Chapter 10

45. Our present writers shrug their shoulders most at those on whose shoulders they stand; and exalt those most who crawl up along them.

Such, for my own part, is my manner of proceeding; but in the full stage-coach I met with men to whom Natural Philosophy was no philosophy at all. For when the clouds gathered dreadfully together over our coach-canopy, and sparkling, began to play through the air, like so many fireflies, and I at last could not but request that the sweating coach-conclave would at least bring out their watches, rings, money, and such like, and put them all into one of the carriage-pockets, that none of us might have a conductor on his body; not only would no one of them do it, but my own brother-in-law the Dragoon even sprang out, with naked drawn sword, to the coach-box, and swore that he would conduct the thunder all away himself. Nor do I know whether this desperate mortal was not acting prudently; for our position within was frightful, and any one of us might every moment be a dead man. At last, to crown all, I got into a half altercation with two of the rude members of our leathern household, the Poisoner and the Harlot; seeing, by their questions, they almost gave me to understand, that, in our conversational picnic, especially with the Blind Passenger, I had not always come off with the best share. Such an imputation wounds your honor to the quick; and in my breast there was a thunder louder than that above us. However, I was obliged to carry on the needful exchange of sharp words as quietly and slowly as possible; and I quarrelled softly, and in a low tone, lest in the end a whole coachful of people, set in arms against each other, might get into heat and perspiration; and so, by vapor steaming through the coach-roof, conduct the too near thunderbolt down into the midst of us. At last I laid before the company the whole theory of Electricity in clear words, but low and slow (striving to avoid all emission of vapor); and especially endeavored to frighten them away from fear. For, indeed, through fear, the stroke--nay, two strokes, the electric or the apoplectic--might hit any one of us; since in Erxleben and Reimarus it is sufficiently proved that violent fear, by the transpiration it causes, may attract the lightning. I accordingly, in some fear of my own and other people's fear, represented to the passengers that now, in a coach so hot and crowded, with a drawn sword on the coach-box piercing the very lightning, with the thunder-cloud hanging over us, and even with so many transpirations from incipient fear; in short, with such visible danger on every hand, they must absolutely fear nothing, if they would not, all and sundry, be smitten to death in a few minutes.

103. The Great perhaps take as good charge of their posterity as the Ants; the eggs once laid, the male and female Ants fly about their business, and confide them to the trustyworking-Ants.

"O Heaven!" cried I, "Courage! only courage! No fear, not even fear of fear! Would you have Providence to shoot you here sitting, like so many hares hunted into a pinfold? Fear, if you like, when you are out of the coach; fear to your heart's content in other places, where there is less to be afraid of; only not here, not here!"

I shall not determine--since among millions scarcely one man dies by thunder-clouds, but millions perhaps by snow-clouds, and rain-clouds, and thin mist--whether my Coach-sermon could have made any claim to a prize for man-saving; however, at last, all uninjured, and driving towards a rainbow, we entered the town of Vierstädten, where dwelt a Postmaster, in the only street which the place had.

Second Stage; from Vierstädten to Niederschöna.

The Postmaster was a churl and a striker; a class of mortals whom I inexpressibly detest, as my fancy always whispers to me, in their presence, that by accident or dislike I might happen to put on a scornful or impertinent look, and hound these mastiffs on my own throat; and so, from the very first, I must incessantly watch them. Happily, in this case (supposing I even had made a wrong face), I could have shielded myself with the Dragoon; for whose giant force such matters are a tidbit. This brother-in-law of mine, for example, cannot pass any tavern where he hears a sound of battle, without entering, and, as he crosses the threshold, shouting, "Peace, dogs!"--and therewith, under show of a peace deputation, he directly snatches up the first chair-leg in his hand, as if it were an American peace-calumet, and cuts to the right and left among the belligerent powers, or he gnashes the hard heads of the parties together (he himself takes no side), catching each by the hind-lock. In such cases the rogue is in Heaven!

10. And does Life offer us, in regard to our ideal hopes and purposes, anything but a prosaic, unrhymed, unmetrical Translation?78. Our German frame of Government, cased in its harness, had much difficulty in moving, for the same reason why Beetles cannot fly, when theirwingshavewing-shells, of very sufficient strength, and--grown together.

10. And does Life offer us, in regard to our ideal hopes and purposes, anything but a prosaic, unrhymed, unmetrical Translation?

78. Our German frame of Government, cased in its harness, had much difficulty in moving, for the same reason why Beetles cannot fly, when theirwingshavewing-shells, of very sufficient strength, and--grown together.

I, for my part, rather avoid discrepant circles than seek them; as I likewise avoid all dead or killed people. The prudent man easily foresees what is to be got by them; either vexatious and injurious witnessing, or often even (when circumstances conspire) painful investigation, and suspicions of your being an accomplice.

In Vierstädten nothing of importance presented itself, except--to my horror--a dog without tail, which came running along the town or street. In the first fire of passion at this sight, I pointed it out to the passengers, and then put the question, whether they could reckon a system of Medical Police well arranged, which, like this of Vierstädten, allowed dogs openly to scour about, when their tails were wanting. "What am I to do," said I, "when this member is cut away, and any such beast comes running towards me, and I cannot, either by the tail being cocked up or being drawn in, since the whole is snipt off, come to any conclusion whether the vermin is mad or not? In this way, the most prudent man may be bit, and become rabid, and so make shipwreck purely for want of a tail compass."

8. Constitutions of Government are like highways; on a new and quite untrodden one, where every carriage helps in the process of bruising and smoothing, you are as much jolted and pitched, as an old worn-out one, full of holes. What is to be done then? Travel on.

The Blind Passenger (he now got himself inscribed as a Seeing one, God knows for what objects) had heard my observation; which he now spun out in my presence almost into ridicule, and at last awakened in me the suspicion, that, by an overdone flattery in imitating my style of speech, he meant to banter me. "The Dog-tail," said he, "is, in truth, an alarm-beacon, and finger-post for us, that we come not even into the outmost precincts of madness; cut away from Comets their tails, from Bashaws theirs, from Crabs theirs (outstretched it denotes that they are burst); and in the most dangerous predicaments of life, we are left without clew, without indicator, without handin margine; and we perish not so much as knowing how."

For the rest, this stage passed over without quarreling or peril. About ten o'clock, the whole party, including even the Postilion, myself excepted, fell asleep. I indeed pretended to be sleeping, that I might observe whether some one, for his own good reasons, might not also be pretending it. But all continued snoring; the moon threw its brightening beams on nothing but downpressed eyelids.

I had now a glorious opportunity of following Lavater's counsel, to apply the physiognomical ellwand specially to sleepers, since sleep, like death, expresses the genuine form in coarser lines. Other sleepers not in stage-coaches I think it less advisable to mete with this ellwand; having always an apprehension lest some fellow, but pretending to be asleep, may, the instant I am near enough, start up as in a dream, and deceitfully plant such a knock on the physiognomical mensurator's own facial structure, as to exclude it forever from appearing in any Physiognomical Fragments (itself being reduced to one), either in the stippled or line style. Nay, might not the most honest sleeper in the world, just while you are in hand with his physiognomical dissection, lay about him, spurred on by honor in some cudgelling-scene he may be dreaming; and in a few instants of clapperclawing, and kicking, and trampling, lull you into a much more lasting sleep than that out of which he was awakened?

8. In Criminal Courts, murdered children are often represented as still-born; in Anticritiques, still-born as murdered.

In myAdumbrating Magic-lantern, as I have named the Work, the whole physiognomical contents of this same sleeping stage-coach will be given to the world. There I shall explain to you at large how the Poisoner, with the murder-cupola, appeared to me devil-like; the Dwarf old-child-like; the Harlot languidly shameless; my Brother-in-law peacefully satisfied, with revenge or food; and the Legations-Rath,Jean Pierre, Heaven only knows why, like a half angel,--though, perhaps, it might be because only the fair body, not the other half, the soul, which had passed away in sleep, was affecting me.

101. Not only were the Rhodians, from their Colossus, called Colossians; but also innumerable Germans are, from their Luther, called Lutherans.

I had almost forgotten to mention, that, in a little village, while my Brother-in-law and the Postilion were sitting at their liquor, I happily fronted a small terror, Destiny having twice been on my side. Not far from a Hunting Box, beside a pretty clump of trees, I noticed a white tablet, with a black inscription on it. This gave me hopes that perhaps some little monumental piece, some pillar of honor, some battle memento, might here be awaiting me. Over an untrodden flowery tangle I reach the black on white; and to my horror and amazement I decipher in the moonshine,Beware of Spring-guns!Thus was I standing perhaps half a nail's breadth from the trigger, with which, if I but stirred my heel, I should shoot myself off, like a forgotten ramrod, into the other world, beyond the verge of Time! The first thing I did was to slutch down my toe-nails, to bite, and, as it were, eat myself into the ground with them; since I might, at least, continue in warm life so long as I pegged my body firmly in beside the Atropos-scissors and hangman's block, which lay beside me. Then I endeavored to recollect by what steps the Fiend had led me hither unshot, but in my agony I had perspired the whole of it, and could remember nothing. In the Devil's village, close at hand, there was no dog to be seen and called to, who might have plucked me from the water; and my Brother-in-law and the Postilion were both carousing with full can. However, I summoned my courage and determination; wrote down on a leaf of my pocket-book my last will, the accidental manner of my death, and my dying remembrance of Berga; and then, with full sails, flew helter-skelter through the midst of it the shortest way; expecting at every step to awaken the murderous engine, and thus to clap over my still long candle of life the bonsoir, or extinguisher, with my own hand. However, I got off without shot. In the tavern, indeed, there was more than one fool to laugh at me; because, forsooth, what none but a fool could know, this Notice had stood there for the last ten years without any gun, as guns often do without any notice. But so it is, my Friends, with our game-police, which warns against all things, only not against warnings.

88. Hitherto I have always regarded the Polemical writings of our present philosophic and aesthetic Idealist Logic-buffers,--in which, certainly, a few contumelies, and misconceptions, and misconclusions do make their appearance,--rather on the fair side; observing in it merely an imitation of classical Antiquity, in particular of the ancient Athletes, who (according to Schöttgen) besmeared their bodies withmud, that they might not be laid hold of; and filled their hands withsand, that they might lay hold of their antagonists.

For the rest, throughout the whole stage, I had a constant source of altercation with the coachman, because he grudged stopping perhaps once in the quarter of an hour, when I chose to come out for a natural purpose. Unhappily, in truth, one has little reason to expect water-doctors among the postilion class, since Physicians themselves have so seldom learned from Haller's largePhysiologythat a postponement of the above operation will precipitate devilish stone-ware, and at last precipitate the proprietor himself; this stone-manufactory being generally concluded, not by the Lithotomist, but by Death. Had postilions read that Tycho Brahe died like a bombshell by bursting, they would rather pull up for a moment; with such unlooked-for knowledge, they would see it to be reasonable that a man, though expecting some time to carry his death-stoneonhim, should not incline, for the time being, to carry itinhim. Nay, have I not often, at Weimar, in the longest concluding scenes of Schiller, run out with tears in my eyes; purely that, while his Minerva was melting me on the whole, I might not by the Gorgon's head on her breast be partially turned to stone? And did I not return to the weeping play-house, and fall into the general emotion so much the more briskly, as now I had nothing to give vent to but my heart?

103. Or are all Mosques, Episcopal-churches, Pagodas, Chapels-of-Ease, Tabernacles, and Pantheons, anything else than the Ethnic Forecourt of the Invisible Temple and its Holy of Holies?

Deep in the dark we arrived at Niederschöna.

Third Stage; from Niederschöna to Flätz.

While I am standing at the Posthouse musing, with my eye fixed on my portmanteau, comes a beast of a watchman, and bellows and brays in his night-tube so close by my ear that I start back in trepidation, I whom even a too hasty accosting will vex. Is there no medical police, then, against such efflated hour-fulminators and alarm-cannon, by which notwithstanding no gunpowder cannon are saved? In my opinion nobody should be invested with the watchman-horn but some reasonable man, who had already blown himself into an asthma, and who would consequently be in case to sing out his hour-verse so low that you could not hear it.

40. The common man is copious only in narration, not in reasoning; the cultivated man is brief only in the former, not in the latter; because the common man's reasons are a sort of sensations, which, as well as things visible, he merelylooks at; by the cultivated man, again, both reasons and things visible are ratherthoughtthan looked at.

What I had long expected, and the Dwarf predicted, now took place; deeply stooping, through the high Posthouse door, issued the Giant, and raised in the open air a most unreasonably high figure, heightened by the ell-long bonnet and feather on his huge jobbernowl. My Brother-in-law, beside him, looked but like his son of fourteen years; the Dwarf like his lap-dog waiting for him on its two hind legs. "Good friend," said my bantering Brother-in-law, leading him towards me and the stagecoach, "just step softly in, we shall all be happy to make room for you. Fold yourself neatly together, lay your head on your knee, and it will do." The unseasonable banterer would willingly have seen the almost stupid Giant (of whom he had soon observed that his brain was no active substance, but in the inverse ratio of his trunk) squeezed in among us in the post-chest, and lying kneaded together like a sand-bag before him. "Won't do! Won't do!" said the Giant, looking in. "The gentleman perhaps does not know," said the Dwarf, "how big the Giant is; and so he thinks that becauseIgo in-- But that is another story;Iwill creep into any hole, do but tell me where."

In short, there was no resource for the Postmaster and the Giant, but that the latter should plant himself behind, in the character of luggage, and there lie bending down like a weeping willow over the whole vehicle. To me such a back-wall and rear-guard could not be particularly gratifying; and I may refer it (I hope) to any one of you, ye Friends, if with such ware at your back you would not, as clearly and earnestly as I, have considered what manifold murderous projects a knave of a Giant behind you, apursuerin all senses, might not maliciously attempt; say, that he broke in and assailed you by the back-window, or with Titanian strength laid hold of the coach-roof and demolished the whole party in a lump. However, this Elephant (who indeed seemed to owe the similarity more to his overpowering mass than to his quick light of inward faculty), crossing his arms over the top of the vehicle, soon began to sleep and snore above us; an Elephant, of whom, as I more and more joyfully observed, my Brother-in-law, the Dragoon, could easily be the tamer and bridle-holder, nay, had already been so.

9. In any national calamity the ancient Egyptians took revenge on the god Typhon, whom they blamed for it, by hurling his favorites, the Asses, down over rocks. In similar wise have countries of a different religion now and then taken their revenge.

As more than one person now felt inclined to sleep, but I, on the contrary, as was proper, to wake, I freely offered my seat of honor, the front place in the coach (meaning thereby to abolish many little flaws of envy in my fellow-passengers), to such persons as wished to take a nap thereon. The Legation's man accepted the offer with eagerness, and soon fell asleep there sitting, under the Titan.[74]To me this sort of coach-sleeping of a diplomaticcharge d'affairesremained a thing incomprehensible. A man, that in the middle of a stranger and often barbarously-minded company permits himself to slumber, may easily, supposing him to talk in his sleep and coach, (think of the Saxon minister[75]before the Seven Years' War!) blab out a thousand secrets, and crimes, some of which, perhaps, he has not committed. Should not every minister, ambassador, or other man of honor and rank, really shudder at the thought of insanity or violent fevers; seeing no mortal can be his surety that he shall not in such cases publish the greatest scandals, of which, it may be, the half are lies?

70. Let Poetry veil itself in Philosophy, but only as the latter does in the former. Philosophy in poetized Prose resembles those tavern drinking-glasses, encircled with party-colored wreaths of figures, which disturb your enjoyment both of the drink, and (often awkwardly eclipsing and covering each other) of the carving also.

At last, after the long July night, we passengers, together with Aurora, arrived in the precincts of Flätz. I looked with a sharp yet moistened eye at the steeples. I believe, every man who has anything decisive to seek in a town, and to whom it is either to be a judgment-seat of his hopes, or their anchoring-station, either a battle-field or a sugar-field, first and longest directs his eye on the steeples of the town, as upon the indexes and balance-tongues of his future destiny; these artificial peaks, which, like natural ones, are the thrones of our Future. As I happened to express myself on this point perhaps too poetically toJean Pierre, he answered with sufficient want of taste: "The steeples of such towns are indeed the Swiss Alpine peaks, on which we milk and manufacture the Swiss cheese of our Future." Did the Legations-Peter mean with this style to make me ridiculous, or only himself? Determine!

"Here is the place, the town," said I in secret, "where to-day much and for many years is to be determined, where thou this evening, about five o'clock, art to present thy petition and thyself. May it prosper! May it be successful! Let Flätz, this arena of thy little efforts among the rest, become a building-space for fair castles and air-castles to two hearts, thy own and thy Berga's!"

At the Tiger Inn I alighted.

First Day in Flätz.

No mortal in my situation at this Tiger-hotel would have triumphed much in his more immediate prospects. I, as the only man known to me, especially in the way of love (of the runaway Dragoon anon!), looked out from the windows of the overflowing Inn, and down on the rushing sea of marketers, and very soon began to reflect, that, except Heaven and the rascals and murderers, none knew how many of the latter two classes were floating among the tide; purposing, perhaps, to lay hold of the most innocent strangers, and in part cut their purses, in part their throats. My situation had a special circumstance against it. My brother-in-law, who still comes plump out with everything, had mentioned that I was to put up at the Tiger. O Heaven! when will such people learn to be secret, and to cover even the meanest pettinesses of life under mantles and veils, were it only that a silly mouse may as often give birth to a mountain as a mountain to a mouse! The whole rabble of the stagecoach stopped at the Tiger; the Harlot, the Rat-catcher,Jean Pierre, the Giant, who had dismounted at the Gate of the town, and carrying the huge block-head of the Dwarf on his shoulders as his own (cloaking over the deception by his cloak), had thus, like a ninny, exhibited himself gratis by half a dwarf more gigantic than he could be seen for money.

158. Governments should not too often change the penny-trumps and child's drums of the Poets for the regimental trumpet and fire-drum; on the other hand, good subjects should regard many a princely drum-tendency simply as a disease, in which the patient, by air insinuating under the skin, has got dreadfully swoln.

And now for each of the Passengers, the question was how he could make the Tiger, the heraldic emblem of the Inn, his prototype; and so what lamb he might suck the blood of, and tear in pieces, and devour. My brother-in-law too left me, having gone in quest of some horse-dealer; but he retained the chamber next mine for his sister; this, it appeared, was to denote attention on his part. I remained solitary, left to my own intrepidity and force of purpose.

89. In great towns, a stranger, for the first day or two after his arrival, lives purely at his own expense, in an inn; afterwards, in the houses of his friends, without expense; on the other hand, if you arrive at the Earth, as for instance I have done, you are courteously maintained, precisely for the first few years, free of charges; but in the next and longer series--for you often stay sixty--you are actually obliged (I have the documents in my hands) to pay for every drop and morsel, as if you were in the great Earth Inn, which indeed you are.

Yet among so many villains, encompassing if not even beleaguring me, I thought warmly of one far distant, faithful soul, of my Berga in Neusattel; a true heart of pith, which perhaps with many a weak marriage-partner might have given protection rather than sought it.

"Appear, then, quickly to-morrow at noon, Berga," said my heart; "and if possible before noon, that I may lengthen thy market paradise so many hours as thou arrivest earlier!"

107. Germany is a long lofty mountain--under the sea.144. The Reviewer does not in reality employ his pen for writing; but he burns it, to awaken weak people from their swoons with the smell; he tickles with it the throat of the plagiary, to make him render back; and he picks with it his own teeth. He is the only individual in the whole learned lexicon that can never exhaust himself, never write himself out, let him sit before the ink-glass for centuries, or tens of centuries. For while the Scholar, the Philosopher, and the Poet produce their new book solely from new materials and growth, the Reviewer merely lays his old gauge of taste and knowledge on a thousand new works; and his light, in the ever-passing, ever-differently-cut glass-world, which heelucidates, is still refracted into new colors.

107. Germany is a long lofty mountain--under the sea.

144. The Reviewer does not in reality employ his pen for writing; but he burns it, to awaken weak people from their swoons with the smell; he tickles with it the throat of the plagiary, to make him render back; and he picks with it his own teeth. He is the only individual in the whole learned lexicon that can never exhaust himself, never write himself out, let him sit before the ink-glass for centuries, or tens of centuries. For while the Scholar, the Philosopher, and the Poet produce their new book solely from new materials and growth, the Reviewer merely lays his old gauge of taste and knowledge on a thousand new works; and his light, in the ever-passing, ever-differently-cut glass-world, which heelucidates, is still refracted into new colors.

A clergyman, amid the tempests of the world, readily makes for a free harbor, for the church; the church-wall is his casement-wall and fortification; and behind are to be found more peaceful and more accordant souls than on the market-place; in short, I went into the High Church. However, in the course of the psalm, I was somewhat disturbed by a Heiduc, who came up to a well-dressed young gentleman sitting opposite me, and tore the double opera-glass from his nose, it being against rule in Flätz, as it is in Dresden, to look at the Court with glasses which diminish and approximate. I myself had on a pair of spectacles, but they were magnifiers. It was impossible for me to resolve on taking them off; and here again, I am afraid, I shall pass for a foolhardy person and a desperado; so much only I reckoned fit, to look invariably into my psalm-book; not once lifting my eyes while the Court was rustling and entering, thereby to denote that my glasses were ground convex. For the rest, the sermon was good, if not always finely conceived for a Court-church; it admonished the hearers against innumerable vices, to whose counterparts, the virtues, another preacher might so readily have exhorted us. During the whole service, I made it my business to exhibit true, deep reverence, not only towards God, but also towards my illustrious Prince. For the latter reverence I had my private reason. I wished to stamp this sentiment strongly and openly as with raised letters on my countenance, and so give the lie to any malicious imp about Court, by whom my contravention of thePanegyric on Nero, and my free German satire on this real tyrant himself, which I had inserted in thePlätz Weekly Journal, might have been perverted into a secret characteristic portrait of my own Sovereign. We live in such times at present, that scarcely can we compose a pasquinade on the Devil in Hell, but some human Devil on Earth will apply it to an angel.

71. The Youth is singular from caprice, and takes pleasure in it; the Man is so from constraint, unintentionally, and feels pain in it.

When the Court at last issued from church, and were getting into their carriages, I kept at such a distance that my face could not possibly be noticed, in case I had happened to assume no reverent look, but an indifferent or even proud one. God knows, who has kneaded into me those mad, desperate fancies and crotchets, which perhaps would sit better on a Hero Schabacker, than on an Army-chaplain under him. I cannot here forbear recording to you, my Friends, one of the maddest among them, though at first it may throw too glaring a light on me. It was at my ordination to be Army-chaplain, while about to participate in the Sacrament, on the first day of Easter. Now, here while I was standing, moved into softness, before the balustrade of the altar, in the middle of the whole male congregation,--nay, I perhaps more deeply moved than any among them, since, as a person going to war, I might consider myself a half-dead man, that was now partaking in the last Feast of Souls, as it were like a person to be hanged on the morrow,--here, then, amid the pathetic effects of the organ and singing, there rose something--were it the first Easter-day which awoke in me what primitive Christians call their Easter-laughter, or merely the contrast between the most devilish predicaments and the most holy,--in short, there rose something in me (for which reason I have ever since taken the part of every simple person who might ascribe such things to the Devil), and this something started the question: "Now, could there be aught more diabolical than if thou, just in receiving the Holy Supper, wert madly and blasphemously to begin laughing?" Instantly I took to wrestling with this hell-dog of a thought; neglected the most precious feelings, merely to keep the dog in my eye, and scare him away; yet was forced to draw back from him, exhausted and unsuccessful, and arrived at the step of the altar with the mournful certainty that in a little while I should, without more ado, begin laughing, let me weep and moan inwardly as I liked. Accordingly, while I and a very worthy old Burgermeister were bowing down together before the long parson, and the latter (perhaps kneeling on the low cushion, I fancied him too long) put the wafer in my clenched mouth, I felt all the muscles of laughter already beginning sardonically to contract; and these had not long acted on the guiltless integument, till an actual smile appeared there; and as we bowed the second time, I was grinning like an ape. My companion the Burgermeister justly expostulated with me, in a low voice, as we walked round behind the altar: "In Heaven's name, are you an ordained Preacher of the Gospel, or a Merry-Andrew? Is it Satan that is laughing out of you?"

198. The Populace and Cattle grow giddy on the edge of no abyss; with the Man it is otherwise.11. The Golden Calf of Self-love soon waxes to be a burning Phalaris's Bull, which reduces its father and adorer to ashes.103. The male Beau-crop, which surrounds the female Roses and Lilies, must (if I rightly comprehend its flatteries) most probably presuppose in the fair the manners of the Spaniards and Italians, who offer any valuable, by way of present, to the man who praises it excessively.

198. The Populace and Cattle grow giddy on the edge of no abyss; with the Man it is otherwise.

11. The Golden Calf of Self-love soon waxes to be a burning Phalaris's Bull, which reduces its father and adorer to ashes.

103. The male Beau-crop, which surrounds the female Roses and Lilies, must (if I rightly comprehend its flatteries) most probably presuppose in the fair the manners of the Spaniards and Italians, who offer any valuable, by way of present, to the man who praises it excessively.

"Ah, Heaven! who else?" said I; and this being over, I finished my devotions in a more becoming fashion.

From the church (I now return to the Flätz one) I proceeded to the Tiger Inn, and dined at thetable-d'hôte, being at no time shy of encountering men. Previous to the second course, a waiter handed me an empty plate, on which, to my astonishment, I noticed a French verse scratched in with a fork, containing nothing less than a lampoon on the Commandant of Flätz. Without ceremony, I held out the plate to the company; saying, I had just, as they saw, got this lampooning cover presented to me, and must request them to bear witness that I had nothing to do with the matter. An officer directly changed plates with me. During the fifth course, I could not but admire the chemico-medical ignorance of the company; for a hare, out of which a gentleman extracted and exhibited several grains of shot, that is to say, therefore, of lead alloyed with arsenic, and then cleaned by hot vinegar, did, nevertheless, by the spectators (I expected) continue to be pleasantly eaten.

199. But not many existing Governments, I believe, do behead under pretext of trepanning; or sew (in a more choice allegory) the people's lips together, under pretence of sewing the harelips in them.

In the course of our table-talk, one topic seized me keenly by my weak side, I mean by my honor. The law custom of the city happened to be mentioned, as it affects natural children; and I learned that here a loose girl may convert any man she pleases to select into the father of her brat, simply by her oath. "Horrible!" said I, and my hair stood on end. "In this way may the worthiest head of a family, with a wife and children, or a clergyman lodging in the Tiger, be stript of honor and innocence, by any wicked chambermaid whom he may have seen, or who may have seen him, in the course of her employment!"

An elderly officer observed: "But will the girl swear herself to the Devil so readily?"

What logic! "Or suppose," continued I, without answer, "a man happened to be travelling with that Vienna Locksmith, who afterwards became a mother, and was brought to bed of a baby son; or with any disguised Chevalier d'Eon, who often passes the night in his company, whereby the Locksmith or the Chevalier can swear to their private interviews; no delicate man of honor will in the end risk travelling with another; seeing he knows not how soon the latter may pull off his boots, and pull on his women's-pumps, and swear his companion into Fatherhood, and himself to the Devil!"

67. Hospitable Entertainer, wouldst thou search into thy Guest? Accompany him to another Entertainer, and listen to him. Just so, wouldst thou become better acquainted with Mistress in an hour, than by living with her for a month? Accompany her among her female friends and female enemies (if that is no pleonasm), and look at her!

Some of the company, however, misunderstood my oratorical fire so much, that they, sheep-wise, gave some insinuations as if I myself were not strict in this point, but lax. By Heaven! I no longer knew what I was eating or speaking. Happily, on the opposite side of the table, some lying story of a French defeat was started. Now, as I had read on the street corners that French and German Proclamation, calling before the Court Martial any one who had heard war rumors (disadvantageous, namely), without giving notice of them,--I, as a man not willing ever to forget himself, had nothing more prudent to do in this case, than to withdraw with empty ears, telling none but the landlord why.

It was no improper time; for I had previously determined to have my beard shaven about half past four, that so, towards five, I might present myself with a chin just polished by the razor smoothing-iron, and sleek as wove-paper, without the smallest root-stump of a hair left on it. By way of preparation, like Pitt before Parliamentary debates, I poured a devilish deal of Pontac into my stomach, with true disgust, and contrary to all sanitary rules; not so much for fronting the light stranger Barber, as the Minister and General von Schabacker, with whom I had it in view to exchange perhaps more than one fiery statement.

80. In the Summer of life, men keep digging and filling ice-pits, as well as circumstances will admit; that so, in their Winter, they may have something in store to give them coolness.28. It is impossible for me, amid the tendril-forest of allusions (even this again is a tendril-twig), to state and declare on the spot whether all the Courts or Heights, the (Bougouer)Snowlineof Europe, have ever been mentioned in my writings or not; but I could wish for information on the subject, that, if not, I may try to do it still.

80. In the Summer of life, men keep digging and filling ice-pits, as well as circumstances will admit; that so, in their Winter, they may have something in store to give them coolness.

28. It is impossible for me, amid the tendril-forest of allusions (even this again is a tendril-twig), to state and declare on the spot whether all the Courts or Heights, the (Bougouer)Snowlineof Europe, have ever been mentioned in my writings or not; but I could wish for information on the subject, that, if not, I may try to do it still.

The common Hotel Barber was ushered in to me; but at first view you noticed in his polygonal, zigzag visage, more of a man that would finally go mad, than of one growing wiser. Now, madmen are a class of persons whom I hate incredibly; and nothing can take me to see any madhouse, simply because the first maniac among them may clutch me in his giant fists if he like; and bet cause, owing to infection, I cannot be sure that I shall ever get out again with the sense which I brought in. In a general way, I sit (when once I am lathered) in such a posture on my chair as to keep both my hands (the eyes I fix intently on the bartering countenance) lying clenched along my sides, and pointed directly at the midriff of the barber; that so, on the smallest ambiguity of movement, I may dash in upon him, and overset him in a twinkling.

I scarce know rightly how it happened; but here, while I am anxiously studying the foolish, twisted visage of the shaver, and he just then chanced to lay his long whetted weapon a little too abruptly against my bare throat, I gave him such a sudden bounce on the abdominal viscera, that the silly varlet had wellnigh suicidally slit his own windpipe. For me, truly, nothing remained but to indemnify the man; and then, contrary to my usual principles, to tie round a broad stuffed cravat, by way of cloak to what remained unshorn.

And now at last I sallied forth to the General, drinking out the remnant of the Pontac, as I crossed the threshold.

36. And so I should like, in all cases, to be the First, especially in Begging. The first prisoner-of-war, the first cripple, the first man ruined by burning (like him who brings the first fire-engine), gains the head-subscription and the heart; the next comer finds nothing but Duty to address; and at last, in this melodiousmancandoof sympathy, matters sink so far, that the last (if the last but one may at least have retired laden with a rich "God help you!") obtains from the benignant hand nothing more than its fist. And as in Begging the first, so in Giving I should like to be the last; one obliterates the other, especially the last the first. So, however, is the world ordered.

I hope there were plans lying ready within me for answering rightly, nay for asking. The Petition I carried in my pocket, and in my right hand. In the left, I had a duplicate of it. My fire of spirit easily helped over the living fence of ministerial obstructions; and soon I unexpectedly found myself in the ante-chamber, among his most distinguished lackeys; persons, so far as I could see, not inclined to change flour for bran with any one. Selecting the most respectable individual of the number, I delivered him my paper request, accompanied with the verbal one that he would hand it in. He took it, but ungraciously. I waited in vain till far in the sixth hour, at which season alone the gay General can safely be applied to. At last I pitch upon another lackey, and repeat my request; he runs about seeking his runaway brother, or my Petition, to no purpose; neither of them could be found. How happy was it that in the midst of my Pontac, before shaving, I had written out the duplicate of this paper; and therefore--simply on the principle that you should always keep a second wooden leg packed into your knapsack when you have the first on your body--and out of fear, that, if the original petition chanced to drop from me in the way between the Tiger and Schabacker's, my whole journey and hope would melt into water,--and therefore, I say, having stuck the repeating work of that original paper into my pocket, I had, in any case, something to hand in, and that something truly a Ditto. I handed it in.

136. If you mount too high above your time, your ears (on the side of Fame) are little better off than if you sink too deep below it; in truth, Charles up in his Balloon, and Halley down in his Diving-bell, felt equally the same strange pain in their ears.

Unhappily six o'clock was already past. The lackey, however, did not keep me long waiting; but returned with--I may say, the text of this whole Circular--the almost rude answer (which you, my Friends, out of regard for me and Schabacker, will not divulge), that: "In case I were the Attila Schmelzle of Schabacker's Regiment, might lift my pigeon-liver flag again, and fly to the Devil, as I did at Pimpelstadt." Another man would have dropt dead on the spot; I, however, walked quite stoutly off, answering the fellow: "With great pleasure indeed, I fly to the Devil; and so Devil a fly I care." On the road home, I examined myself, whether it had not been the Pontac that spoke out of me (though the very examination contradicted this, for Pontac never examines); but I found that nothing but I, my heart, my courage perhaps, had spoken; and why, after all, any whimpering? Does not the patrimony of my good wife endow me better than ten Catechetical Professorships? And has she not furnished all the corners of my book of Life with so many golden clasps, that I can open it forever without wearing it? Let henhearts cackle and pip; I flapped my pinions, and said: "Dash boldly through it, come what may!" I felt myself excited and exalted; I fancied Republics, in which I, as a hero, might be at home; I longed to be in that noble Grecian time, when one hero readily put up with bastinadoes from another, and said, "Strike, but hear!" and out of this ignoble one, where men will scarcely put up with hard words, to say nothing of more. I painted out to my mind how I should feel, if, in happier circumstances, I were uprooting hollow Thrones, and before whole nations mounting on mighty deeds as on the Temple-steps of Immortality; and, in gigantic ages, finding quite other men to outman and outstrip, than the mite-populace about me, or, at the best, here and there a Vulcanello. I thought and thought, and grew wilder and wilder, and intoxicated myself (no Pontac intoxication therefore, which, you know, increases more by continuance than cessation of drinking), and gesticulated openly, as I put the question to myself: "Wilt thou be a mere state-lapdog? A dog's-dog, apium desideriumof animpium desiderium, an Ex-Ex, a Nothing's-Nothing?--Fire and Fury!" With this, however, I dashed down my hat into the mud of the market. On lifting and cleaning this old servant, I could not but perceive how worn and faded it was; and I therefore determined instantly to purchase a new one, and carry the same home in my hand.

25. In youth, like a blind man just couched (and what is birth but a couching of the sight?), you take the Distant for the Near, the starry heaven for tangible room-furniture, pictures for objects; and, to the young man, the whole world is sitting on his very nose, till repeating bandaging and unbandaging have at last taught him, like the blind patient, to estimateDistanceandAppearance.

I accomplished this. I bought one of the finest cut. Strangely enough, by this hat, as if it had been a Graduation-hat, was my head tried and examined in the Ziegengasse or Goat-gate of Flätz. For as General Schabacker came driving along that street in his carriage, and I (it need not be said) was determined to avenge myself, not by vulgar clownishness, but by courtesy, I had here got one of the most ticklish problems imaginable to solve on the spur of the instant. You observe, if I swung only the fine hat which I carried in my hand, and kept the faded one on my head,--I might have the appearance of a perfect clown, who does not doff at all; if, on the other hand, I pulled the old hat from my head, and therewith did my reverence, then two hats, both in play at once (let me swing the other at the same time or not), brought my salute within the verge of ridicule. Now do you, my Friends, before reading further, bethink you how a man was to extricate himself from such a plight, without losing his presence of mind! I think, perhaps, by this means; by merely losing his hat. In one word, then, I simply dropped the new hat from my hand into the mud, to put myself in a condition for taking off the old hat by itself, and swaying it in needful courtesy, without any shade of ridicule.

Arrived at the Tiger,--to avoid misconstructions, I first had the glossy, fine, and superfine hat cleaned, and some time afterwards the mud-hat or rubbis-hat.

And now, weighing my momentous Past in the adjusting balance within me, I walked in fiery mood to and fro. The Pontac must--I know that there is no unadulterated liquor here below--have been more than usually adulterated; so keenly did it chase my fancy out of one fire into the other. I now looked forth into a wide, glittering life, in which I lived without post, merely on money; and which I beheld, as it were, sowed with the Delphic caves, and Zenonic walks, and Muse-hills of all the Sciences, which I might now cultivate at my ease. In particular, I should have it in my power to apply more diligently to writing Prize-essays for Academies; of which (that is to say, of the Prize-essays) no author need ever be ashamed, since, in all cases, there is a whole crowning Academy to stand and blush for the crownee. And even if the Prize-marksman does not hit the crown, he still continues more unknown and more anonymous (his Device not being unsealed) than any other author, who indeed can publish some nameless Long-ear of a book, but not hinder it from being, by a Literary Ass-burial (sepultura asinina), publicly interred, in a short time, before half the world.

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