there to nestle yourself so snugly, so homewise, in some furrow, that in looking out from your warm lark-nest, you likewise can discern no wolf-dens, charnel-houses or thunder-rods, but only blades and ears, every one of which, for the nest-bird, is a tree, and a sun-screen, and rain-screen. The third, finally, which I look upon as the hardest and cunningest, is that of alternating between the other two.

This I shall now satisfactorily expound to men at large.

The Hero, the Reformer, your Brutus, your Howard, your Republican, he whom civic storm, or genius, poetic storm, impels; in short, every mortal with a great Purpose, or even a perennial Pa.s.sion (were it but that of writing the largest folios), all these men fence themselves in by their internal world against the frosts and heats of the external, as the madman in a worse sense does: every _fixed_ idea, such as rules every genius, every enthusiast, at least periodically, separates and elevates a man above the bed and board of this Earth, above its Dog's-grottoes, buckthorns and Devil's-walls; like the Bird of Paradise, he slumbers flying; and on his outspread pinions, oversleeps unconsciously the earthquakes and conflagrations of Life, in his long fair dream of his ideal Motherland,--Alas! to few is this dream granted; and these few are so often awakened by Flying Dogs![30]

[30] So are the Vampires called.

This skyward track, however, is fit only for the winged portion of the human species, for the smallest. What can it profit poor quill-driving brethren, whose souls have not even wing-sh.e.l.ls, to say nothing of wings? Or these tethered persons with the best back, breast and neck fins, who float motionless in the wicker Fish-box of the State, and are not allowed to swim, because the Box or State, long ago tied to the sh.o.r.e, itself swims in the name of the Fishes? To the whole standing and writing host of heavy-laden State-domestics, Purveyors, Clerks of all departments, and all the lobsters packed together heels over head into the Lobster-basket of the Government office-rooms, and for refreshment, sprinkled over with a few nettles; to these persons, what way of becoming happy _here_, can I possibly point out?

My _second_ merely; and that is as follows: To take a compound microscope, and with it to discover, and convince themselves, that their drop of Burgundy is properly a Red Sea, that b.u.t.terfly-dust is peac.o.c.k-feathers, mouldiness a flowery-field, and sand a heap of jewels.

These microscopic recreations are more lasting than all costly watering-place recreations.--But I must explain these metaphors by new ones. The purpose, for which I have sent _Fixleins Life_ into the Messrs. Lubeks' Warehouse, is simply that in this same _Life_,--therefore in this Preface it is less needful,--I may show to the whole Earth that we ought to value little joys more than great ones, the nightgown more than the dresscoat; that Plutus' heaps are worth less than his handfuls, the plum than the penny for a rainy day; and that not great, but little good-haps can make us happy.--Can I accomplish this, I shall, through means of my Book, bring up for Posterity, a race of men finding refreshment in all things; in the warmth of their rooms and of their nightcaps; in their pillows; in the three High Festivals; in mere Apostles' days; in the Evening Moral Tales of their wives, when these gentle persons have been forth as amba.s.sadresses visiting some Dowager Residence, whither the husband could not be persuaded; in the bloodletting-day of these their news-bringers; in the day of slaughtering, salting, potting against the rigour of grim winter; and in all such days. You perceive, my drift is that man must become a little Tailor-bird, which, not amid the cras.h.i.+ng boughs of the storm-tost, roaring, immeasurable tree of Life, but on one of its leaves, sews itself a nest together, and there lies snug. The most essential sermon one could preach to our century, were a sermon on the duty of staying at home.

The _third_ skyward road is the alternation between the other two. The foregoing _second_ way is not good enough for man, who here on Earth should take into his hand not the Sickle only, but also the Plough. The _first_ is too good for him. He has not always the force, like Rugendas, in the midst of the Battle to compose Battle-pieces; and, like Backhuysen in the s.h.i.+pwreck, to clutch at no board but the drawing-board to paint it on. And then his _pains_ are not less lasting than his _fatigues_. Still oftener is Strength denied its Arena: it is but the smallest portion of life that, to a working soul, offers Alps, Revolutions, Rhine-falls, Worms Diets, and Wars with Xerxes; and for the whole it is better so: the longer portion of life is a field beaten flat as a thres.h.i.+ng-floor, without lofty Gothard Mountains; often it is a tedious ice-field, without a single glacier tinged with dawn.

But even by walking, a man rests and recovers himself for climbing; by little joys and duties, for great. The victorious Dictator must contrive to plough down his battle Mars-field into a flax and carrot field; to transform his theatre of war into a parlour theatre, on which his children may enact some good pieces from the _Children's Friend_. Can he accomplish this, can he turn so softly from the path of poetical happiness into that of household happiness,--then is he little different from myself, who even now, though modesty might forbid me to disclose it--who even now, I say, amid the creation of this Letter, have been enabled to reflect, that when it is done, so also will the Roses and Elder-berries of pastry be done, which a sure hand is seething in b.u.t.ter for the Author of this Work.

As I purpose appending to this Letter a Postscript (at the end of the Book), I reserve somewhat which I had to say about the Third[31]

half-satirical half-philosophical part of the Work, till that opportunity.

Here, out of respect for the rights of a Letter, the Author drops his half anonymity,[32] and for the first time subscribes himself with his _whole_ true name,

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.

_Hof in Voigtland, 29th June 1795._

[31] _Fixlein_ stands in the middle of the volume; preceded by _Einer Mustheil fur Madchen_ (A Jelly-course for Young Ladies); and followed by _Some_ JUS DE TABLETTE _for Men_. A small portion of the Preface relating to the first I have already omitted. Neither of the two has the smallest relation to _Fixlein_.--ED.

[32] _J. P. H., Jean Paul_ HASUS, _Jean Paul_, &c. have in succession been Richter's signatures. At present even, his German designation, either in writing or speech, is never _Richter_, but _Jean Paul_.--ED.

LIFE OF QUINTUS FIXLEIN.

FIRST LETTER-BOX.

_Dog-days Vacation. Visits. An Indigent of Quality_.

Egidius Zebedaeus Fixlein had just for eight days been Quintus,[33] and fairly commenced his teaching duties, when Fortune tabled out for him four refres.h.i.+ng courses and collations, besprinkled with flowers and sugar. These were the four canicular weeks. I could find in my heart, at this hour, to pat the cranium of that good-man who invented the Dog-days Vacation: I never go to walk in that season, without thinking how a thousand down-pressed pedagogic persons are now erecting themselves in the open air; and the stiff knapsack is lying unbuckled at their feet, and they can seek whatsoever their soul desires; b.u.t.terflies,--or roots of numbers,--or roots of words,--or herbs,--or their native villages.

[33] For understanding many little hints which occur in this _Life of Fixlein_, it will be necessary to bear in mind the following particulars: A German _Gymnasium_, in its complete state, appears to include eight Masters; Rector, Conrector, Subrector, Quintus, Quartus, Tertius, &c., to the _first_ or lowest. The _forms_, or cla.s.ses, again, are arranged in an inverse order; the _Primaner_ (boys of the _Prima_, or first form) being the most advanced, and taught by the Rector; the _Secundaner_, by the Conrector, &c., and therefore the _Quartaner_ by the Quintus. In many cases, it would seem, the number of Teachers is only six; but, in this Flachsenfingen Gymnasium, we have express evidence that there was no curtailment.--ED.

The last did our Fixlein. He moved not, however, till Sunday,--for you like to know how holidays taste in the city; and then, in company with his Shock and a Quintaner, or Fifth-Form boy, who carried his Green nightgown, he issued through the gate in the morning. The dew was still lying; and as he reached the back of the gardens, the children of the Orphan Hospital were uplifting with clear voices their morning hymn. The city was Flachsenfingen, the village Hukelum, the dog Schil, and the year of Grace 1791.

"Manikin," said he to the Quintaner, for he liked to speak as Love, children, and the people of Vienna do, in diminutives, "Manikin, give me the bundle to the village: run about, and seek thee a little bird, as thou art thyself, and so have something to pet too in vacation-time."

For the manikin was at once his page, lackey, room-comrade, train-bearer and gentleman-in-waiting; and the Shock also was his manikin.

He stept slowly along, through the crisped cole-beds, overlaid with coloured beads of dew; and looked at the bushes, out of which, when the morning wind bent them asunder, there seemed to start a flight of jewel-colibri, so brightly did they glitter. From time to time he drew the bell-rope of his--whistle, that the manikin might not skip away too far; and he shortened his league and half of road, by measuring it not in leagues, but in villages. It is more pleasant for pedestrians--for geographers it is not--to count by wersts than by miles. In walking, our Quintus farthermore got by heart the few fields, on which the grain was already reaped.