\ i Catjjoltc Aeries* *** For Prospectus indicating the character and purpose of the Catholic Series, and for List of Books already published, see Catalogue at the end of this work. ISAAC FOOT LIBRARY LONDON: OEORGE WOODFALL AND SON, A.VOKt, COURT, SKINNER STREET. LIFE JEAN PAUL F. RICHTER. COMPILED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. TOGETHER WITH HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. jbetonti LONDON : JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STRAND. M.DCCC.XLIX. MMRART UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORMBT PKEFACE. THE following pages are presented to the reader, as con- taining an authentic life of Jean Paul, although they are not a literal translation of any one of the biographies of the great German Poet. It is well known that he was the most frank and un- reserved of authors, and that he has interwoven, in all his romances, much of his personal experience. When, in the latter part of his life, he began his great comic romance of " Nicholas Margraf, or Poetry from the Life of an Apothecary," he undertook at the same time," as parallel or companion-piece, his " Autobiography, or Truth from my own Life," intending to interweave the two, as the romance and reality of one life. From hence results the comic tone, and the apparent affectation of speaking in the third person, in his Autobiography, which was con- tinued only to his thirteenth year. He found, perhaps, that it was only in childhood he could idealize his own life, and do that better, in his fictitious heroes, than when he was avowedly his own. The first part of the following Life is as literal and accurate a translation of Richter's own biography as I am able to make; the mystification already mentioned has added obscurity to the " bewildering conceits " with which' he usually illustrates his wit and his wisdom. My desire to preserve, as much as possible, the peculiarity of the VI PEEFACE. original, has, perhaps, given to the English a German dress, which, I trust, is thrown off in the remaining parts of the work. The Life is continued from " Wahrheit aus Jean PauTs Leben " (Truth from the Life of Jean Paul), " Spazier's Biographical Commentary," and Paul's correspondence with his friends. The materials furnished from these sources I have drawn out, and woven together again with the same threads, although in a different form ; and my embarrassments, which have not been small, have arisen from the abundance of the materials, and the difficulty of selection, where I wished the reader should enjoy the whole. But as the whole is comprised in scarcely less than twenty volumes, I have selected only such parts of the letters as would throw light upon Jean Paul's personal concerns, and explain the peculiarities of his character. Are readers disappointed in this, selected Life? I must have the honesty to assure them the fault is in the setting; should they search the original, they will find gems worthy of the purest gold, and the richest pattern. Should German scholars find any discrepancy in the extracts from the letters, the reason may be, that I have translated, as happened to be convenient, from three different versions ; from Otto's and Spazier's selections, and from Jean Paul's correspondence with Otto. AUGUST 12, 1842. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Page Sketch of the Fichtelgebirge, the birth-place of Richter . 1 PAKT FIKST. THE AUTOBIOGBAPHY. CHAPTER I. Wunsiedel Birth Grandparents 9 CHAPTER II. Which includes the time from August, 1775, to January, 1776 Joditz Village Idyls 21 CHAPTER III. Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale First Kiss Rector The Lord's Supper . . . .'. '; ' ;'' l '"."\ . *. .63 Vlll CONTENTS. PAET SECOND. FBOM JEAN PAUL'S ENTRANCE INTO THE HOP GYMNASIUM TILL AFTEB HIS FIKST VISIT IN WEIMAB. ' CHAPTER I. Page Remarks upon the Autobiography Removal to Schwarzen- bach Self-Education Loss of Childish Faith ... 79 CHAPTER II. Hof Gymnasium School Anecdotes Death of the Father Domestic Troubles .- 89 CHAPTER III. Youthful Friendships Werther Period First Book-making " On the Practice of Thinking " 95 CHAPTER IV. Richter enters the University of Leipsic Letters from Leipsic Change of Studies Letters to his Mother . . . 103 CHAPTER V. Extracts from Journal First Literary Effort " Greenland Lawsuits" 118 CHAPTER VI. Extreme Poverty First Success Costume Controversy . 129 CHAPTER VII. Love Passage Second Volume of " Greenland Lawsuits " Pressing Poverty Flight from Leipsic Domestic Circum- stances in Hof Book of Devotion . 135 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER VIII. Page Christian Otto Studies Herman His Death . .147 CHAPTER IX. Adam Von Oerthel Residence at Topen Death of his Friend Change of Views . . . . ... . . 156 CHAPTER X. Richter takes a School at Schwarzenbach Method of Instruc- tion Female Pupils and Friends 164 CHAPTER XI. Richter*s First Serious Work "The Little Schoolmaster Wuz " " The Invisible Lodge " First Success Sabbath Weeks of Life "Hesperus" .177 CHAPTER XII. Richter visits Bayreuth The Jew Emanuel The Original of Clotilde "Siebenkas" Letter from "Septimus Fixlein" 193 CHAPTER XIII. Letters from Weimar Letter from Madam von Kalb Rich- ter prepares to go to Weimar . . . . . . 201 CHAPTER XIV. First Visit in Weimar Letters from Weimar Goethe Herder Schiller Wieland . , ;' .'. ." .206 CHAPTER XV. Madam von Kalb Letters Close of Richter"s intimacy with Madam von Kalb . . . . . ,218 CONTENTS. PAET THIRD. FROM JEAN PAUL'S FIRST VISIT IN WEIMAR TO HIS FINAL RESIDENCE IN BAYREUTH. CHAPTER I. Page Prince Hohenlohe Madam von Krudener Letters "Ju- belsenior" " Kampaner Thai " 227 CHAPTER II. Richter visits the Frauzenbath in Eger Death of his Mother Emilie von Berlespsh Removal from Hof to Leipsic . 235 CHAPTER III. Residence in Leipsic Letters Emilie von Berlespsh Visits Dresden 243 CHAPTER IV. Richter returns to Weimar Wieland Goethe Herder His attachment to Jean Paul Philosophy Madam von Kalb * 254 CHAPTER V. Richter visits the Court of Hildburghausen Mademoiselle von F. The four Sister Princesses Dedication of Titan Visits Berlin . . . . . . . . 266 CHAPTER VI. Richter removes to Berlin Introduction to Caroline Meyer The Meyer Family The " Verlobung" ..... 276 CHAPTER VII. Richter's Petition to the King of Prussia Marriage Caro- line's Letters from Weimar .... 288 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER VIII. Page Residence in Meiningen Letters Birth of Richter's first Child Dog's Petition . 294 CHAPTER IX. Titan . . . .. . . . ^ / . . 302 CHAPTER X. Richter leaves Meiningen Removes to Coburg Birth of his Son Death of Herder "Flegeljahre" Bayreuth . . 312 PAKT FOUKTH. FBOM JEAN PAUL'S RESIDENCE IN BAYREUTH TO HIS DEATH. CHAPTER I. Richter removes to Bayreuth Social Position Personal Ap- pearance and Habits Family 'Letter from his eldest Daughter ' / . . .321 CHAPTER II. "Introduction to Esthetics" "Freedom Pamphlet" "Le- vana" Richter's View of Napoleon Comic Works Let- ter to General Bernadotte 330 CHAPTER III. Pecuniary Embarrassments Prince Dalberg Paul receives a small Pension Extract from Varnhagen von Ense's Me- moirs 342 CHAPTER IV. Domestic Letters Journey to Erlangen Journey to Num- berg Jacobi 350 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTEE V. Page Kichter in relation with the Unhappy Letters Maria Foreter . . . ., .361 CHAPTER VI. Richter's love of travelling Yisits Prince Dalberg Visits Heidelberg Receives his Doctor's Diploma Henry Voss Animal Magnetism .*...... 376 CHAPTER VII. Richter visits Munich His son Max His Melancholy and Death 388 CHAPTER VIII. Richter visits Dresden The Impression he made upon his Relatives , . . . ' . 396 CHAPTER IX. The purely Comic Works of Jean Paul The Life of Fibel Nicholas Margraf ; or, the Comet 403 CHAPTER X. Richter visits Nlirnberg on account of his eyes Kanne His blindness Last Letters " Selina" . . . 411 CONCLUSION 427 APPENDIX .441 INTRODUCTION. SKETCH OF THE FICHTELGEBIRGE, THE BIETH-PLACE OF BICHTEB. IN the very centre of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, rises that mountain region called the " Fichtelgebirge," or Pine Mountain, which takes it name from the pine woods with which its summit is crowned. The author from whom I have taken the following account gives it the name of the " mountain island," derived from the isolation in which it remains, although surroundedby mountains, and only divided from them by mountain plains. He speaks of it thus: " The Fichtelgebirge, spite of its wonderful peculiarities, is an un- known and unvisited part of Germany. To a great portion of the cultivated as well as the ignorant world its name is scarcely known. The trains of travelling carriages, on the road from Munich and Nuremberg to Saxony, pass the foot of the mountain on the western side, and the travellers throw only a hasty glance at its dark-green crest as they go by. The troops of travelling German youth, with their staves and sketch-books, turn away from its threshold, frightened at its gloomy aspect." In the bosom of this mysterious mountain island Jean Paul Frederic Richter received his birth ; and, if country and cli- mate and early circumstances exert a powerful influence on the character of the Poet, it seems a proper introduction to B 2 INTEODUCTTON. his biography to give a slight sketch of the region \vhere he received his earliest impressions, and of its inhabitants, among whom his early days were passed. The elevation of the Fichtelgebirge above the level of the sea subjects it to late springs and cold summers, and in winter it is covered with perpetual snow. The winter lingers late into the short summer, and the frost begins so early that the potatoes are sometimes dug from the snow, and the harvest gathered when the hands must be covered with gloves. Cut off, as they are, from the surrounding country, and pressed together within a small compass, so that they can embrace each other with the eye as well as with the heart, the inhabitants are joined together in the closest bonds, and, like other mountaineers, are united by a romantic attachment to their country. The air has been said to belong to the Germans, as the sea does to the English ; but many of the German tradi- tions go far into the secret bosom of the earth, and among the mountain people who dig for treasures, there is a species of romance that belongs to no other country. In the Fichtelgebirge, gold, that object of intense desire in the Middle Ages, had been found, and the search for it led to many valuable mineral discoveries. Gold is no longer sought there, but the traveller hears continually, in the solitude, the hollow echo of the blows of the man of the mountains, and sees arise, behind a wall of verdure, the smoke of the smelting furnaces for iron, vitriol, and tin. The beautiful fountains and fresh streams, that burst out in every little hollow and green nook, are a constant source of delight; and the sweet and soothing sound of running water is heard, whenever the blows of the hammer and the roaring of the furnace are hushed. The inhabitants of these heights are a pious, true, and simple people. Their employment gives a certain pride and self-confidence to their character, and a grave and religious seriousness to their manners, although they are often excited and heated like the element in which they INTRODUCTION. 3 work. The most numerous and contented class are the wood-cutters. Many young men leave a mechanical em-: ployment. irresistibly drawn, by the singing of birds and the charms of the fresh air, to a life in the pine woods, where they have no wants but simple nourishment and necessary clothing. But the inhabitants of places where manufactures are carried on, like Hof, have lost somewhat of the sim- plicity of their manners. Many are engaged in manufac- tures, who live, indeed, like country people, uniting some handicraft or agricultural occupation with their manufac- turing employment. Among them, at the first glance, may be discovered, by certain peculiarities, the landlord, the butcher, the baker, and the miller, and these form the well- to-do and independent class of citizens. The higher class, who possess estates in the mountain, the nobles, also retain the peculiarities of the country. In their domestic ar- rangements a pure simplicity prevails, and the inhabitants of the whole region live in confidential intercourse with each other. In describing one of the dwellings of the inhabitants of the middling class, we shall give an idea of the house in which Richter passed his infancy. The richest people live in substantial stone houses, with tiled roofs ; but the poorer houses, and such as the father of Richter occupied, are built of beams of wood, filled up with mortar, and thatched with straw, enclosing under the same roof the stables, and shelter for all kinds of domestic animals. At the entrance of these humble dwellings, a small space is parted off for the imple- ments of agriculture. On the wall hang the scythes, sickles, and cart and sled harness. A door on one side leads to the stalls for oxen and cows, and on the left to the dwelling apartment, and in the rear is the little dark kitchen. Near the entrance stands always, even in the poorest houses, a large stove, often of china, glazed or polished, that diffuses its genial warmth over the whole house ; upon the top are two iron vessels, built in, for holding warm water ; benches 4 INTRODUCTION. are around the walls, and a sort of moveable frame, to hang garments upon, is placed on one side. The walls are kept clean and white by constant washing, and, as the apartment is lighted with pine knots, there is a little funnel, near the stove, to carry off the smoke. The floor is tiled, with a groove in the centre to convey away the water often shaken over from the iron stove-pots. Near the window, in a corner, stands a large wooden table, used for all purposes, and surrounded with wooden stools ; shelves near the door contain the wooden, iron, and tin implements for cooking, dining, &c., and above the door is a shelf on which the great, well-worn Bible, and the ser- mon and psalm-book are laid. Every Saturday, table, benches, and all other utensils, are rubbed and polished with white, shining sand. All these conveniences and habits of cleanliness are doubly necessary, where a whole family live in one room. There is, however, a small apartment divided off between the stove and the wall, where they can retire for purposes of rest or solitude ; and the bed of the married pair some- times stands in a small adjoining room, together with a large chest, curiously carved and ornamented, that descends from father to son as an heir-loom in the family. This chest contains the family linen, the money, the silver shirt-buttons of the husband and necklace of the wife, the registers of marriages and births, tax-bills, and other important docu- ments. The back-ground of the premises is closed by a cart-house, swine-house, and large baking oven. In the centre stands a circular dove-house, elevated on a low pillar. This pecu- liar feature of a German homestead is familiar to those who have looked at Retzsh's beautiful sketches of German life in the " Song of the Bell." Around are great piles of fire-wood ready split for the stove, necessary both winter and summer, in a climate so severe as that of the Fichtel- gebirge. An orchard near the house, with a little corner INTRODUCTION. 5 appropriated to the kitchen vegetables, and still another little corner with a few pinks, forget-me-nots, and lavender flowers, complete the domestic picture. These little orchards surrounding the houses, the flower- ing hedges bordering the streets, and connecting house with house in the villages at the foot of the mountains, and the rustic bridges crossing the frequent streams, give them an aspect of beauty, dear to the eye of a painter or lover of rural scenery. Other ornaments are the flowering maples and weeping birch trees, and the decorated May-pole, that stands in the midst of every village, and around which, on Sundays and festivals, the dance is led. Not all the moun- tain villages are thus ornamented. In some, the presence of only clumps of mountain pine gives them a sombre and melancholy aspect. The dress of the people who are not engaged in manu- factures is primitive and simple. The old women bind a three-cornered handkerchief upon the head, and the young weave a silken band through the hair. They wear a woollea petticoat with a leathern girdle around the waist, through which, in working hours, the, petticoat is tucked. Their stockings reach only to the ankle, and the feet are bare, as the shoes are carried in the hand, and only put on when they reach the church door. The large straw hat is also carried in the hand, and is worn only on rare occasions. The dress of the men is finer and more ornamented. In- deed, the women are almost serfs, and do all the heavy and laborious out-of-door work of the family. The men, it is true, are occupied in the mines, and in cutting wood in the forests for smelting metals. This may be the reason why the agricultural labours and the care of the animals devolve upon the women. But we cannot regret it ; for this circumstance, no doubt, gave occasion to those passages of tenderness, respect, and compassion for women, in the writings of Jean Paul, that made the hearts of the German women his own. The festivals of marriage, baptism, Christmas, and the 6 INTRODUCTION. season of the first communion, are enjoyed and celebrated in these mountain villages with the utmost heartiness and delight ; and every reader of Jean Paul \vill recollect how large a space these festivals occupy in his novels. Plain and simple as are the inhabitants of this region, the charm of romance, and the poetry of the ancient super- stitions, are thickly spread over it. The old people relate that good-natured dwarfs and fairies entered secretly certain families and brought them good fortune. In the forests are woodmen and woodivomen, who nourish and protect those who have lost their way, and for a piece of money give them good counsels. Every- where around in the deep solitudes, the horn of the " wild hunter " and the anvil blows of the " man of the moun- tains " are heard. The atmospheric phenomena of these regions are still another source of excitement to the imagination of the poet. Sometimes the whole mountain tops are covered with va- pour, where the sun is reflected in infinitely beautiful hues long after it is below the horizon. Sometimes the moun- tain top presents the same peculiar rosy hue that is seen upon the Alps. The reader, who has been wearied by Richter's too frequent and diffuse descriptions of atmo- spheric changes, will find their source in the rare and beau- tiful appearances this otherwise sombre sky often presents. His weather-prophesying, like that of all mountain people, was an occasion of continual sport and pleasantry, and also of serious attention and study. It would be impossible for a poet with so keen a suscep- tibility to all impressions as Richter, to be born under such influences and to pass his youth just within the threshold of a region so filled with romance, without its having a powerful, but perhaps secret influence upon the whole man, and upon the character of his genius and writings. It makes him the most personal of authors. The fact, that he never could climb the heights of his birth-place, was the mother of that secret longing, with which he every moment. INTRODUCTION. 7 even in the most cheerful circumstances of his life, fell back upon his youth. When easier circumstances permitted him 'to travel, he would not enter the solitary valleys or ascend the romantic heights of the Fichtelgebirge. lest the reality should break the enchantment of memory, and the illusions of his youth, that embellished the evening of his life with romantic hues, should vanish. Late in life he returned, after a short separation, drawn by the mountain magnet, to the place of his birth. The visitor found him, in his last years, in the little city and plain of Bayreuth, at the southern threshold of the moun- tain, where his eye could always turn to the high cradle of his infancy, and where the shadow of the pines could fall upon his grave. PART FIRST. AUTOBIOGKAPHY. FIRST LECTURE. CHAPTER I. WUNSIEDEL BIRTH GRANDPARENTS. IT was in the year 1763, about the same time with the Peace of Hubertsburg*, that the present Professor of his own history came into the world ; in the same month that the golden and gray wagtail, the robin-redbreast, the crane, the red-hammer, appeared, and many snipes and wood- cocks arrived also ; and, indeed, on the same day of the month, in case any one should wish to strew flowers upon the cradle of the new-born, the spoonwort and aspen hung out their tender blossoms on the 21st of March ; also at the earliest and freshest time of day, namely, at half-past one in the morning. But what crowns all is, that his life and the life of the spring began at the same moment. This last circumstance, that the Professor and the spring were born together, I have mentioned in conversation at least a hundred times ; but I fire it off here, as a salute * The peace, that put an end to the Seven Years' War, was signed at Hubertsburg, a Saxon hunting-seat, on the 15th of February, in 1763. TK. B 3 10 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. of honour, the hundred and first time, that, by printing it, I may place it out of my power to offer again as a bon mot, what through the press has gone the round of the whole world. It is a misfortune in the history of a man, even the wittiest, that Fate herself has laid for him a pun as a nest-egg ; for upon this egg he sits and broods his life long, and strives to bring something out of it. Thus, I knew a barber and a coachman, who both, at the ques- tion, " What is your name ?" answered with simplicity, and without any appearance of wit, " Your obedient ser- vant," or " Your servant." The reason was, they had the misfortune to be named Diener (servant), and through this their heads were indelibly tonsured by a standing joke; they were both condemned to a perpetual conceit ; and these small-shot of wit all went in one direction. Let us not hope, my honoured friends, who bear at the same time a common and a proper name, such as Ochs or Eapinat, (both, indeed, Swiss,) Wolf, Schlegel*, Richterf, to sur- prise such a double-named man with any consequent play of wit, however brilliant ; for he has lived too long with his own name to find any allusion to it, which may occur to the novice, either new, or surprising, or witty, but all to his ear is quite worn out. Mullner made a more witty play upon words, with Schotten and Schatten, (Scotsman, shadow,) for no Scotsman ever considered himself a sha- dow, and no shadow can be a Scotsman, for two vowels separate them eternally. But I return to our history, and place myself among the dead, for all are out of the world who saw me come into it. My father was called John Christian Christopher Richter, and was TertiusJ and organist in Wunsiedel. My mother, who was the daughter of the cloth-weaver, * A beater. f A judge. J Tertius is master of the third class in a Gymnasium. A German Gymnasium has eight classes. The classes are arranged in an inverse order : thus, the first is taught by the rector ; the second, by the con- rector ; the third, by the subrector; the fourth, by the quintus, &c. TK. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 1 1 John Paul Kuhn, in Hof, was named Sophia Rosina. The day after my birth, I was baptized by the Senior Apel. One godfather was the above-mentioned John Paul ; the other, John Frederic Theime, a bookbinder, who did not know at that time to what quantities of his own handicraft he lent his name. From these two sponsors was the name John Paul Frederic shot together; the grandfatherly half I have translated into Jean Paul, and have thereby gained a name, the reasons for which shall be fully made known in future lectures. But now let the hero and subject of these historical lectures lie and sleep securely in the cradle and on the mother's breast; for in the long morning sleep of life there is nothing interesting for the universal history of the world, and he may sleep until I have spoken of those after whom my heart and my pen yearn my ancestors, my father, mother, and grandparents. My father was the son of the Rector of the Gymnasium in Neustadt on the Culm. We know nothing of him, but that he was in the highest degree poor and pious ; and should one of his two remaining grandsons come to Neu- stadt, the inhabitants would receive him with grateful joy and love. The old would relate how conscientious and severe his life and instructions had been, and yet how cheerful. They yet show a bench, behind the organ, where every Sunday he kneeled to pray, and a hollow or grotto in the above-named little Culm*, that he formed for himself to pray in (at this distance of time it stands open), and in which his more ardent son sported with the Muses and Penury. The evening twilight was a daily harvest for him, in which, for some dark hours, he walked * The Culmberg, near Neustadt, is a solitary conical hill, on the south- eastern entrance to the Fiijhtelgebirge. It is surrounded by pines that give it a dark-blue appearance, easily distinguished from Bayreuth. We can easily believe that the poetic eye of Richter was often turned to this, his pious grandfather's altar, when near his cottage study he wrote in the open air. TR. 12 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. up and down the poor school-room, weighing the produce of to-day and the seed that was to be sown to-morrow, under the influence of earnest prayer. This school-house was a prison, not, indeed, of bread and water, but of bread and beer ; far more than these, of some little contentment of the most pious character, which a rectorate could not give, although united with the offices of chanter* and organist. But, notwithstanding the fellowship of united offices, it produced only one hundred and fifty florins f annually. At this common hunger-fountain for Bayreutish schoolmasters, the man who had been chanter in Kehau thirty-five years long stood and drank. Certainly he would have gained a couple of bites or pennies more, had he been promoted to the office of a country pastor. As often as scholars exchange their dress, that is, from the school mantle to the priest's mantle, they receive a little better food, as the silkworm at the casting of her skin receives richer nourishment ; so that such a man, by increasing his labours, may so increase his salary, as to be inferior only to a statesman with expectancies or gratuities; or, in general, to some high functionary in retirement, whose staff of emoluments is carried through the whole score of the chamber, and that even during all the pauses of the instrument. In the meantime, my grandfather visited the parents of his pupils in the afternoons, more on account of the latter than the former, taking a bit of bread in his pocket, from the above-mentioned beer and bread by which he lived, and receiving, as a guest, only his little can of beer. But at last it happened, in the year 1763, exactly the year of my birth, on the 6th of August, probably through especial connection with higher powers, he was promoted to the most important station, one for which the rectorate, and the city, and all the Culmberg* itself, could easily be given up ; and when he had numbered seventy-six years, * Director of the music. f A florin is forty cents. AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 18 four months, and eight days, he was actually promoted to the station above mentioned in the Neustadt church- yard. His -wife, twenty years before, had preceded him, occupying a rival station, and waited for him. My parents went with me, then a child of five months old, to visit his dying bed. A clergyman who was present, as my father has often told me, said, " Let the old Jacob lay his hand upon the child, that he may bless him." I was placed on the bed, and he laid his hand upon my head. Pious grandfather! often have I thought of thy cold, blessing hand, when fate has led me out of dark, into brighter hours ; and I needed to hold fast my faith in thy blessing, in this world, penetrated, governed, and animated by wonders and spirits. My father was born in Neustadt, December 16, 1727; more, I should say, to the winter of life, than, like myself, to the spring, had not his excellent nature had the power to carve a good haven from an iceberg. But the Lyceum in Wunsiedel could only be enjoyed or endured by him, as by Luther, the school at Eisenach, as an alum,' nus, or poor scholar; for when my grandfather's salary (one hundred and fifty florins a year) was divided among many brothers and sisters, his part was exactly nothing, or at most, alumnus bread ; therefore he went to the Gymnasium at Regensburg, not only to hunger in a larger city, but to cultivate the peculiar flower of his nature, as well as the leaves, and this was the science of music. In the chapel of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis, the well-known connoisseur and patron of music, he could serve the saint for whose adoration he was born. Piano- playing and general bass caused him, forty years later, to become a favourite composer of church music in the prin- cipality of Bayreuth. On the evening of Good Friday, he often delighted himself and us, his children, with the exhibition of that holy power of music, the tones of which even to this day elevate and sanctify souls in the Catholic church. I must, alas, acknowledge, that when I was 14 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. lately in Regensburg, among the antiques and forgotten relics of that place, the oppressed life of my father was the most precious of all ; and, when I was in the palace of Thurn and Taxis, and in the narrow streets, where two portly persons could scarcely pass each other, I thought of his small means, and the narrow passages of his youthful life. Instead of the delightful science of music, he studied theology, both in Jena and Erlangen ; perhaps for no better reason than this to suffer himself to be plagued for a long time, even till his thirty-second year, as a domestic teacher in Bayreuth, where his son collected these particulars: for, in 1760, he obtained from the city authorities the post of organist and Tertius in Wunsiedel. In this case, he obtained, under the Margrave of Bayreuth, a better and earlier fortune than that candidate in Hanover, of whom I have read, who at seventy years old had re- ceived no better place in the church than what the church- yard offered. Some of my hearers may fear, from what I have said, that I shall bring my father before them with a pitiful aspect, like some modern ultra-Christians, who cover their faces with a tear-steeped handkerchief. On the contrary, he lived as it were on wings, and was sought by the fami- lies of Brandenburg and Schopf as the most agreeable of companions, always full of wit and jests and amusing anecdotes. The faculty of social wit accompanied him through life ; even in his office he passed for a very severe pastor, and in the pulpit for a preacher of the Law. In his native city, he won his relations by his exciting preach- ing ; and in Hof, in Voigtland, something yet more im portant a bride, und what was far more difficult, the rich relations of his bride. If a citizen, who through cloth- weaving and veil-selling had become wealthy, could not deny of his two only daughters, the most beautiful, the most delicate and tenderly nurtured, and withal the most beloved, to a needy Tertius, who dwelt with his creditors, a whole day's journey from them, so, on the other side, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. ] 5 this Tertius could only with the reputation of great desert and shining pulpit gifts, and agreeable personal appeai'ance, gain both daughter and parents ; and an elevated soul must have raised the cloth-weaver above his cloth and his money, and talents and spiritual gifts must have appeared to him of more worth than the shining heaps of common wealth. On the 13th of October, 1761, the beloved went as a bride, with all her treasures, into his little narrow school- house, that, fortunately, was not made narrower by furni- ture. His cheerful life, his indifference to money, united with his entire confidence in his housekeeper, left in the Tertius' shell room enough for all travellers from Hof, who wished to rest there. My mother, for such were married people at that time, and there are a few such now, troubled herself as little as my father on account of this emptiness. In my historical readings, hunger will accompany the steps of my hero, and will indeed be mentioned as often as feasting in Thummel's Travels, or tea-drinking in Richard- son's " Clarissa." I cannot but choose to say to Poverty, " Be welcome! so thou come not too late in life." Riches weigh more heavily upon talent than poverty. Under gold mountains and thrones lie buried many spiritual giants. When, to the flame that the natural heat of youth kindles, the oil of riches is added, little more than the ashes of the phoenix remains ; and only a Goethe has had the forbear- ance not to singe his phoenix wings at the sun of Fortune. For with much gold, the poor historical Professor would not have had much genial warmth in his youth. Fate does with the poet as we with singing birds, and overhangs the cage with darkness until he sings the tune we would have him sing. But preserve, just Providence, the old man from want ! for hoary years have already bent him low, and he can no longer stand upright with the youth, and bear heavy burdens on his head. The old man needs rest in the earth even while he is upon it, for he can use only the pre- sent and a little of the future ; for the future does not reflect 16 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. for him as in a glass the blooming present. Only two steps from the couch of his last and deepest repose, with no other curtain than the flowers about the grandfather's chair of old .age, he would yet slumber and rest a little, and, half asleep, open his eyes once more upon the ancient stars and fields of his youth ; and I have no objection since he has already made his best preparation for the other world if now, in the morning, he should rejoice over his breakfast, and in the evening take comfort in his bed, and now, when he is a second time a child, the world should appear again under the innocent form of delight in which it first came before him. Only one false resolution of my father's could we place perhaps to the account of his necessities, that, instead of wooing with his whole heart the muse of sweet sounds, he gave himself, like a monk, to the office of preaching, and suffered his genius for music to be buried in a village church. Indeed, the church, according to the opinion of my grand- parents, was then the provision-ship and air-balloon, and the needy son of the Muses sought to run into the quiet haven of the pulpit. But whoever is not forced by neces- sity, but feels within him, growing with his growth, an inclination and declination of his magnetic needle, let him follow its pointing, trusting to it as to a compass in the desert. Had the present Professor of his own history imitated his father as he desired, he would now, instead of these lectures, be holding sacred discourses, casual preachings, and other sermons ; and he might even have had a place in the " Univei-sal Magazine for Preachers," only, alas ! he would have been puffed up more than duty demands. But my father was in fact neither unfaithful to himself nor to the muse of sweet sounds. Did she not visit him as his first love in the vestal garments of the Holy Virgin, and bring with her every week, to the solitary, silent parsonage of Joditz, the sweetest church music ? And, on the other hand, another art dwelt with that of music, and sought its play-room in the pulpit of Joditz ; for if, after AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 17 an old saying, connoisseurs in music love wine, and if, according to Lavater, they seek good living, why, the chapel- master must still be his own butler and his own caterer ; so, in my father the master of the chapel and the master of the altar were united. Eloquence, the prosaic, but near neighbour to Poetry, dwelt in my father's heart ; and the same sunbeam of genius, that in the morning of his days waked sweet sounds in him, as in the statue of Memnon, kindled later in life, in the pulpit, the warmer light and the thunder of a preacher of the Law. My hearers will remark, that I dwell a long time on my relations, and praise them much ; but I will immediately begin to speak of myself, and then shall scarcely come to a pause. Indeed, the praise itself, that I here give my father, would not appear (if he yet lived) so important to him as it is empty to me. If I placed myself before him in Eternity, there, among the blessed, he would not be elated, that in the year 1818 I should inform the world, from my Professor's chair, that he was appointed by the Bayreuth government to be their composer of church music. And with the same coldness to all praise, in some future time, when I am among the blessed, should my own son speak of me ought he, because I no longer feel praise, to speak in a less animated strain of the applause my works have gained ? In general, my reverend hearers, I would ten times rather hold historical lectures over my ancestors than over myself. How altered would be the appearance of that dis- tant and foreign time, if our relations did not pass through it, stamp it with their presence, and make it fraternal to us ! That man is to be envied, who can retrace his history from ancestor to ancestor, and cover hoary time with the green mantle of youth. For if we are able to paint the time in which our ancestors lived, and themselves also, but in the splendour and freshness of youth, then we should connect our posterity with ourselves, and paint them not as youths, but more properly as old men. I return at last to the hero and subject of our historical 18 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. lectures, and select especially the fact that he was born in Wunsiedel, a city of the Fichtelgebirge. The Fichtelgebirge, almost the highest region of Germany, gives to its inha- bitants so much health, that they can dispense with the Alexander baths, and furnishes for them a tall, large wood growth; and the speaker invites his hearers to decide whether he appears as a confirmation of, or an exception to, his assertion. It is particularly vexatious to a man whose dearest hope is to acquire a name in his native city, that the Wunsiedlers swallow the r at the middle and end of every word, and it is well known that the name of Richter begins and ends with that letter. Besides, the forefathers of the Wunsiedlers stand there with the laurel crowns of warlike bravery that I must win for myself, for it has been constantly known from history how they withstood the Hussites and were victorious ; and perhaps, if they will place Reviewers there instead of Hussites, I shall not be struck from the list of brave men, if they will number my victories over my enemies, from the Hussite Nikolai to the Hussite Merkel*. In former times, Wunsiedel was the sixth town in the so-called Six Districts, at least for patriotism and united zeal in defence of our country and rights ; in short, it was a sixth day of creation, and German fidelity and love and strength long continued to hold out therein. I am willing to have been born in thee, little city of the high mountain, whose summits look down upon us like the heads of eagles. Thy mountain throne is embellished by the steps that lead to it, and thy fountains of health give the sick man strength to ascend to the wide throne above him, and to send his glance over distant villages and mountain plains. I am glad to have been born in thee, little, but good city of my affections f. * Nikolai and Merkel, editors and printers of Reviews that had severely criticised the works of Jean Paul. TE. f Wunsiedel is a pleasant little town, of about three thousand inha- bitants. It lies between Bayreuth and Egar, the two extremities of the Fichtelgebirge, and higher on the mountain than either. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 19 It is often observed that the first-born is usually of the female sex. To this observation the hero of this history is no exception, notwithstanding his right to be the first-born ; for his parents were married in October, 1761, and he was born in March, 1763. There went before him a being, that on this earth was only a shadow, and began perhaps its life in the light of another world, without having dis- covered the light of this. Men who have a firm hold on nothing else, delight in deep, far-reaching recollections of their days of childhood, and in this billowy existence they anchor on that, far more than on the thought of later difficulties. Perhaps for two reasons that in this retrospection they press nearer to the gate of life, guarded by spiritual existences ; and secondly, that they hope, in the spiritual power of an earlier con- sciousness, to make themselves independent of the little, contemptible annoyances that surround humanity. To my great joy, I am able to bring from my twelfth, or at furthest my fourteenth month, one pale, little remembrance, like the earliest and frailest of snowdrops, from the fresh soil of childhood. I recollect, namely, that a poor scholar loved me much, and that I returned his love, and that he earned me about in his arms, and later, took me more agreeably by the hand to the large, dark apartment of the older children, where he gave me milk to drink. This form, vanishing in distance, and his love, hover again over later years, but alas ! I no longer remember his name. If it were possible that he lives yet, far in his sixtieth year, and that, as a learned and well-informed man, these lectures should meet his eye, and that he should then recollect the little Professor that he bore in his arms and often kissed ! Ah, God, if this should be so, and he should write, or the older man should come to visit the old man ! This little morning star of earliest recollection stands yet tolerably clear in its low horizon, but growing paler as the daylight of life rises higher. And now I remember only this clearly, that in earlier life I remembered everything clearly. 20 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. As, in the year 1765, my father was called to be Pastor in Joditz, I can separate my Wunsiedler relics more easily from my childish recollections of Joditz. Under the par- sonage roof of Joditz is now the second act of our little historical monodrama, where, highly honoured gentlemen and ladies, the hero of the piece has entered into a wholly different unfolding of character, for every division of my lectures is in a different dwelling-place. It is, especially in the history of these lectures, or the lecture on this history, so skilfully and happily arranged, that, of the three unities of an historical piece, the first, that of place, is no more violated than that of time ; for, as the hero must go from one place of residence to another, so, from the entrance into life to the entrance into his Professorship, he must pass from one period of time into another. But he hopes, in the representation of the piece, that he shall scarcely offend the unity of time by growing older, although the great difficulty will be to preserve throughout the unity of interest. Our hero has already risen one step, and we have the satisfaction to meet him, whom we left in the first division only son of a Tertius, after two years as the son of a pastor ; for in 1765 my father was preferred to Joditz by the Lady Von Plotho, whose maiden name was Boden- hausen, the wife of the same Plotho who, in the beginning of the Seven Years' War of Frederic the Only, was a delegate to the Imperial Diet at Regensburg*. * This was the most important event in the life of the Poet. In this little village of Joditz, too insignificant to be mentioned in any gazetteer I have been able to consult, he went as a little child of two years old, and remained till his thirteenth year. There he received those im- pressions, and his genius that direction, which followed him through life, and influenced all his works. Never is he so much at home in his works, as in the little village parsonage and church. The joys of humble, domestic life, are the joys he delights to describe. The village festivals, the church consecrations, are all dear to his deeply religious spirit ; the lowly Godsacre (churchyard) is the place he delights in, as the source of devout contemplation ; and his grandfather's altar, the Culmberg, was the spot he had always before him. TB. CHAPTER II. WHICH INCLUDES THE TIME FROM AUG. 1775, TO JAN. 1776. JODITZ VILLAGE IDYLS. WE now find the Professor of his self-biography in the par- sonage in Joditz, which, in a girl's cap and petticoat, he entered with his parents. The Saale, springing like myself from the Fichtelgebirge, ran with me or after me there, as it did also when I removed afterwards to Hof, pursuing its course and passing that city also. This river is the most beautiful, at least the longest, in Joditz, and courses round it as if it were a little hill. The little place itself is tra- versed by a small brook that is crossed by a board for pe- destrians. An ordinary castle and the pastor's house are the only distinguished buildings. The environs upon a level are not more than twice as large as the village itself. And yet is this village to the Professor of his own history far more important than the place of his birth ; for here he lived the most important, the boy Olympiad of his life. Never could I give my voice for the nineteen cities, that, according to Suidas, quarrelled for the honour of giving birth to Homer ; as little for the different Dutch cities that (according to Bayle) would have produced Erasmus. What can the first day after nine months signify more than any day before ? And can the place of the grave con- fer dishonour or advantage on its inhabitant more than the place where his cradle stood ? Although so many princes, on the whole, have been born in their own cities, yet Lon- don, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, do not glory in them, else, on 22 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the contrary, cities and hamlets that have produced great villains must on that account take shame to themselves. At furthest, the land of one's birth might arrogate the honours of birthplace, if through the predominance of good births anything could be decided as to the climate of the place, or the character of the inhabitants ; but a Pindar in Boaotia does not make there a swallow-summer *. But the proper birthplace, that is indeed the spiritual, is the first and longest place of education ; and if it is so for these great, world-renowned men, who rarely need, and more rarely make use of education, how much more for hamlet and village celebrated mediocre men like my hero, who has gained so much through nurture and education, both in connection with reading, which is only a more im- portant instruction, that he has become what he is, a Hild- burghausen Counsellor, a Heidelberg Doctor of Philosophy, a threefold member of different societies, and the present unworthy possessor of the Professorship of this self-history. Let no poet suffer* himself to be born or educated in a metropolis, but, if possible, in a hamlet, at the highest in a village. The excesses and fascinations of a great city are to the excitable, weak soul of a child, like supping at a mid- night table a draught of burnt waters, or bathing in fiery wine. Life exhausts itself in boyhood, and after enjoying the greatest, he has nothing more to wish but smaller joys and village pleasures. But one does not gain so much when he comes from a city to a village, as on the contrary, from Joditz to Hof, that is, from a village to a city. I am think- ing of that which is most important to the poet Love ! He must, in the city, draw about the warm zone of the friends and acquaintance of his parents, the greater and colder number from the icy circle of unloved persons, who meet and pass him with the same indifference that a ship's company on the great ocean meet and pass another ship, * The mearting seems to be this : one Pindar does not make a Par- nassus of Boeotia, because born in the latter place, any more than one swallow makes a summer. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 23 freighted with those they do not love. But in avillage they love all the inhabitants, and not a nursling is there buried but every one knows its. name, and illness, and the tears it has cost. The Joditzers have accustomed themselves to dwell in each other ; and this heartfelt sympathy for every one who bears the form of man, and which overflows upon strangers and beggars, engenders a concentrated humanity, and rules all the pulsations of the heart. And then, when a poet wanders from such a village, he brings to every one he meets a piece of his heart, and he must journey far be- fore the whole heart is expended upon the streets and lanes. There is yet a greater misfortune than that of being edu- cated in a great city, namely, that of being educated like many aristocratic children, who journey whole years through strange cities and among strange men, and know no home but the coach-box. We approach nearer again to our hero, the pastor's son, whose life in Joditz I should best describe if I called it, as I look back upon it, a whole course of Idyllic years ; but, as wholesome cloudy weather often precedes a clear day, these clouds were rich in instruction, although gathered first at the end of ten years. My life consisted in learning every- thing. Like a prince, I revelled in half a dozen teachers, but I had scarcely a good one. I yet remember the winter evening delight, when I received from the city a respectable ABC book, with a pointer to show the letters. Upon the cover, with true golden letters (and not without good reason were they of gold), the contents of the first page were written, which consisted in alternate red and black letters. A gambler wins with gold and rouge et noir less delight than I by that book, whose pointer I did not once apply. After I had at home gone privately through the lower school classes, I entered, in a green taffety cap, but already in breeches (for the school-mistress had in that established my weak claims), the high school, namely, the one whose school-house was opposite the parsonage. As usual, all in the school were dear to me, especially 24 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the lean, consumptive, but animated schoolmaster, with whom I shared all his patient anxiety, when he lay in am- bush behind his birdcage, placed in the window, to allure some unwary passing goldfinch, or when he spread his net without in the snow, and caught a yellow-hammer from the host of birds. In the midst of the winter sultriness of the crowded school-room, I remember the delight with which I drew out the pegs that secured the canvas over air-holes bored in the wooden walls, and drew into my open mouth the exciting refreshment of the frosty air from with- out. Every new copy-book from the master delighted me as others are delighted with pictures. I envied every one who said his lesson well, and I enjoyed reading together with my class, as singers enjoy the blessed harmony of their music. Was it 1 2 o'clock, and the dinner not ready, I and my deceased brother Adam (although a bird's nest was dearer to him than the whole seat of the Muses) desired nothing better, for we flew with our hunger back into the school- room, not to lose a moment when the apartment was empty and quiet. Much might be thought of this sacrifice to the love of learning, but I know well that a great part of it was owing to the common desire of children to depart from the every day established order. We willingly dined an hour later, just as on this account the late hour of fast-days delighted us. Was the whole house in confusion, either through whitewashing* the apartments, or moving into another house, or through the arrival of many guests, we little fools could think of nothing finer! Alas ! I closed for ever upon myself the school-door by an untimely complaint to my father, that a tall peasant's son (Zah is his name for posterity) had cut me a little on the knuckle with a clasp-knife. In his ambitious anger, my father resolved to instruct my brother and myself alone, and I must have the mortification to see every winter * The reader will recollect the Fichtelgebirge houses were whitewashed every spring. TK. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 25 the children running into that haven that was shut to me. In the mean time, the rival joy remained for me to carry frequently to the schoolmaster the bulls and decrees of his village Pope, which, instead of the Komish Agnus Dei and consecrated Christmas-box, consisted of a butcher's joint, or a little dish with his dinner. Four hours in the forenoon, and three hours in the af- ternoon, our father gave to our instruction, which consisted of merely learning by heart sentences, catechisms, Latin words, and long grammatical lessons. We were obliged to learn the long rules of the genders, every declension, to- gether with the exceptions, and the accompanying examples in Latin verses, without understanding one word of them. Did my father on a beautiful summer's day go into the country, such cursed examples as panis, piscis, were left to be learnt by heart for the next morning. As for my brother Adam, to whom the long summer's day scarcely sufficed for his activity and childishness, not an eighth part re- mained in his head, for rarely had he the good fortune to have such precious declensions as scamnum or cornu among the number, of which he certainly knew how every time to recite the Latin half. Besides, you will easily believe, gentlemen and ladies, that it was not an easy thing, in a clear, blue, June day, when the omnipotent father was not at home, to make oneself a fast prisoner in a corner of the apartment, and delve and engrave two or three pages of vocables in the head. In a blessed long summer's day it was not easy, but more so in a short, dark December's day, and we must not wonder if my brother always bore marks of such days. The Professor of his own history ventures to make this general statement, that he was never in his school life flogged in general, neither in part, not to say he was never completely flogged in his life. Let not this mere learning by heart throw a false light upon my unwearied and amiable father, who sacrificed the whole day to writing out and committing to memory the weekly sermon for the country people, merely out of ex- at) LIFE OF JEAN PAtJL. treme pastoral conscientiousness, although he had many times proved the power of his extemporaneous eloquence. In his weekly visit to the school, and in doubling his pub- lic exercises with the children, yes, in everything, he went beyond his duty by his voluntary and gratuitous services. And how he hung with a warm, tender, parental heart on me, and easily, with every little sign of talents or improve- ment, burst into joyful tears ! This father committed no other fault in his whole plan of education rarely as it happens except faults of the head, none of the will. To school teachers, especially, is this method to be re- commended, since so much toil and trouble is never saved as where the pupil relies en the book as a vicarius or ad- junct of the teacher, and his curator absentis, and, like a powerful clairvoyant, feels himself magnetised. This in- tellectual self-repose of the children admits of extension to such a degree, that I will venture, by means of the post- office alone, to preside over whole schools in North America, or over such as are fifty days' journey removed from me in the old world ; for I will merely write for my schoolboys what they have to learn by heart every day, and I w^ll have an insignificant man, to whom they shall repeat what they have learned. And so I shall enjoy the consciousness of their fine spiritual fast's day reminisceres. In Speccius, I translated by command much of the "be- ginning into Latin, with the joy with which I ascended and plucked from every new branch of learning. The last half I turned of myself into Latin without being able to find a corrector of its faults. In the dialogues in Langen's Grammar, I guessed at the German from longing to under- stand their contents ; but my father would not allow me to translate while in Joditz. In a grammar of the Greek language, written in Latin, I studied, hungering and thirst- ing, the alphabet of that language, and at last wrote toler- able Greek, at least as far as belongs to the handwriting. How easily and willingly could I have learnt more ! The spirit, if not the substance, of a language entered easily AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 27 into me, as the third lecture of our winter term will best prove to the world. Once in a winter's afternoon I might have been eight or nine years old my father brought me a little Latin dictionary that T was to learn by heart, but first I was to read to him a page. I read lingua, notwithstand- ing his frequent correction, not ling-wa, but always lin-gua, and repeated the same fault, in spite of his re- peated corrections, so often, that with angry impatience he took the book from me, and deprived me for ever of learning it. I cannot, even now, discover the source of this obstinate stupidity ; but my heart tells me, that through my whole life I have never been self-willed, even in play, and never to my father, who at this very time had given me a schoolboy's pleasure through a new book. This historical feature is purposely exhibited in our lecture-room, that the impartiality of our historical investigator and Pro- fessor may appear through the shadows he throws upon his hero, whom he would, willingly, if truth only were stated, represent in the most brilliant light. Besides, how often in life, either with or without understanding, do poor inno- cent men say lingua instead of the more correct ling-wa and even with the tongue (lingua), that at the same time signifies language (lingua) ! Further, history as well ancient as modern natural history, the most interesting descriptions of the earth, arithmetic and astronomy, as well as orthography all these sciences I became sufficiently acquainted with, but not in Joditz, where I was indeed twelve years old without know- ing a word of them, but many years later, at different in- tervals and by fragments, from the Universal Library. So craving was my thirst for books in this intellectual Sahara Desert, that every book was to me a fresh, green oasis, particularly the Orbis Pictus *, and the " Dialogues in the * Goethe mentions the " Orbis Pictus " of Amos Comenius as one of the books that delighted his childhood. TR. c 2 28 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Kingdom of the Dead." Only my father's library, like many public ones, was rarely open, except when he was not in it, nor at home. I, at least, often lay upon the flat roof of a wooden lattice bedstead (like a great cage for ani- mals) *, and crept like the great jurist, Baldus, upon the book-shelves to obtain one for myself. They may well con- sider that in a thinly-peopled village and a solitary par- sonage, to such a thirsting soul, a man speaking in a book must be as precious as the richest foreign guest, a Maecenas, a travelling prince, a first American to a European. A novice, ignorant of the A B C of history, I did not in the least understand the quarto volume of the " Conversations in the Kingdom of the Dead ; " but I read it, as well as the newspapers, as if it were a geographical work, and could re- late much from both. As I related to my father out of the book, I told him that one evening during his absence I had read the history of the love of Koxelane for the Turkish Emperor. I was led to this by newspaper extracts from an ancient noble lady. He received, from his patroness Plotho in Zedtwitz, a present of the Bayreuth newspaper, monthly or quarterly, as often as he went to visit her ; he brought home these for a month or a quarter of a year, and he and I read the great heap with profit, as it came to us more in volumes than in sheets. A political newspaper, read, not in sheets, but in volumes, communicates real in- struction, as there is room enough in a whole volume of leaves to correct previous impressions, and get the true one; and like the air, whose true colour is not to be seen in parts and portions, but in the whole circumference, as then only (in its whole mass) it obtains its heavenly blue. Every morning I bore my news atlas to the castle of the old Lady Von Keitzenstein, and prophesied, at the morning coffee, one event and another from the news I brought, and allowed them to praise me. I remember yet the noun of multitude, * In the houses of the Fichtelgebirge, as the bed often stood in the common room, it was inclosed in a sort of wooden wicker-work. TR. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 29 at that time often repeated, confederacy (it is highly pro- hable it was the Polish confederacy), but I do not recollect the least interest taken in it, probably because I understood nothing of the whole matter. Thus impartially and calmly were Polish affairs considered in our village, as well by myself as by the old Lady Reitzenstein, my hearer. The intellectual fibres of our hero, thirsting for learning, penetrated and wound themselves around everything from which they could extract their aliment. He prepared clocks, whose dial-plates were good counsellors, with pen- dulums and wheel and weights, and stood well. He found a place for a sun-dial, and wrote upon a wooden plate the figures with ink, and drew the white line with the gnomons, and placed it firmly near the tower clock, so that he could frequently tell the exact time. He made dials, as many cities do, rather than clocks, as Lichtenberg makes the titles of books before the books themselves. The present writer shows in little a box in which he established a miniature etui library of his own Joditz works, made from the riband cuttings of his father's octavo sermons, sewed together and neatly trimmed. The contents were theo- logical and Protestant, and consisted of a little explanatory note, written under a verse in Luther's Bible, whence he copied it. The verses themselves were left out of the little books. Thus lay concealed in our Frederic Richter already a little Frederic Von Schlegel, who in the same manner in his selections, " Lessing's Geist," gives his opinion upon passages in certain writers, without the passages them- selves. In the same manner our hero threw himself upon paint- ing. Many ruling potentates sat, or rather lay to him, when, with a fork, he pricked through their features upon a thick sooty sheet of paper, placed under the engraving, and afterwards pressed it upon a sheet of white paper. Whether he might not, under sunny influences, have at- tained the fame of Raphael Mengs, remains to be guessed, for, unlike this artist, they had to beat him from, not to, 36 'LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. painting ; and when he afterwards received a box of colours, he coloured the whole Orbits Pictus after the life. I could not, at this time, believe all that was in the box of colours, everything is so painted in memory the pale red leather ball, the four-cornered red tile, the rounded palette, the splendid coloured shells, and the green and gold beetle yet shimmering in that box. It were yet something less judi- cious, from his art of making herrings in winter, to conclude that he could have been a great financial correspondent. His artifice for collecting herrings at such a distance from the coast consisted in this : He waded into the brook with his herring bread, and softly raising a stone under which was a gudgeon, or smaller fish, he immediately placed it in a hollow cabbage stalk, which he called a herring cask, and salted it in ; and when the little cask was full, he would have had herrings to eat, if they had not all been spoilt. Still worse would it be to consider the little financier and precursor of surrogate discoveries, because he placed the brown, dried halves of pears upon pieces of broken glass like doves' feet, and served them up as hams ready for eating, or that he drove snails to pasture *. In fact, every future investigator of the history of the present historian would ap- pear extremely ridiculous to me if, out of the broken and scattered fragments of any other childhood, he should collect and read something wonderful. The foolish man would appear to me like that Paris barber, who, with the help of a Jesuit, placed together many of the bones of an ele- phant, and sold them as the true skeleton of the German giant, Teutobach. The beard does not make a philosopher, although a sailor and a criminal may each come from his ship and prison with that appendage, because they have not been under the barber's razor. The boundless activity of our hero expended itself more in intellectual than in physical experiments, but he followed all with inexpressible delight. Thus he invented, instead * Bichter means here to ridicule those biographers who infer an original genius for their heroes from the nature of their sports. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 81 of a new language, a new writing character. He took the calendar signs from the Almanac, or geometrical out of an old book, or chymical or original from his own invention, and, putting all together, composed a wholly new alphabet. When it was ready, the first use he made of his solitaire alphabet was to clothe therein a couple of pages of copied matter ; thus he was his own secret writer, and his con- cealed play was with himself. Without peeping into Butt- ner's comparative tables of alphabetic characters, he could read his own as easily as the common, as he placed this literally under his own as a warrant, and had only to glance at it to read the secret. At this time little will be thought of said historical investigator if, out of this ciphering and deciphering, which even at this early time was less valuable for its con- tents than its form, he should have seen himself the in- cipient Counsellor of the Embassy, or even the Ambassador himself; for I have, in fact, gained the character of legations-rath, and could to-day decipher many things. To music was my soul, like my father's, everywhere open, and had for it a hundred Argus ears. When the schoolmaster sent the church worshippers home with the final cadences of the organ, my whole little elevated being laughed and leaped as in a spring morning ; or when, the morning after the night dance of the kirchweihe* (at which my father the next Sunday sent loud, thundering anathemas), the foreign musicians with their hautboys and fiddles collected the contributions of the peasants before the wall of the parsonage court, I climbed upon the wall, and a clear jubilee echoed through my narrow breast, and the delightful airs of spring played within, with the spring-time of life, and I forgot every syllable of my father's sermon. I devoted whole hours upon an old untuned harpsichord, whose only tuning hammer and * A church consecration is one of the principal religious ceremonies in the German villages, at which, as Paul relates, foreign musicians and strollers of all sorts collected. TR. 32 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. tuning master were the winds and the weather, to thun- dering out my phantasies, which certainly were as free and bold as any in Europe, as I knew neither note nor touch ; for my accomplished pianist father would teach me neither note nor finger. But if accidentally, like the tune-setter for a rope or fairy dance, I attained with my fingers on the piano a short melody or harmony of three or six strings, I was like a man in an ecstacy, and repeated this discovery of my fingers as incessantly as any new German poet repeats the idea or discovery of the brain by which he gained his first applause. He acts, at least, in a more friendly man- ner than Heliogabalus, who condemned his cook to con- tinue eating a bad soup until he had discovered a better ; on the contrary, the Leipsic fair has entertained the read- ing world with many an excellent soup, that they have tasted as continually as the imperial cook tasted the bad. In the future literary history of our hero, it will appear doubtful whether he were not perhaps born more for the philosophic than the poetic art. In the earliest time, the word philosophy was but a second name for the Orient, and to me like the open gate of Heaven, through which I saw far- extended gardens of joy. Never shall I forget that which I have never yet related to human being the inward experience of the birth of self-consciousness, of which I well remember the time and place. I stood one afternoon, a very young child, at the house door, and looked at the logs of wood piled on the left, when, at once, that inward consciousness / am a Me came like a flash of lightning from Heaven, and has remained ever since. Then was my existence conscious of itself, and for ever. Deceptions of memory are here scarcely imaginable, for no exterior occurrence could mingle with a conscious- ness so concealed in the holy sanctuary of man, whose novelty alone has given permanence to the every-day cir- cumstances that accompanied it. It appears to me best, in order to represent the Joditz AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 33 life of our Hans Paul (for so we must continue to call him) in the truest manner, to lead him through the whole of an Idyllic year, and to divide the normal year of four seasons into four Idyllic quarters. Four Idyls will ex- haust his happiness. Let no one wonder at an Idyllic reign or Arcadian world in a little village and humble parsonage. A tulip-tree, whose flower-branches shall overshadow the whole garden, may grow in the smallest bed, and the life-giving air of joy can be breathed from a window as well as in the wide wood under the broad heaven. Is not the human spirit, with all its infinite, heavenly expansion, enfolded in a body of six feet high, with a covering of Malphigian* nerves, and capillary tubes, with only five narrow world- windows of senses to open for the boundless round-eyed, round-sunned All! And yet it discerns and reproduces an All ! I scarcely know with which of the Idylline quarters to begin, for each is a little heavenly introduction to the next ; however, the climax of joys will be most apparent if \ve start with winter and January. In the cold, our father, like an Alpine herdsman, came down from the upper altitude of his study ; and, to the great joy of the children, dwelt in the plain of the common every-day room of the family. In the morning, he sat by the win- dow and learned his Sunday's sermon by heart, and the three sons, Fritz (who I myself am), Adam, and Gotlieb, for Henry came afterwards, carried by turns the full cup of coffee to him, and still more gladly the empty one back, as the bearer could pick out the urimelted remains of the sugar candy, which he took against a cough, from the bottom. Out of doors, the sky covered all things with silence the brook with ice, the village with snow ; but in our room there was truly life ; under the stove, a pigeon- house ; on the windows green and gold-finch cages ; on the * Malphigi was a celebrated physician, who decomposed the skin. TB. c 3 #4 LIFE OF JEAN PAtiL. floor the invincible bull-dog, our Bonne, the night-guardian of the court-yard, and a poodle, the pretty Scharmantelle, a present from the Lady Von Plotho ; and close by, the kitchen, with the two maids ; further off, towards the other end of the house, our stable, with all sorts of neat, swinish, and feathered animals, and all their possible noises * ; the threshers also with their flails might be heard in the court of the parsonage. In this way, sur- rounded by society, the male portion of the household spent their forenoons in tasks of memory, while the female portion were as busily employed in cooking. No occupation whatever excludes holydays. I also had my airing festivals, equivalent to a holyday upon the water, when I could travel out in the snow of the court- yard, and to the threshing in the barn. Nay, was there a difficult embassy to be transacted in a village for example, a message to the schoolmaster or the tailor I was sure to be despatched in the middle of my lesson ; thus I could breathe the free, cold air, and measure myself in the new snow. At noon also, before our own dinner, we children could have the hungry satisfaction to see the threshers in the kitchen fall to and devour theirs. The afternoon was still more significant, and richer in joys. Winter shortened and sweetened our lessons. In the long twilight, the father walked to and fro, and the children trotted after him, creeping under his night-gown, and holding on, if they could reach his hands. At the sound of the Vesper bell, we placed ourselves in a circle, and devoutly chanted the hymn, Die finstre Nacht bricht stark herein. (The gloomy night is gathering in.) In villages only, for in towns there is more night than day- work, have the evening chimes a meaning and beauty, and are indeed the swan-song of the day : the evening bell is, as it were, the muffle of the overloud heart, and like a Ranz des Vaches of the plain, calls men from toil and * The reader will recollect, that in the Fichtelgebirge houses all the domestic animals were under the same roof with the family. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 85 tumult into the land of silence and of dreams. After watching for the moonlight of the candle-lighting to ap- pear under the kitchen door, we saw the wide room at once illuminated and secured ; namely, the window shutters were closed and bolted. Behind these window breast- works and bastions the children felt secure, and closely nested against Knecht Ruprecht, who could not enter, but only grumbled and growled from without *. About this time also, we children might undress and skip up and down in long trailing night-gowns. Idyllic joys of various kinds alternated. Our father either had his quarto Bible, interleaved with blank folio sheets, before him, and was marking at each verse the book that had commented upon it, or he had his ruled music paper, and, undisturbed by the noise of the children, was composing whole concerts of church music. In both cases, and especially in the last, I observed the writing, and was rejoiced when, through the pauses of various instruments, whole quarters of pages were at once filled up. He con- structed his internal melody without help from external tones (as Reichardt advises), and in spite of the children's noise. The children sat playing on that long writing and eating table, and even under it. Among the joys that belonged to this sweet time of childhood was this : that during the severe winter's frosty weather, the long table, on account of the warmth, was moved to the stove-bench f, and our gain consisted in this, that we could sit or run upon it. * * * * * * Then how did the winter evening rise in value when, * Knecht Ruprecht is the hobgoblin or Raw-head-and-bloody-bones of German children. TR. f- To understand this passage, the reader must recollect the one apartment of the houses of the Fichtelgebirge, the large porcelain stove, and the table used for all domestic purposes, which, when moved to the bench that surrounded the stove, must have formed the coach-like do- mesticity that Richter loved. TK. 36 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. once a week, the old errand woman, coated in snow, with her fruit and flesh, and general ware-basket, entered the kitchen from the city Hof, and we all had the distant town in miniature before our eyes, nay, before our noses, for there were pastry cakes also. In our first childish years, the father permitted, after the early supper on winter evenings, yet another joyful repast, when the housemaid brought her distaff into the common apartment, illuminated with all the light the pine torch could afford, kindled, as in Westphalia, from a pine- branch. At this supper table, as I now remember it, beside con- fectionery and ices, and the popular tale of Aschenbrodel*, was also that pine-apple artificially raised by the maid herself, namely, the history of the shepherd and his fight with wolves, with whom at one time his own danger, and at another that of his provision, was the greatest. Yet I felt the increasing happiness of the shepherd as my own, and remark only from my own experience, that children, in fictitious stories, are far more interested in the gradual progression of happiness than in that of misfortune, and that they wish the path of Heaven should lead up eternally, but the path of Hell should go down only as far as is necessary to glorify and exalt the throne of Heaven. These childish wishes would also later be the wishes of men, and they would for the fulfilment make stronger demands upon the poet, were only a new heaven as easy to create as a new hell. Every tyrant can invent unheard-of pains, but to discover unknown joys, they must themselves know the value of them. The seat of torture is the skin ; upon which a hundred hells, from inch to inch, may pitch their tents ; but the heaven of the five senses hovers, airy and uniform, above us. At the end of the winter evening, a horrible wasp-sting or vampire's tongue threatened our hero. The children at * " Aschenbrodel" is probably the name of a popular German tale, with which the translator is unacquainted. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 87 nine o'clock were sent to bed in the guest's chamber, in the second story ; my brother in a bed in the common apart- ment, and I in a room that I shared with my father. There, until he had finished his two hours' long night- reading, I lay with my head under the bed-clothes, in the cold agony of fear of ghosts, and saw in the darkness the lightning from the cloudy heaven of spirits ; and it seemed to me as if man himself was spun round by spirit-worms. I suffered thus helplessly two long hours, until at last my father came up, and, like a morning sun, chased away the spectres, like dreams ; and the next morning the ghostly torment was as completely forgotten as if it had been a dream, but only to appear again the next evening. Yet have I never mentioned this to any one, until to-day I tell it to the world. This fear of ghosts was riot so much created as nourished by my father himself. He spared us not one of all the spiritual appearances of which he had heard, and even told us some which he believed himself to have expe- rienced; but like the old theologians, he united with a firm belief in them, a firm courage against them, and Christ upon the cross was to him a shield against all spirits. Many children, who are physically timid, appear courageous against spirits, but this is merely from want of imagination. On the contrary, a child like myself trem- bles before the invisible world, which his fancy forms and peoples, but arms himself easily against the visible, as this never reaches the depth and greatness of the invisible. Thus an imminent physical danger, such as a furious hoi^se, a clap of thunder, war, or an alarm of fire, made me tran- quil and self-possessed, as I was susceptible of fear only through the imagination, and not by the senses. A ghost, could I have survived the first shudder, would have re- stored me again to common life, if it did not again, through gesture or sound, precipitate me into the endless kingdom of Phantasie. But how are we now to be preserved by education from the tragical overmastery of the spirit-in- 38 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. yoking imagination ? Not through contradiction, and the Wagnerish solution of the monsters in the light of day, for the possibility of the unexplained exceptions retains firm hold of our deepest convictions; but sometimes partly through prosaic solutions, and familiarity with places and times, where formerly the imagination kindled its en- chanted vapour, and partly through means by which the imagination is armed against the imagination, and spirits are opposed to spirits ; to the Devil God. It happened through peculiar circumstance that I was sometimes afraid of ghosts in the day-time. Thus at a funeral, before the procession, headed by the pastor and schoolmaster, with the children and the cross, moved from the parsonage by the church, over to the church-yard, passing through the village, where it was joined by the singers, I was obliged to carry my father's great Bible through the church into the sacristy. Carelessly, and full of courage, I went at a gallop through the shadowy, silent, listening church, into the narrow sacristy ; but who can represent to himself the pale, trembling rush of fear, before the after-rushing world of spirits at one's heels, with which I shot from the church door and if it could be described, who would not laugh? Nevertheless, I always undertook, without opposition, the office of carrying the Bible to the sacristy, and concealed my terror in my own breast. We come now to the great Idyl time, the Joditz spring and summer. Both seasons fall from various causes, especially in the country, into one Idyl. The spring dwells only essentially in the heart ; out upon the earth, it is merely summer, that is everywhere established upon the present, upon fruition*. It is merely necessary in villages to draw away the curtain of snow from the stage or earth, for its joys to begin. The city has its pleasures * Jean Paul means here to indicate the rapid changes of season in a northern climate. He means to say, that, while the heart is anticipating spring, it is already summer out upon the earth. TB. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 30 only in the winter. Ploughing and sowing are a country- man's pleasure-harvest, and for a pastor who does his own farming, they open new scenes to his secluded sons. Then were we poor children, who had been imprisoned by the winter in the narrow parsonage court, by that heaven- commissioned angel, the spring, freed and emancipated into the fields and meadows and gardens. Then we ploughed, sowed, planted ; mowed and made hay ; cut the corn and harvested it. Everywhere, the father stood by and helped, and the children assisted him, I especially, as the oldest. Only imagine, dear hearer, what it was to be freed, not merely from city walls, which sometimes inclose whole fields, but from the walls of a court, and to flee away over a whole village, into the uninclosed circle, and to look down from above, into the village, and see what they could not see from beneath. My father did not stand by the field labourers as an overseer or taskmaster (although they were feudal tenants), but as a friendly shepherd of souls that would take part at the same time with nature, and with his spiritual chil- dren. While I see ecclesiastics and proprietors and avaricious men so richly furnished from head to foot with suckers, so that they draw everything to themselves, I find in my father rather the diffusing system, and that he thought ten times a day of giving, although he had little for the purpose, but scarcely once of taking, by which he might have had something to give. And then, later in life, I have seen so many human insects furnished only with pincers, good to wound, while he held in his hand nothing but those birth-forceps which merely bring the new life to its birth, and preserve it. Heavens ! what a difference, and why is it not more considered ! Are they just merchants, pastors, and noblemen, who, knowing also what belongs to them, open their hands only as bird- climbers, to clutch at what is above them, or open merely to shut them again ! Now, in fact, life began with us under a pure heaven. 40 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The morning sparkled with the undried dew, when I carried his coffee to my father, to the pastor's garden, lying outside the village, where, in a small pleasure-house open on every side, he committed his sermon to memory. In the evening, our mother brought us, for our second meal, the salad prepared by herself, and currants and raspberries from the garden. It belongs to the unacknow- ledged country pleasures, that of being able to sup in the evenings without kindling a light. After we had enjoyed this, the father seated himself with his pipe in the open air that is, in the walled court of the parsonage, and I and my brother sprang about in our night-gowns in the fresh evening air as freely as the crossing swallows above us. We flew nimbly here and there, till, like them, we bore us orderly to our nests. The most beautiful of all summer-birds, meanwhile, was a tender, blue butterfly, which, in this beautiful season, fluttered about our hero, and was his first love. This was a blue-eyed peasant-girl of his own age, with a slender form and an oval face somewhat marked with the small- pox, but with the thousand traits that, like the magic circles of the enchanter's wand, take the heart a prisoner. Auguste, or Augustina, dwelt with her brother Homer, a delicate youth, who was known as a good accountant, and as a good singer in the choir. It did not, indeed, come to a declaration of love on the side of Paul, or it would appear in this division of the readings already printed, but he played his little romance in a lively manner, from a distance, as he sat in the pastor's pew in the church, and she in the seat appropriated to women, apparently near enough to look at each other without being satisfied. And yet this was only the beginning ; for when, at even- ing, she drove her cow home from the meadow-pasture, he instantly knew the well- remembered sound of the cow-bell, and flew to the court-wall to see her pass, and give her a nod as she went by ; then ran again down to the gateway to the speaking-grate she the nun without, and he the AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 41 monk within, to thrust his hand through the bars (more he durst not do, on account of the children without), in which there was some little dainty, sugared almonds, or something still more costly, that he had brought for her from the city. Alas ! in many summers, he did not attain, three times, to such happiness as this. But he was obliged to devour all the pleasures, and almost all the sorrows, within himself. His almonds, indeed, did not all fall upon stony ground, but in the Eden of his own eyes, for there grew out of them a whole hanging garden in his imagination, blooming, and full of fragrance, and he walked in it, whole weeks long. For pure love will only bestow, and, through making the beloved happy, is happy ! And, could it give an eternity of ever-increasing happiness, what were more blessed than love ? The sound of this cow-bell remained for him a long time the Ranz des Vetches from the high, distant Alps of childhood, and yet will his old heart's blood roll in billows through his veins when this sound again hovers in the air. There are tones from the wind-harp, that, playing on the spot, are beautiful, but farther off more beautiful still, and in the distance I might, at their softened sound, weep for pleasure. We associate love with even the slightest sound ; be it only a cow-bell, its Orphic enchantment is doubled ; and the distant, invisible waves of harmony lead the heart into the eternal, and we know not whether it is near or distant, and man weeps joyfully at the same time over what he possesses and what he desires. In this focus of love, Paul remained opposite to Au- gustina, and lived whole years without so much as touching her hand; of a kiss, indeed, he could never dream. If sometimes a homely servant-maid of his parents, whom he did not love, rashly and bashfully laid one upon his lips, soul and body rushed unconsciously and innocently together in that kiss ; but the mouth of a beloved, which, at a dis- tance, shone warmly down, like the sun, upon the most inward spiritual love, would have immersed him in the 42 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. warmest heaven, and left him entranced, and evaporating in a glowing ether and yet it must be confessed, that once or twice in Joditz he was thus entranced. Tn his thirteenth year, when his father received a much richer parsonage, he, or rather his eyes, were driven two miles distant from his beloved. His father, out of love for his old residence, had taken with him to his richer parish a young tailor, whom he entertained for many weeks. When he returned, our hero furnished him with many pretty Potentates, that he had sketched with wax and soot, and with his colour box had coloured after life, to carry to Augustina, with the commission that the knights and princes were made by himself, and he presented them to her as an eternal souvenir. Another love-passage from the same period, and that endured no longer than dinner-time, belongs entirely to him, for the young lady knew nothing of it. As he sat wholly sunk in deep silence at a respectable table in Koditz, surrounded with grown-up young people, the above- mentioned young lady sat opposite, and, in appearance, was one of them. There swelled in his heart, as he looked at her, a love inexpressible in sweetness, seemingly inexhaustible a gushing of the heart, a heavenly annihi- lation and dissolving of the whole being into her eyes. She said not a word to the enchanted boy, nor he to her. Had she only bowed, or wafted a kiss to the poor par- sonage boy, he had passed from heaven to heaven. Never- theless, there remains the memory of the feeling of the moment, more than of her face, of which he retains nothing but the scars. As this beauty is already the second that has been thus marked (in later readings more will enter), the Professor considers it his duty to declare to all vaccinated fair readers, that he knows how to value their beauty as well and as highly as he did at that time a different fashion of face. And he pledges himself, in connexion with this discussion of beauty, that every female yoice whose so-called ugliness has no moral cause, he can, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 43 without cosmetic artifice, without paint or pomatum-box, without snow or soap-water, and without night-masks *, make in the highest degree charming and enchanting ; if she will only sing to him some evening a song composed of heart-words, no one shall be more beautiful than the singer but naturally only in his eyes for who can speak for another ? This was confirmed by the very person in question ; for when, twenty years afterwards, he found himself opposite to her in Hof, the scars only, the pit-marks remained. She was faded and bent, and I name her not ! Pure love has as illimitable power to create and elevate, as the common has to depress and destroy. It would ob- tain a more powerful hold of us in representation, had it not been so often described ; but for this reason only are so many thousand books endured, that only paint it. Take from a man, who, in the enchanting time of love, looks upon the landscape, the stars, flowers and mountains, sounds and songs, pictures and poems yes, even the living and the dead, with poetic enjoyment ; take from him love, and he has lost the tenth Muse, or rather the Mother of all the Muses; and every one feels in later years, when he prohibits himself this sacred inspiration, that, of all the Muses, the tenth has failed him. We come now to the Sunday of our Paul, in which his Idyl gains in splendour. Sunday appears to have been created for pastors and pastors' children. Our Paul en- joyed especially a great many Trinity Sundays, although, through all the twenty-seven, not one more summer Sunday came into the world and the church than in other years. In cities, there are birthdays of princes and great men, and fair-time, the true Trinitatis. Paul began, on splendid shining Sunday mornings, his enjoyment in this way : Before church, he went through the village with a bunch of * Ladies sometimes sleep in medicated masks, in order to procure a delicate complexion, or to defend a delicate one from the severe air of a northern climate. 44 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. keys, jingling them by the way, to show himself, and opened the pastor's garden with one of them, to bring roses from thence to adorn the reading-desk. In the church itself it was already cheerful, as the long windows admitted the sun, and the cold ground and the women's seats were already penetrated with broad beams of light, that circled about the seat of the enchanting Augustina. The joy also is not to be despised, which he, together with his brothers in office, felt, when, after church and before dinner, they carried to the feudal peasants of the week the lawful half-pound of bread and the money collected, especially as the father cut the bread very large, which was a joy to the peasants ; and children, Paul particularly, love to carry joy into a house. He had also to carry to the peasant Romer his portion of the bread, and found himself thus nearer to the saint of his church and heart but always in vain. For in his perspective painting of love, ten steps more or less were something ; and only imagine him, by some singular good fortune, to have stood but half a step from her ! But I will not hint (for in that case he would have spoken out audibly for himself) of such unrealized blessedness. I assert that no magistrate, prince, teacher, or other official, can form to himself an idea how a Sunday's vesper hour is enjoyed by the children of a pastor, especially of one who has himself preached, when both church services are over. How they, together with their father, rejoice, when the labours of the church are finished, and he can exchange his priest's mantle for the light every-day frock, and enjoy the calm repose of the Sabbath evening, while, at the same time, the whole village visit, and enjoy the sight of one another. I should be reproached with incompleteness, if I should forget to relate another Trinitatis joy, merely because it was less frequent. It was therefore so much the greater, that the pastor's family from Koditz, in order to hear the father preach and to see him, appeared in the midst of the AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 45 sermon, and Paul's playmate, the pastor's little son, suffered himself to he seen before the church door. If Paul and his brother discovered him from their not very distant grated seat in the choir, there began on both sides flutter- ing and dancing, heart-beating and sign-greeting ; and as to hearing the sermon, had the Propaganda, the ten first court-preachers, and pastores primarii, one behind the other, risen in the pulpit and spoken out, there would have been no more listening. The anticipation of this Sabbath, this mountain of precious hopes, the breakfast a la four- chette in the middle of the day, must be enjoyed afar off in the church. But who, after the first joyful storm of parental and childish preparations are over, can describe the blessed zephyr-calm of the evening ! At furthest, it may be possible to paint, that late in the evening the Joditz family accompanied the Koditz far beyond the village on their return, and that, consequently, this sublime and wide extension of bliss by the parents and by the little Pfarrherrlein went far beyond the village, and into space, and left impressions in after-life, of which we shall hear more in future *. We come now, my dear hearers, to those Joditz Idyls that were enjoyed by Paul without doors in the village, and may conveniently be divided into those when he was not at home himself, and those when his father was absent. I begin with the last, as among the unacknowledged pleasures of childhood, when the father journeys from home, when the power of academical censure and freedom of direction for the children is conferred on the mother. Paul and his brothers were able, even under the eyes of the business-entangled mother, to leap over the door of the court-yard, to hunt the wild game of the village, such as butterflies and gudgeons, to draw sap from the birch-trees, or make pipes from the meadow reeds, to bring home a * It must be remembered, that Paul at this time was under ten years of age. 46 LIFE OF JEAN PAPL. new playmate in the schoolmaster's Fritz, or help to ring at noon, merely to be lifted from the ground by the turning of the bell-rope. One particular pleasure could be enjoyed inside the court-yard, except that Paul might easily have broken his neck, and thus put an end beforehand to his whole Pro- fessorship. It consisted in climbing by a ladder to a sort of balcony that hung in the stable, and from thence jump- ing upon the hay that lay heaped upon the lower floor, merely to enjoy in the transit the pleasant sensation of flying. Sometimes he placed the old piano at the open window of the upper story, and played beyond all measure down into the village, and sought to attract hearers from the passers by. He increased the descent of the sounds by means of a quill, which he passed over the chords with his right hand, while he struck the keys with his left. Sometimes he struck with his quill upon the strings extended over the bridge, but he could not get much harmony there. The Joditz summer Idyls were naturally much richer, when we left our village wholly, and went to another, or to the city. Was there a beautiful summer day, after the lesson had been recited from Lang's Grammar, a more blessed order could not be heard than " Dress yourself, for after dinner you shall go with me to Koditz." Dinner never tasted worse. Paul was obliged to run after the long strides of the fathe.r ; but at the end of an hour he had his little Pfarrherrlein to play with in the open air, and his splendid mother, the sound of whose voice yet echoes in his heart like the string of a lute, or the harmonica-bells through the distance; and at the same time one or two tiny laurel crowns, large enough for his little head. The father's paternal heart rejoiced, when he found his Sunday's sermon understood and remembered, of which, indeed, on Sunday evening, he repeated the principal heads, and the polished passages, and he ordered him to AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 47 repeat the same again before the pastor's family ; and the little one, I may safely say, went on without fear or falter- ing. In a boy who, during his whole life, had seen nothing great neither count, nor general, not even a superin- tendent, and rarely a nobleman perhaps twice in a year the Herr von Reitzenstein (as he was long under arrest and consequently in flight) in such a boy it shows courage to speak publicly in the apartment of the pastor's family. But, timid as he was when he stood there in silence, as soon as he began to speak, courage and animation appeared. Yes he ventured upon something yet more bold one after- noon when his father was absent. He took the psalm- book, and went to visit an extremely aged woman, old as the hills, who had been bedridden for many years, and placing himself at the bedside, like the pastor visiting the sick, he began to read the psalms for the dying. But he was soon interrupted by tears and sobs, not of the old woman, at anything she heard from the psalm-book, for she remained cold and unmoved, but by his own. The father took our hero once with him to the Court of Versailles, as they might indeed without exaggeration call Zedtwitz, since it was the residence of the patroness of the Joditz pastor. Every time he went to court and in summer it was twice a month he excited, in the evening, the utmost rustic astonishment, both in his wife and children, by telling about the exalted personages, and their court ceremonial, the court entertainments, the icehouses, and Swiss cows, and how he was very soon invited from the domestics' apartment to the Herr von Plotho, or even to the Fraulein, to whom he gave exercises and imitations upon the piano, and at last was introduced to the Baroness von Plotho, (born a Bodenhausen,) and always on account of his liveliness and wit was taken to the same table even, for it made no difference if the most distinguished noble- men of Voigtland sat there and dined but, like an old Lutheran Court preacher, he knew how to look at the 48 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. illimitable greatness of rank, as at the appearance of spec- tres, without trembling at either. And yet I would say, how much happier are the children of the present day, who are justly educated to no prostra- tion before exalted rank, and are strengthened from within against outward splendour ! While the Joditz pastor's sons were waiting, expecting in one short hour to prostrate themselves before the Zedtwitz throne, the interest of the occasion was heightened by the ornamented coach, which was sent the Thursday preceding Good- Friday, to carry the father as Confessor to the whole household, before the evening solemnity. The sons can speak of the coach, for, before the evening, they were carried round a little, with infinite delight, in the village. Picture to yourself our hero going to Zedtwitz, to be presented to the reigning family, along with the Court- Confessor, who had spoken of him there with too much praise and love. The Baroness von Plotho received him, after he had been waiting a long time before the pictures of her ancestors in the castle below, upon the steps above, as if it had been the presence-chamber. Paul, in true court style, rushed up and caught at her dress, and gave it the usual kiss of ceremony. And thus the whole audience, without court-sword and upper court-marshal, was finished, and the boy was permitted to run down again ; and this he did into an ornamental garden. It would have been difficult for any other ambassador than our at that time little Hildburghausen Legations- rath, immediately after such formal etiquette in his recep- tion, to breathe through the romantic hours that the shaded walks, the fountains, the perfumed hot-beds, and leafy- balconies, must have offered to a village child, rich in fancy, who wandered for the first time, with widely-ex- panded breast, in the midst of all these splendours. But the elevated Paul was drawn again into reality by a wooden bird, suspended by a cord, whose iron bill he was permitted AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 49 to shoot into the black centre of a shield ; while a rich fruit-cake, sent down from the castle, held him between flight and perch. Its sweet after taste remains uneffaced in the reliquiarium of our hero. Oh ! splendid solitary hours and walks for the indigent village child, whose heart so delighted to be filled, were it only with longing, in the outward world! Among the summer Idyls of little Court splendour, were the frequent errands that Paul, with a sack across his back, must make to the grand-parents in the city of Hof, to bring meat and coffee, and all that was not to be had in the village, at least not for the extremely small prices of the city. His mother, that all might not appear as gifts, furnished him with a few small pieces of money. The grandmother, liberal to her daughter and grandson, and avaricious to all the rest of the world, filled the sack with everything that could at that time be placed in a bill of fare. The two hours' walk led over places with few charms ; through a wood, where babbled a brook full of stones, till at last, upon an elevated field, the city with its two united church towers, and the Saale in its level plain, overpowered the little traveller with excessive satisfaction. Before an excavated chasm, near the suburbs (through which, accord- ing to report, the Hofers fled in the Thirty Years' War),, he passed, with that shudder at all war and martyr-times that belongs to childhood ; and the adjoining cloth-fulling mill, with its perpetually thundering strokes, and appa- rently unmanageable machinery, expanded his village soul wide enough to take in the whole city. When he had kissed the hand of the tall, serious grand- father, seated behind his loom, and given his mother's letter (for his father was too proud to beg) to his delighted grandmother, the little money was publicly delivered, and what had been the secret article of the petition, privately, behind the door of the passage. Then came the after- noon ; and with his full knapsack, and his sugared almonds D 50 LIFE OF JFAN PAUL. for Augustina, in the highest spirits on account of the parental provision ship upon his back, he trotted home again. He yet remembers a summer's day, when he was returning about two o'clock, watching the splendid sunny mountain side, with its waving corn-fields, traversed by the coursing shadows of the clouds ; and when an (until now unexperienced) undefined longing came over him, of mingled pain and pleasure, and unremembered wishes. Ah, it was the whole nature awaking and thirsting after the heavenly gifts of life, that lay as yet concealed, un- defined, and colourless in the deep folds of the heart ; but an accidental sunbeam partially reveals them. There is a time of longing, which knows not the name of its own object, which at best can only name itself. It is not the hour of moonlight, whose silvery sea so softly melts the heart, and makes it feel the Infinite, so much as it is the light of the afternoon sun, spreading itself over a wide prospect, which exercises this power of awakening a pain- ful, boundless longing. In the works of Paul we find this several times described. In the winter's snow, Paul was often obliged to travel, like a Court or Dutch runner, when they wanted money, to negotiate a loan at his grandfather's ; so too, in the coldest weather, he would follow his father to the neigh- bouring parsonage. He may thank these weekly excur- sions for many later cherished powers, and especially for the best antidote to his opposing physical education ; for at that time fur caps, medicines, and exclusion from the air, united with warmth and carefulness, did not arm one against, but prepared the way for, an unhealthy future. But this is the blessed fortune of poor and village children, that the summer, with its spring and autumn on the right and left, happily roots out the noxious weeds of winter. The pale winter hot-house plants spring at once into showers and healthy air, and, bare-headed and bare-foot, grow and strengthen upon uncooked nourishment. It is only the dear little delicate princesses who flourish in no AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 51 season. The good people meanwhile will not believe that the summer repairs the ravages of winter; but, on the contrary, that this domestic winter season is the physician of those spent in the open air. I come now to the last and greatest, and never to be forgotten summer Idyl, that always happened the Monday after St. James's Day, when the grand-parents sent to bring Paul's tender mother in a coach to the Hof annual fair, and Paul was permitted to ride with her. And here, not to wrong the cold historian, I would merely say, calmly and simply, that, if to a villager a common city is more than a market-town, it follows that a city in time of the fair must be a twofold city, and consequently excel in splendour all that a village youth could imagine. Thus it was with Paul, whose imagination was ever active. As emperors were formerly presented with draughts of honour, the mother was received by her parents with sweet wine, and the son went with a little of it in his head to Silberer, the hair-curler. He cooled the head from without by means of heated irons and sharp screwing of the curled locks ; but Paul came so much fresher, newer, and whiter with his curls and tonsure from the powder-puff back to dinner, which could not indeed be very considerable, as the grandfather must hasten back to the Bathhouse, to watch over the selling of his bales of cloth. At the evening meal, as with the ancient Romans, there was more time and less frugality. The afternoon was splendid; when, free from all surveillance, and deaf- ened and dazzled by the variegated and loud tumult of men and goods, Paul, rich with his groschen of fair-money from his grandmother in his pocket, could purchase every- thing ; he could secretly purchase something to carry to the solitary house ; but, as all were absent and it was gloomily lonely, he mingled again with the thronging multitude. The most respectable and beautiful ladies sat at the windows in the second stories of the houses. As he D 2 52 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. passed, Paul fell in love with them, and as they were ignorant of his existence, from the street below he fell in imagination upon their necks. Yet none was so distin- guished, through the elevation of the apartment, or the ornaments upon her head, as his favourite sultana, the little country girl, Augustina, in Joditz, for whom he bought almonds and raisins. Towards seven o'clock, under the beams of the evening sun that embellished and gilded every object, the noise and pleasure were continually augmenting ; but he must now return to the house, for the grandfather, having completed his sales, supped at this hour, and all the family must be together. I would fain present every one at this evening meal, for Paul, having eaten enough before, tasted little of it; but so much more willingly shall I follow him, after the second grace, to the street again, where he was as blest as a young soul could be that had just escaped from a country parsonage. In the deepening twilight, and as the night approached, the youth was wholly enchanted and inspired. During the fair, Turkish music was heard in the principal streets ; deafened and silent, the people and children followed the sounds, and the village boy heard for the first time drums and fifes, and the Turkish cymbals. " In me," these are his own words, " who never ceased to thirst after musical sounds, they produced a music-intoxication, and I heard, as the drunken see, the world doubled and in flight. The fife carried me away most powerfully through the high notes of the musical scale. How often did I seek before falling to sleep, when fancy was the finger-board that came easiest to hand, to hear again those echoing sounds ; and how am I blessed when I hear them again as deeply blest as if my childhood, like a Tithonus, had become immortal, merely through the power of sound, and with it spake to me again ! Ah ! faint, thin, invisible sounds bear and harbour whole worlds for the heart, and are in themselves souls for the soul." AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 53 Perhaps the tones of the higher octave penetrate deepest into the soul. Engel asserts, indeed, that the peculiar harmony is sustained between the low and the high tones, but one may say that poetic music extends over both. In the dark, deep bass, the lowest bass sounds move slowly among the past, and in the passing time. On the con- trary, the sharp heights of the extreme alto shriek and sink deep into the future, or summon it to us, while these sharp, acute tones speak out. Thus the high sharp fifing of the little fifes in the Russian field music is fearful to me, and sounds like a herald calling to battle, like a melancholy early Te Deum for future bloodshed. I fear they will say in Germany and elsewhere, that I have reserved the autumn as the highest Joditz Idyl, when it can lead to nothing but a snow-path. But in the autumn a fanciful spirit like Paul's enjoys not only the autumn itself, but the winter beforehand, with its domestic joys, and the spring also, with its poetic prospect- sketching. In the mean time, the approaching spring has melted into summer, and the summer which is the tranquil and usual state of his fancy the summer is allied to autumn, and yet more distinctly to spring. But now, in the late summer, through the half-denuded trees, far off in other years, he sees snow-mountains all covered with flowers, and goes to them, in fancy, like a bee intoxicated with honey; but, when he approaches them, they melt away. The widely extended plans of summer journeys and sum- mer harvests are anticipated and enjoyed, and, when the spring itself arrives, the chief business is already over. As the landscape painter prefers the autumn, so does the spiritual painter, the poet, especially in old age. But in the autumn our hero turned with wonderful facility to the reverse of the picture, and nurtured within himself the strong inclination to quiet domestic life, and to spiritual nest-making : he became a domestic snail, who withdraws contentedly, and loves to live in the narrowest recesses of his house. Only he will sometimes open his 04 LIFE OF OEAN PAUL. snail shell sufficiently to thrust out his four feelers, not wide enough to spread them like butterflies' wings in the air, but to stretch them ten times higher towards heaven, at least reaching with every filament one of the four satel- lites of Jupiter. Of this foolish union of desires for near and distant objects which, like the telescope, by mere reversion, doubles either the distant or the near more will appear in our readings than I desire, or than autumn alone has room for. This domestic disposition showed itself in the reveries of the boy. He deemed the young swallows happy, be- cause they could sit so secretly and safely through the night in their walled nests. If he climbed upon the roof of the great pigeon-house, he was immediately at home in this apartment full of little chambers, or pigeon-holes, and the front was to him like the Louvre or the Escurial in little. I fear only that I shall injure myself, if I. take up in my lectures such childish trivialities as that he made a complete fly-house out of fine clay, and built a castle as long and as broad, and somewhat higher than a man's hand. The whole house was red, striped with ink, and divided into square tiles. Within, it was of two stories, with stairs, galleries, chambers, and a spacious garret; on the outside it had balconies and projections. A chimney was provided, covered with glass, that the flies might not pass out instead of the smoke. In no part were the win- dows spared, and I dare assert that the palace consisted far more of windows than of walls. When Paul saw in- numerable flies in this wide palace, up stairs and down stairs, and running into all the great apartments, and from them into the balconies and projections, he represented to himself their domestic happiness, and wished to enter with them, and put himself in the place of the landlord, who could withdraw from the spacious apartments to the lower and smaller : then how insignificant and little the parsonage appeared to him ! He has later, as an author, described this domestic, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 55 corner-loving disposition, in Wuz, in Fixlein, and in Fibel; and yet the man remains full of longing for every little neat, humble shepherd's cottage of two stories, with flowers before the windows, and a little garden which he could water from the window ; and the good domestic fool can sit contentedly in a coach, and, looking out at the side-windows, say, " What a pretty, quiet, convenient, fire- proof apartment ! while, out there, the great villages and gardens sweep along by us." This is certain, that he could not live, still less write, in a knight's hall, or St. Peter's church it would be to him a market-place covered by a roof. At the same time, he would be able to write, or live upon Mont Blanc or JEtna, where all is adapted and fitting environment ; for the works of man only are not small enough for him, but great nature cannot be too much expanded. The littleness of the works of man is yet diminished through the vastness of nature. The Joditz autumn Idyl is painted by what I have already said. Autumn leads people to their homes, and the harvest fills the home with plenty for the winter nest ; prepared for winter, like the crossbill, who in icy months builds her nest and has her young. From this time, after the first threshing, Paul must follow the traces of the crows in the woods, and the cries of birds of passage, whose long processions he followed with infinite delight, because they were the prelude to that intimate domestic winter in-nesting and it pains me now, on his account, to think how he could enjoy the shrieks of the geese, flying over iu flocks in the autumn, as forerunners of winter time. From this cell and winter disposition of my hero, I understand why he read with such singular delight all travellers' descriptions of winter climates, like Spitz- bergen and Greenland ; for the representation of simple distress upon paper hardly explains his delight thereat, for then he would have felt the same delight in reading of glowing distress in hot countries. On the contrary, the well-known joy of the man over every quarter of an hour *>6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. that is taken from the length of the day in autumn, I would ascribe to his love for superlatives, even of opposite kinds ; in short, for everything infinitely great or infinitely small for the maxima and minima of everything. He rejoiced just as much over the increase of the length of the day, and wished for nothing so much as a Swedish summer day. We observe, in all things, with what in- numerable satisfactions and conveniences God arms and furnishes man upon his path of life while little is to be found on the right or left of it so that, be it never so dark about him, he can always discern black from white ; and gives him a double instinct both for land and water, that he may neither drown nor thirst. These are merely autobiographical touches, which a future biographer may conveniently work into a portrait, and for which he will perhaps thank me. I must refer to this pre- dilection, to understand why Paul recalled another dry autumn pleasure with so much satisfaction. In the autumn evenings the father went with Paul and Adam to a potato field lying on the other side of the Saale. One boy carried a, hoe upon his shoulder, the other a hand basket ; and, while the father dug as many new potatoes as were necessaiy for supper, and Paul gathered them from the ground and threw them into the basket, Adam gathered the best nuts from the hazel-bushes. It was not long before Adam fell back into the potato beds, and Paul in his turn climbed the nut tree. Then they returned home, satisfied with their nuts and potatoes, and enlivened by running for an hour in the free, invigorating air ; every one may imagine the delight of returning home by the light of the harvest festivals. Wonderfully fresh and green are two other harvest flowers, preserved in the chambers of his memory, and both are in- deed trees. One was a full-branched muscatel pear-tree in the pastor's court-yard, the fall of whose splendid hanging fruit the children sought through the whole autumn to hasten ; but at last, upon one of the most important days AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 57 of the season, the father himself reached the forbidden fruit by means of a ladder, and brought the sweet paradise down, as well for the prelates of the whole family as for the cooking stove. The other, always green, and yet more splendidly blooming, was a smaller tree, cut on Saint Andrew's evening from the old wood, and brought into the house, where it was planted in water and soil in a large pot, that on Christmas night, when it was hung with golden fruit, it might retain its verdant leaves. This birch, not a weeping, but a festive tree, is the only one which, in the dark month of December, even till Christmas, is strewed with the blossoms of joy, namely, its own ornamented leaves, every one of which indicates a cherished pleasure, and shows that every child under this May-tree of winter may celebrate his tabernacle feast of hope *. My hearers will suffer me to describe Paul's Christmas festival, for in his works we meet with pictures of the same that far exceed mine, and merely two circumstances may be added as features of the picture. When Paul on Christ- mas morning stood before the lighted tree and the lighted table, and saw this new world of gold and splendour and gifts lying around, and discovered and took possession of one rich gift after another, the first emotion that arose in him was not a tear, not even a tear of joy, but a deep sigh over life in one word, the transition, the leap, or the flight (call it as you will) from the wild-swelling, sporting sea of Fancy, to the firm land, limited and limiting this transition the boy expressed with a sigh for a greater and more beautiful land. But, before the sigh was breathed out, Paul felt that the highest degree of gratitude was due to his mother ; this thought exerted its power in a short time, and the day-break of reality soon scattered and ex- tinguished the moonlight of fancy. * We have become so familiar through descriptions with the beautiful German custom of the " Christkind tree," that it is unnecessary to add any explanation to the text TK. D 3 58 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Here may be mentioned a peculiarity of Paul's father, that occurred at the same moment. The father, so joy- fully sympathizing with every joy, so willingly consenting to every gift, came on Christmas morning, as with a mourn- ing veil on his face, from his own room into the splendidly lighted dwelling and common apartment. The mother herself assured them of her unconsciousness of the cause of this yearly melancholy, and no one else had the courage to question him. He left to the mother the whole trouble and joy of being table-decker for the holy Christkind night. In this he was not like Paul, who always at the Christmas festival helped his wife to prepare for the children, if he did not himself do the whole. In fact, he had earlier when they were simpletons, months before the representa- tion of this enchanting opera lying upon the sofa, played the part of pretended ticket-bearer (Liigen-Zettel-Trager), of theatre poet, and scene painter, and when the evening came he was perfect, as opera director, and master of machinery. For every one of the three children he had divided the sections of the table with lights, and placed the presents for the maid aside, upon a near table. In short, all upon the tables and the tree were so advantageously arranged, and so perfectly ordered, that the whole shone with splendour, and his eyes with delight. Nevertheless, the father and the father's mourning may be explained by the son, and indeed by this, that the latter has had for many years, notwithstanding his outward joy- fulness and activity, the same thing to conceal. It is with both only that weary, sad feeling of comparison between the manly harvest of reality, and the childish spring before them, where luxuriantly from the very trunk of reality the blossoms of the ideal flourish, without waiting for leaves or branches. The childish honey and wine of joy still required the ideal ether of faith in a Christkindlein who brought them ; for, as soon as he had accidentally observed, by the witness of his senses, that only human and not spiritual hands had AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 69 broken off and laid upon the table the flowers and fruits of joy, the Eden splendour and Eden perfume went out, and were extinguished, and there remained only the common earth of the garden-bed. But it is incredible how he, like all children, armed himself against the heaven-disturbers of this divine faith, and how long he held fast his super- natural revelations against all the discoveries of his grow- ing years, against all the hints of accident, until he at last saw and conquered, rather than was conquered. So difficult is it for man, in all religions, to descend to the men, who up in the air of heaven act the benevolent gods. Thus far extend the Joditz Idyls, that endured for parents and children as long as the Trojan war. The ex- penses for four sons were always increasing, and for these sons the prospect of better schools was necessary. Upon the father, also, the discouragement weighed heavily, that his best years and finest powers should be wearied and consumed in so narrow a village church. At last the pastor Barnikel died, in Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saal, a little city or a great market-town *. Death is the only theatre direc- tor and machinery-master on the earth. He takes a man as a cipher from a row of numbers, from the left, the mid- dle, or the right ; and. behold, the whole collection changes its value and order. The right of presentation, which the Baron von Schonburg-Waldenburg and the Frau von Plotho possessed alternately, came at this time into the hands of Richter's patroness, who rejoiced long and undisguisedly at the opportunity of serving and rewarding the good, dis- interested, and indigent pastor. But on this account he did not go oftener, but more rarely to Zedwitz. In fact, a petition for a pastorship, or merely a verbal request, would have been to him, who, from his old faith, believed that the Holy Spirit alone could call to the sacred office, an act of * Markt-flecken, a borough town that has the privilege of holding one or more annual fairs, and is the medium between a city and a vil- lage. TE. 60 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. impure simony ; thus the pride of birth in the patroness must fall, without a petition and without a visit, before the pride of office in the poor indigent black coat. I will im- part to you here a secret of the Zedwitz court, which he has himself long since forgotten, although I relate it from the mouth of the old pastor as it happened on the day of his calling. As he was usually admitted first by the old Herr von Plotho, he could not withhold from my father the news of his good fortune, but gave it to himself, or rather gave him the presentation, while his wife was, in fact, the patroness, and was entitled to inform the pastor formally of his appointment. It naturally happened, as the newly created pastor entered her apartment, that he presented his thanks, and her extreme displeasure was excited against her husband, that he did not leave the discovery to herself. For the rest, they were both disposed, while they presented the vocation with their own hand, to spare the penniless friend the mortification of all the graces and douceurs of the donor. As I so well know your benevolent dispositions to both father and son, I can easily guess that you are calling out with delight, " This is indeed precious news, that at last the moon has changed in the parsonage, and promises more beautiful weather. We see the jovial amateur in music coming earlier than usual from the barony (he would gladly have entertained them longer from gratitude), and running with his bull-dog to his home, to impart as early as possible his own delight to his family, especially to the poor wife, who had hitherto suffered enough in gleaning the tithes from the parental fields." Serious and melancholy, he arrived with the joy-post ; but not merely because upon the flower and harvest crown of happiness, as upon the bridal crown, there is commonly hanging a dew-drop that looks like a tear, but because he could not take leave of the beloved flock, which had been to him for many years his second family, in that great family praying-hall, the church, without weeping ; and then AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 61 the quiet, calm, unrestrained, simple, still life of the vil- lage would in future hang as a distant picture in his memory. Indeed, the country life is like life at sea, of a uniform colour, without the interchange of little and great events ; hut it affords a species of uniform tranquillity, which works healthily, as the equal and uniform sea favourably, upon the consumptive, while no clouds of dust are breathed, and no insects torment. I believe I have now fulfilled my obligations as Professor of my own history, in reference to the village of Joditz, the place of my education, in such a manner, that in the next reading I may accompany the hero and his family to Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale, where indeed the curtain of his life may rise a few turns higher, and we may see some- thing more of the principal actors than, as hitherto, the mere infancy. For in fact we send him out of the present reading into the next as a twelve-yeared man, with ten times less knowledge than the five-yeared Christian Heinrich Heineke von Liibeck (who after his examination returned again to the bosom of his nurse), * without knowledge of nature, country, or world-history, except the little part which was himself ; without French or music ; in Latin, only a little bit of Lanque and Speccius ; in short, such an empty transparent skeleton without learned nourishment or muscle, that I can scarcely wait for the time and place, Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale, where he must begin to know something, and to nourish his skeleton. We leave now with him that unknown village ; and, although it has not gained a laurel crown through a battle as many other villages, yet he dares, I believe, hold it high * The biographer of this miraculous child, in his " Leben, Thaten, Reisen und Tod," tells us, that at five years old he understood the Latin and French languages, had read history, geography, and the Institutions of the Roman Laws ; had a good knowledge of anatomy and theology ; was witty and penetrating in conversation, but lived altogether upon the milk of his nurse. 62 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. in his heart, and say even to-day, as if he had left it only to-day, " Dear village, thou art to me dear and precious. Two little sisters lie in thy bosom. My contented father found in thee his fairest Sundays. Under the morning glow of life, I saw thy waves shining. Thy well-known inhabitants, whom I would thank, have, like my father, long since left thee but to their unknown children and grandchildren my heart wishes happiness, and that every battle may pass far from them." CHAPTER III. SCHWABZENBACH-ON-THE-SAALE FIRST KISS RECTOR THE LORD'S SUPPER. WILL my hearers believe that Paul, through the whole packing and moving, going forth and going in, thought of nothing, took no leave of parents or children, observed no- thing, on the way of two miles long, except the already mentioned tailor's son, in whose pocket he had tucked the soot-sketched kings for his beloved ? But so it is in child- hood and boyhood they retain the little, they forget the great, and they know no reason for either. The child, that is everywhere, and above everything wishing for the open air, retains less the departure than the arrival ; for the child severs ten times more easily long-accustomed rela- lations than transient ones ; and first, in manhood, exactly the contrary .disposition appears. For children there is no leave-taking, for tljey acknowledge no past, only the pre- sent, that to them is full of the future. Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale * contained indeed much a parish and a chaplain a rector and a chanter a par- sonage, full of little apartments, and two large ones. These were opposite the two great bridges, with the thereto be- longing Saale, and immediately beside it a school-house, that was as large, if not larger, than the whole Joditz par- * Sehwarzenbach-sur-la-Saale is a town of about sixteen hundred inhabitants, six miles from Hof. Paul tells us its capabilities. It had besides large quarries of marble. TK, 64 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. sonage. Among the houses there was a council -house, not to reckon the tall, empty castle ! At the same time with the father, a new rector entered upon his duties. Werner, from Merseburg ; a handsome man, with a high brow and nose ; full of fire and feeling, with overpowering natural eloquence as full of questions and comparisons and speeches as father Abraham, but with- out any depth either in conversation or in other sciences. Meanwhile he helped his poverty on this reverse side by a head full of liberty-speeches and zeal. His tongue was the lever to childish minds. His principle was, to let us learn in the grammar only the most necessary forms of language, by which he understood the declensions and con- jugations, and then skip at once to the reading of an author. Paul must immediately make the leap, high over Langen's Colloquia, into Cornelius and he went. The school-room, or rather the school-ark, contained A, B, C-shooters, alpha- betiers, Latiners, great and little maidens (who, like a scaffolding of steps in a greenhouse, or an old Roman theatre, led from the ground to the ceiling), rector, and chanter, and all the crying, humming, reading, and whip- ping. The Latin pupils formed a school within a school. Very soon the Greek grammar, with the declensions and the necessary verbs, was begun, and without further delay with the grammar we were passed on to translating the New Testament. Werner, who often in the excitement of speaking praised himself so much that he was astonished at his own greatness, looked upon his faulty method of teaching as wholly original, although it was that of Base- dow ; and Paul's flying progress was to him a new proof of its excellence. About a year afterwards, some few de- clensions and verbs from Danzen's Hebrew Grammar, written in Latin, were put together so as to form a bridge of boats to the first book of Moses, the beginning of which, the threshold of exegesis to young Hebricians, was not allowed to be read by the uncultivated Jews. I shall immediately proceed chronologically with the AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 65 life of my hero, as soon as I have thrown an eye cursorily over the present time, that you may see how much he had at once to do and to know. The Greek and Hebrew Testaments he must translate verbally, into the Latin, like a Vulgate-maker. While Paul was translating (he was the only Hebrew scholar in the school) the rector had aprinted translation at his elbow. The present romance writer loved the Hebrew grammar and analyzing trumpery and trifles, especially as it was a secret feature of his predilection for domestic life ; he col- lected from all the Schwarzenbach corners all the Hebrew grammars he could find, so that he might possess upon critical points, vowels, accents, and the like, all that had been brought upon the table, at the analyzing of any par- ticular word. For this purpose he stitched together a quarto book, and began at the first word of the first verse, in the first book of Moses, and gave upon that first word, upon its six letters and vowels, its Dagesh and Sheva, such rich instruction, so many pages from all the most learned grammarians, that this very first word anfangs, "In the Beginning" (as he would have gone on, from chapter to chapter), would have made an end of him, if he had not proceeded to the second. What is said of Quintus Fix- leim's self-impelled hunting in the Hebrew folio Bible after great and small and reversed letters, described in the "first letter-box," may be compared exactly with the cir- cumstance in Paul's own life *. Immediately after the arrival in Schwarzenbach (I yet go on cursorily), he received instruction upon the piano from chanter Gressel ; and here also, after some dancing pieces, he learned only the common choral accords and general bass. I wish God would give the poor boy only once a thorough teacher, little prospect as there is at present of it. Soon, in this absence of all instruction, he began to play * There is an admirable translation of this work of Jean Paul, by Carlyle. TR. DO LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. all the pieces that could be collected in the place, and to improvise (phantasieren) upon the piano. He learnt the grammar of music, and general hass, through perpetual improvising and note-playing, as we learn German through speaking. At the same time he began to read the belle-lettre lite- rature of Germany. But in Schwarzenbach there was only the romantic to be found, and of this the worst romances from the first half of the last century ; but of these mate- rials he formed a little Babylonian tower, although he could only draw out one at a time for reading. Among all the histories upon the book-shelves, none (for Schiller's Ar- menian at that time only exercised half its power over him) poured such oil of joy and oil of nectar through all the veins of his being, till it amounted to physical ecstasy, as the reading of old Robinson Crusoe. He knows yet the hour and place (it was evening, and at the window opposite the bridge) when this delight occurred. A second romance, " Veit Eosenstock von Otto" (the father read and forbade it) repeated only half of the former excitement ; but only as a plagiary and book-thief could he enjoy it, while the father was absent from his study. Once he read it while his father was giving a week-day's sermon, lying upon his breast in an empty loft. I envy little the present children, from whom the first impression of the child's and the child- like Robinson is withdrawn in favour of the improved versions by later workmen, who change the quiet, solitary island into an audience-hall, or into a valley for woodcocks, and send the shipwrecked Robinson round, with a book in his hand and a dictatis in his mouth, to turn every corner of the island into a corner school, although the poor, solitary man has employment enough to provide the absolute necessaries of life. About the same time, or shortly after, the young chap- lain, Volkel, prayed the father to let the youth come to him two hours after dinner daily, that he might teach him geography and philosophy. What excited him, who had AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 67 no particular talent for education, to think my village helplessness so worthy assistance as to sacrifice to it his hour of rest, is incomprehensible to me. In philosophy, he read, or rather I read to him, " The Philosophy of Gottsched" which, with all its dryness and emptiness, re- freshed me by its novelty, like fresh water. Afterwards he pointed out upon a map, I believe of Germany, many cities and boundaries. What I saw upon the map I know not, and have sought in vain for it to-day in my memory. I trust I shall prove, that among all living authors (which sounds indeed very strong) I, perhaps, understand the least of the maps of countries. An atlas of maps, if I en- deavour to carry them in my head, becomes, instead of a mythological heaven, a hell to me. If any description of city or country remains in my head, it is the little I have acquired in geographical courses, of which, part is the sta- tistics of the post-wagon, part, what the post-jockey has cur- sorily told me in good gymnastic German. But I thank the good chaplain so much more for his guidance to a German style, which consisted in nothing but an introduction to the so-called theology. He gave me, namely, the task of carrying out the evidence of a God or Providence, without the assistance of the Bible. For this purpose, I received an octavo sheet upon which the pro- positions were barely hinted, and the proofs and indications from Nosselt and Jerusalem in the same manner. These ciphered indications were explained to me, and from this leaf, like Goethe's botany *, my leaves were developed. I began every essay with warmth, and the glow continued, for I always came finally to the end of the world and of life, to the joys of heaven, and to all that exuberance in * See that exquisite poem of Goethe's, the Metamorphosis of Plants, where he expresses his idea, that all parts of the plant are only a modi- fication of the leaf, and are evolved in succession till the circle is complete, and a new leaf springs again from the ripened germ. Mr. J. S. Dwight has given an accurate and very poetical translation of this poem. TR. 68 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. which the young vine, in the warmth of its spring, gushes out, although in harvest only it shows its spiritual power. To whom belongs the praise and the merit, that these writing hours were not hours of toil, but of joy and liberty, save to him who gave the flower and fruit-bearing theme ? For one might think and maintain, that the filling up of these exciting propositions may be too difficult ; but only on account of the custom of school teachers to give such diffuse and undefined themes, so uncongenial to the heart of youth, or extending so far beyond the limits of their circle of ideas, such as in the note *, of which I could men- tion a thousand so that I earnestly wish a man, who un- derstands youth well, would set himself to write (notwith- standing the good thoughts and investigations that he may have formerly delivered), for the present, nothing but, after the measure of innumerable dissertations upon the Sunday's text, a volume of prize questions for teachers, that they might among them choose themes for their pupils. Yet better than all subjects for themes are perhaps none. The youth will choose for himself, as he would a beloved mistress, the matter of which he is full, and with it alone he can create that which is vital. Leave the young mind in freedom with its tune and its themes, as older writers require, and he will speak out, undisturbed by your touch : otherwise he is like a bell that rests upon the ground ; it can emit no sound until it hangs untouched in the free air. But thus are men through all offices, up to the highest. They find higher renown in forming from free spirits merely * From such common, cold, empty, all and nothing-demanding themes, as "the praise of industry," "the importance of youth," &c., could scarcely the ripest and richest mind draw anything lively or origi- nal. Other themes, such as " comparison of heroes and poets," weigh- ing of " forms of government," &c., are ostrich eggs, upon which the poor pupil sits and broods with his too short wings, and makes no- thing warm but himself. Between both, historical themes are the best, such as the description of a fire, a plague, a flood, and proofs that they are not common, &c. AUTOBIOGRAPHT. 69 servile machines, and proving thereby their creative master}^ and business powers. They believe they shall prove, in this manner, that they can make of a spirit a higher machine, and from this produce an intermediate, and upon this intermediate another may appear to be hooked, so that at last a mother marionette appears, who leads a marionette daughter, who on her side is able to raise a little dog on high. All accomplished by one hook- ing together of the same machine-master. God, the purely free, educates only the free; the Devil, purely servile, educates only his like. My weekly exercises I would not exchange for any modern ones. These may do much to educate the world ; but the old way was best for me, as it expanded the limits of my philosophical impulse, and suffered it to outrun itself an impulse that found its way out from my own head into a small octavo book, in which I sought logically to establish the philosophy of seeing and hearing. I related some of it to my father, who blamed and misunder- stood me, as little as I did myself. Can we too often say to the teachers of youth very often indeed have I already said it that all hearing and reading does not half as much strengthen or delight the mind as writing and speaking ? Do not life-long translators of the most spiritual and sententious authors (such as Ebert of Young) write their prefaces, notes, and poems with their original wateriness ? And yet some improvement might be expected to result from the repeated readings of a work, by which its delicacy and peculiarities are better understood ; and every trans- lator of a genial work understands and enjoys it better than a mere reader. Reading may be called gathering into the school-money-chest, or poor's purse ; writing is to found a mint ; and the die that stamps a dollar makes richer than the jingle of the poor's purse *. * " Klingelbeutel," a purse or bag, with a long handle and bell at- tached to it, used in the church to collect alms during divine service, or the mass. TR. 70 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Writing is like the Socratic art of midwifery, which they exercise upon themselves to learn to read, as they do speaking to learn to hear. In England, language is formed by the court and by people of the world, and is rarely helped by reading. These hours at the chaplain's were to end with chess- playing that is to say, sometimes the chaplain proposed to unite a lesson in geography with one in chess ; but in this, as in everything else, I remained only a beginner ; for although I went at the appointed hour, notwithstanding the head-ache, as a game of chess was promised me, it was forgotten by the chaplain, and I never went again. One circumstance I can hardly understand, that my father never by a single word induced me to stay away, but suf- fered it in silence ; but I can understand this : I was a fool to run away from the chaplain, while I stilt continued to love him. Indeed, I joyfully remained the little foot- post messenger between him and my fattier, and looked at him with love-glances and pulses of joy after every child's baptism (the baptism-bell rung a joy-mass in my ears), when he came in to see my father, while I read or worked not far from the table where they gossipped away the half or the whole evening ; but I had, as I have said, the chess-board in my head, and remained at a dis- tance *. Heavens ! how can men gather into the best honey-cells of mine and of so many poetic and female natures such summer honey, or honey-vinegar of love and jealousy, such a contradictory mixture, by which too often the fairest days, yes, perhaps the tenderest hearts, are poisoned and fretted with wounds ? Truly, the warmest hearts have often only half a grain of brain or understanding : I knew of nothing but the warmest love ; and so the sweet soon settled down to acid lees and sediment. * Richter means to gay that, on account of the chess, he made no more advances to the chaplain, yet his affection remained the same as before. TE. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 71 MY FIRST KISS. As earlier in life, on the opposite church bench, so I could but fall in love with Catherine Barin, as she sat always above me on the school-bench, her pretty, round, red, small-pox-marked face, her lightning eyes the pretty hastiness with which she spoke and ran. In the school carnival, that took in the whole forenoon succeeding fast-nights, and consisted in dancing and playing, I had the joy to perform the irregular hop dance, that preceded the regular, with her. In the play, " How does your neighbour please you ?" where, upon an affirmative answer, they are ordered to kiss, and, upon a contrary, there is a calling out, and in the midst of accollades all change places, I ran always near her. The blows were like gold- beaters', by which the pure gold of my love was beaten out, and a continual change of places, as she always for- bade me the court, and I always called her to the court, was manage'd. All these malicious occurrences (desertiones malitiosce) could not deprive me of the blessedness of meeting her daily, when, with her snow-white apron and her snow- white cap, she ran over the long bridge opposite the par- sonage window, out of which I was looking. To catch her, not to say, but to give ber something sweet, a mouth- ful of fruit, to run quickly through the parsonage-court down the little steps, and arrest her in her flight, my conscience would never permit ; but I enjoyed enough to see her from the window upon the bridge ; and I think it was near enough for me to stand, as I usually did, with my heart behind a long seeing and hearing trumpet. Dis- tance injures true love less than nearness. Could I, upon the planet Venus, discover the goddess Venus, while in the distance its charms were so enchanting, I should have warmly loved it, and without hesitation chosen to revere it as my morning and evening star. 72 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. In the mean time I have the satisfaction to draw all those, who expect in Schwarzenbach a repetition of the Joditz love, from their error, and inform them that it came to something. On a winter evening, when my Princess's collection of sweet gifts was prepared, that needed only a receiver, the pastor's son, who, among all my school companions, was the worst, persuaded me, when a visit from the chaplain occupied my father, to leave the parsonage while it was dark, to pass the bridge, and ven- ture, which I had never done, into the house where the beloved dwelt with her poor grandmother up in a little corner chamber. We entered a little alehouse underneath. Whether Catharine happened to be there, or whether the rascal, under the pretence of a message, allured her down upon the middle of the steps, or, in short, how it happened that I found her there, has become only a dreamy recol- lection ; for the sudden lightning of the present darkened all that went behind. As violently as if I had been a robber, I first pressed upon her my present of sweetmeats, and then I, who in Joditz never could reach the heaven of a first kiss, and never even dared to touch the beloved hand, I for the first time held a beloved being upon my heart and lips. I have nothing further to say, but that it was the one pearl of a minute, that was never repeated ; a whole longing past and a dreaming future were united in one moment, and in the darkness behind my closed eyes the fireworks of a whole life were evolved in a glance. Ah, I have never forgotten it the ineffaceable moment ! I returned like a clairvoyant from heaven again to earth, and remarked only that, in this second Christmas festival, Ruprecht* did not precede, but followed it, for on my way home I met a messenger coming for me, and was severely scolded for running away. Usually, after such warm silver beams of a blessed sun, there falls a closing, stormy gust. What was its effect on me ? The stream of words could * Ruprecht may be called the Father Nicholas, who comes on Christ mas eve, and plays all sorts of tricks. TR. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 73 not drain my paradise ; for does it not bloom even to-day around and forth from my pen ? It was, as I have said, the first kiss, and, as I believe, will be the last ; for I shall not, probably, although she lives yet, journey to Schwarzenbach to give a second. As usual, during my whole Schwarzenbach life, I was perfectly contented with my telegraphic love, which yet sustained and kept itself alive without any answering telegraph. But truly, no one could blame her less than I, that she was silent at that time, or that she continues so now, after the death of her husband ; for later, in stranger loves and hearts, I have always been slow to speak. It did not help me that I stood with ready face and attractive outward appearance ; all corporeal charms must be placed over the foil of the spiritual, before they can sufficiently shine and dazzle and kindle. But this was the cause of failure in my innocent love-time, that without any intercourse with the beloved, without conversation or introduction, I dis- played my whole love bursting from the dry exterior, and stood before her like the Judas-tree, in full blossom, but without branch or leaf. JOKE WITH THE RECTOR. As the joking companions* knew that the rector read the newspapers in his school, and that in his school-room sermons he made use of every passing occurrence, they sent him, from the Erlangen commercial newspaper, which he took, an old sheet of the seventieth year, describing, in the most terrible manner, the frightful famine that prevailed in Italy, especially in Naples. The date of the newspaper was concealed with some well-stamped ink spots. The school-boys listened attentively in their places as the rector, kindled by the veracious sheet, could scarcely * "Schraubgenossenschaft" maybe translated "mystifying society," that consisted of the acquaintance of the rector, who permitted among each other such practical jokes as the one related. TB. E 74 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. wait for the retreat of the chanter, to break out into ex- planations ; and as with glowing colours (the Erlangen newspaper-writer had used only wate'r-colours) he brought so near before the Schwarzenbach school-boys the hungry beggars, the shrieks, the fainting and sobbing in the streets of Naples, it is doubtful which was hottest, their tears or their hunger, as they went home. And in fact, in such cases of description, men scarcely believe that there is anything more to eat upon the earth. Through what triumphal arch, or upon what bed of honour, in the evening, the good herald of hunger was conducted by the jest-shooting society, for his exciting and stirring news as the said shooting-society saw and ques- tioned the school-children every one may imagine ; but I cannot inform you, as it was dark and late when I first learnt the contradiction of the newspaper story. Old, well- meaning rector, be not unduly ashamed or angry, that birds of jest or of prey descend upon the dove chancel the sacred dove has already, with warm outspread wings, hovered and brooded upon our hearts ; and it is the same thing for a heart already warmed, whether it be for an old or a near famine, that it trembles with the pulses of compassion. THE LORD'S SUPPER. The Lord's Supper, as it is observed in the country, or among true Christians, is not merely a Christian moral toga virilis; not, as in cities, is it assuming less the garment of nuns than of virgins ; but it is the first and highest spiritual action, it is becoming a citizen of the holy city of God. Now first is the earlier water-baptism a true baptism of fire, and that first sacrament becomes, through the second, full of life and meaning. Being the children of a clergyman, and frequently eye and ear witnesses of the preparation of others for this Sabbath of the heart, we approached it ourselves with the greater reverence. It arose yet higher in me through the delay of a year, as my AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 75 father thought the legal age of twelve years was not completely attained until the 21st of March. As the rector held glowingly before our souls the peculiar conditions of this religious act that the impenitent, par- taking of the holy supper, like a perjured soul, instead of enjoying heaven was swallowing hell, and that if a Re- deemer and Holy One drew near to an impure sinner, the power of his presence to bless would be changed to poison streams of hot tears, which he himself helped to swell, were the least that his heart-eloquent address produced from me and others. Glowing repentance for our former lives, and warm resolutions of a blameless future, filled the breast and wrought strongly in it when he closed. How often I went, before the Sunday evening of confession, into the garret, and kneeled that I might repent and confess ! And how sweet was it on the day of confession, to pray all the people that we loved, parents and teachers, with stammering tongue and overflowing heart, to forgive all our faults, and thereby to purify equally themselves and us. But, after the evening of confession there came a gentler, lighter, purer heaven of peace into the soul; an inex- pressible and never again to be repeated bliss namely, that of feeling oneself wholly pure and free from all sin, and a cheerful far-extending peace established both with God and man. And yet I looked from these evening hours of mild, warm peace of soul, with ecstasy to the moniing hours' of excitement around the altar. Blessed time, when men have thrown off the foul past, and stand, pure and white, free and fresh, in the present, and enter so courageously upon the future ! Who would not become again a child? For in the happy time of childhood the full peace of the soul is so easy to win, as the circle of sacrifices it demands is so much less, and the sacrifices more trifling. The weighty, intricate, and extended relations of older men, through breaks and delays, leave the heavenly rainbow of peace imperfect ; and not as in the spring-tune of life, when it E 2 76 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. bends into a completed arch. In the twelfth year, but not in age, enthusiasm can create one wholly pure. The youth, like the virgin, finds, through all his warm impulses, less in their circle to conquer, and may gain the highest purity of manners by a nearer and easier path, than the man and the w r oman by their cold and selfish exertions, through cares and plagues and toils. The pure and upright man is always, once, in the earliest time, a diamond of the first water, transparent and colourless ; then is he one of the second water, and many and various colours play in its beams, until finally he becomes as dark as the stone which grinds the colours. Sunday morning the boys and girls, already adorned for the altar, collected in the court of the parsonage to form the festival procession to the church, amid the sound of ringing bells, and hymns sung by themselves. All these festive appearances, the wreaths of flowers, and the dark, perfumed birches that ornamented the house and the temple, completed the powerful emotion in those young souls, whose wings were already stretched on high. During the long sermon the fire kindled and increased in the heart, and the only contest was against thoughts that were too worldly, or not holy enough for the occasion. As I at last received the sacrament bread from my father, and the cup from the now entirely beloved teacher, the festival of my heart increased, not through the thought of what they were to me but my heart and soul and warmth were for heaven. It was the bliss of receiving the Most Holy, that would unite itself with, and purify my whole being, and the bliss arose even to the physical sense of an electrical touch at the miracle of the union*. I left the altar with the purity and the infinity of heaven in my heart. But this heaven manifested itself in me through an unlimited, gentle love, which no fault could * Every reader of Jean Paul's works will recollect how often, and with what affecting recollections of childhood, he dwells upon these simple ceremonies of the Lutheran church. TR. AUTOBIO ORAPHY. 7 7 impair, which I felt for every human being. The recol- lection of the happiness I felt, as I looked upon all the church-goers with love, and took them all into my heart, have I preserved till this hour, living and fresh in my memory. The female partakers with me at the holy table were to me, with their bridal crowns, like the brides of Christ, not only beloved, but holy, and I enclosed them all in a love so pure and wide, that Catharine, as I recollect, was not at that moment dearer to me than all the others. The whole earth remained, through the whole day, an open, unlimited festival of love, and the whole woof and web of life seemed to move before me like a softly gentle ^Eolian or wind harp, through which the breath of love was breathed. If misanthropy can find an artificial satis- faction in an antipathy limited by no exceptions, of what inexpressibly sweet satisfaction is a universally loving heart susceptible, in that beautiful period of life, when, unfettered by circumstances and uninjured by age, although the field of vision is narrower and the arm shorter, the glow is so much deeper ! And shall we not give ourselves the joy of dreaming our dream of that overflowing heaven which must at last be ours, when, in the higher and warmer focus of a second world of youth, loving with higher powers, embracing a larger spiritual kingdom, the heart from life to life will open wider to receive the All ? In susceptible and impulsive men, everything remains more easily at the top than the purest and best qualities, as in quicksilver all metals remain on the surface except gold, which sinks to the bottom. Life will allow of no pure white, as Goethe says of the sun. After a few days this precious consciousness of a state of innocence stole away, and I believed that I had sinned, because I threw a stone and wrestled with one of my school companions, and in neither case from emnity, but from a blameless love of play. Every festival is followed by a working day ; but we go from the one fresh-clad to the other, and the past leads us 78 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. again to new ones. These spring festivals of the heart became, later, in the years of youth, only calm, cheerful Sabbaths, when for the first time the ancient great stoical spirits, from Plutarch and Epictetus and Antoninus, ap- peared before me, and took from me all the pains of earth, and purified my heart from all anger. From these Sabbaths, I hoped, perhaps, to have brought together a whole Sabbath year, or to have borne on with me what belonged to them*. * The Autobiography here abruptly terminates. PART SECOND. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. CHAPTER I. REMARKS UPON THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY REMOVAL TO SCHWAR- ZENBACH SELF-EDUCATION -LOSS OF CHILDISH FAITH. A PECULIAR characteristic of Jean Paul was the transparent light in which his childhood and boyhood were reflected in memory, even to his latest age. The peculiarities of his birth-place had less influence upon his character and writings than the remembrance of them, which in after life he wove into a wide romantic picture. He left Wunsiedel before the time when spiritual consciousness is usually unfolded ; but his fancy created later, from remembrance, pictures that he refused to disturb through the reality, and therefore he never again would visit his birth-place. The beginning of his self-biography furnishes the means for understanding how in this he is distinguished from so many other geniuses ; and before we proceed in his Life, we would recall those peculiarities which caused him to be regarded by the Germans as "Jean Paul der Einzige." He is in this remarkably distinguished from Goethe, to whom the memory of his childhood presented only outward circumstances. In his " Dichtung und Wahrheit" Goethe recalls only the outward events of his boyish years ; the workings of the spirit were forgotten, or had never been 80 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. observed. Jean Paul, on the contrary, traced to his boy- hood all his poetic feelings, and those acquainted with his works 'will find, that in his first novels they have only repetitions of his early life under the humble roof of his parents. He goes back even further, and poor as he was, Providence gave him a rich source of poetic enjoyment in the time of his birth. He came into the world on the twenty-first of March. He was born with the Spring. He was the child of this white-robed season ; and all who are familiar with his works will remember that they are an apotheosis of this delightful season, and that he remained the poet of the Spring, the chosen priest in her temple, to his latest age, But this circumstance not merely excited and nourished his poetic fancy ; many of his aphorisms, whether uttered in jest or earnest, show that he really believed in the physical influence that such a circumstance as the equal division of day and night, and other equinoctial phenomena, would have upon his birth. It led him to observe all astronomical and meteorological signs and prognostics that could have any influence on the coming seasons. Sun, moon, and stars, and all the appearances in nature, touched him nearly, and were all dear to him. The ever-changing clouds upon the Fichtelgebirge were not watched merely with the eye of a poet or painter ; he was the listener and interpreter of Nature in all her relations with man, and his acute and deep observation and knowledge are expressed in many humorous and many serious aphorisms. Another circumstance of his infancy, as he says, breathed an ever-increasing breath of poetry through his life. It was the dying blessing of his old grandfather. The by- standers said, " Let the old Jacob lay his hand upon the child, and bless him," and he was placed on the bed beside the dying man. The wondering and innocent babe re- membered the cold blessing hand, and in after life the man recalled it, " when Destiny led him from dark into brighter hours." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 81 An incident also in his fourteenth month resembles the pale hlossom of the snow-drop out of the dark wintry earth. A poor pupil of the school carried him in his arms, and gave him milk to drink, and cherished in him the fondest affection. This poor pupil remained ever afterwards a type of one of the characters in his novels. Of not less consequence was the memory of his poor and pious grandfather, and the bench where he kneeled to pray, and the poor apartment, still known in Neustadt, where he contended with sharp poverty, and where the harvest of the day, and the spiritual seed that were to be sown on the morrow, were carefully collected. The elevated spiritual position of the father, who in the consciousness of his own worth, bowed down with servile reverence before no one, had a still more significant poetical influence upon the son. The passionate love of music, that consoled the father under poverty and solitude, and filled him with a holy religious peace, excited also the imagination of the son. But I will mention only one of the peculiarities of the father. "He came," says the son, "on Christmas morning into our light and festive apartment from his own, as it were with a mourning veil. No one had courage to question him ; our mother even was silent over this annual mourning. But he entered into all the joys of the children, and dis- tributed the Christkind gifts with more delight than any one with tears of joy for us, but with sorrow over the life which most of the sons and daughters of men had to endure." This inward mourning of the father is repeated every year by the son, and holds a prominent place in his romances, although concealed by outward joyfulness and activity. It was, in both, the melancholy comparison of the autumn of reality with the childlike spring and bloom of the ideal. The solitude in which Jean Paul was educated, deprived of the village school, and cut off from so many childish joys, was the fountain of that deep, continued, unaypeased E. a 82 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. longing for fellowship, that runs through his life and all his works the reason that he embraced every man with equal love, for every man seemed to him worthy of equal love, and no deception in his boyish years had laid the foundation for the conflicting emotions of love and hatred. His exclusion from the village school and the society of his equals was his severest boyish affliction ; therefore this village school remained through his whole life in the rose- light of memory. The thin, consumptive schoolmaster, whom he helped to hang out the cage to take the rising goldfinch, and spread the net over the cherry-trees, has held his place, with the halo of memory around his pale forehead, in all his works. His domestic education had the same influence upon his predisposition to domestic still-life, to " spiritual nest- making," as upon the direction of his genius. As a boy, he. considered the young swallows happy because they could sit so secretly in their walled nests; and he pre- served the same taste to his old age. A few years before his death he said, " The good domestic simpleton can sit completely contented in a coach, and looking out of the side windows at the villages and gardens, say, ' a pretty, quiet, fire-proof apartment.'" 1 The enlightened spirit of his father remained always a rich legacy to the son, and his disinterested human love fell as a mantle upon him. "When I think," he says, "that I never saw in my father a trace of selfishness, I thank God ! " He stripped off his own garments to clothe the poor ; the bread for the bond peasants was cut larger than he could afford ; and he sent the schoolmaster, spite of his own poverty, a part of every thing he had." When he went from the little village of Joditz to Schwarzenbach, he was followed by the tears of the whole parish, who had become for many years as his own family. Yet one other circumstance I would mention before we follow the poet to Schwarzenbach ; what he calls his "first love." A mere fancy, awakened by the blue-eyed peasant LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 83 girl who led the cows to the meadows. He lived long upon only one pressure of the hand ; but it served to add the charm of memory to the sound of the cow-hell, which, he says, was to him through life " the kuhreigen from the high, distant Alps of childhood, and like the sounds from the wind-harp that came from afar off and melted into more lovely distances, till he wept from pleasure and regret." In January, 1776 *, Paul's father removed to Schwar- zenbach-on-the-Saale, to a larger and more respectable parsonage, and a not less agreeable parish. For some time Paul's life was without shadows. He says in his journal, " no season had trouble for me ; I remember only the bright side of everything." ^, '''> Yet there was hanging on his youth's horizon a dark cloud, which soon he was obliged to observe, for already in Schwarzenbach the day began to darken. The improve- ment in his father's situation did not continue long. Paul allows us a glance into the domestic affairs of his parents. He says, " My father had already incurred debts in Joditz, which were afterwards increased in consequence of the imagined, rather than the real, improvement in his fortune, and the time for cancelling them was always too short." Then came, to torment his old age, continued bodily pain, and inseparable despondency of mind. This despondency spread over the whole family, and Paul himself did not escape. Although with the same filial piety he touches lightly on the faults of his parents, he yet expresses the painful apprehension that he shall at last be obliged to love his father less ; and on this account, he somewhere exhorts parents always to preserve the esteem of their children, that they may never lose their affection. In his journal he says, " Our father now sat alone in his study, and could think only of himself, or he rode alone to the neighbouring parishes ; all our joyful pedes- '.A.D. 1776, aged 13. 84 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. trian journeys to visit his brother pastors were over ; we were without teachers and without spiritual food." Paul was now permitted to attend the common school ; and while the poetic charm attached to the friendship of numbers was thus destroyed, that heartfelt thirst for one with whom he could sympathize awoke, that followed him through life. " In the school," he says, " there was not one industrious, or noble, or talented." Wolfmann " was the only boy with whom I could associate, and he was distinguished only for beautiful penmanship." From him Paul learned that exquisite handwriting, like print, in which he wrote his immense extract and manuscript books, that gave him the soubriquet of the Dr. Faustus of tlte parish. The want of that highest happiness of a sensitive youth, the sympathy of a friend, which thrust all expansion of feeling back upon his own heart, was of deep significance to the unfolding of his genius. In each of his elevated characters, Victor, Albano, Gustavus, he paints the longing for friendship, in colours as true as he afterwards describes the thirst for love ; he is the poet of the one sentiment, as he is the high-priest of the other. From this time Paul dates the loss of many childish feelings, and also of his faith in that, the most beautiful illusion to German children, the real and actual Christ- kind gift at Christmas. He regrets also the decay of that religious enthusiasm that opened to him the gate of heaven at his first communion, and laments that, after his thir- teenth birth-day, he became too indifferent to the return of such seasons. But from this time he also dates the beginning of his self-instruction. He began to understand the inefficiency of his old master, Werner, and took his education into his own hands. It is a fatal period for the influence of the master, when the boy discovers that he can be no longer his guide to the temple of Science ; and Werner lost his influence from the moment Paul discovered that he used LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 85 a German printed translation, when hearing his lessons from the Hebrew Bible. The chaplain, Volkel *, whose instructions have already been mentioned in his self- biography, and whom Paul loved, notwithstanding his angry and splenetic temper, introduced him to the study of philosophy, and led him to the belief that even without the Bible, a God and a Pro- vidence could be proved. Another young man, Vogel, a friend of Volkel, had per- haps more influence upon the formation of his character than any other person, for he encouraged him in being his own self-teacher, and the industrious pupil of his own exertions. Both wondered at the boy, and admired not only his unlimited zeal for knowledge and science, but acknowledged his extraordinary talent and the ripeness of his mind. By admitting him to an equality of intellectual rank with persons so much his seniors in years, they strengthened his belief in his own powers. In youth, great humility is almost invariably the attendant of superior genius. The future prophet knows not that his face is radiant as that of Moses when he descended from the mount, until it is reflected from another. It is necessary to make a young mind believe in itself before it will trust to its own success. Paul was happy in the encouraging esteem of these friends, and he wrote afterwards to Vogel in these terms : " The praise that you add, I will not contradict nor mistrust, except that I may hear it again. Be you my guide in the path to truth and happiness. Lead the youth who is so willing to follow. Your applause will be impulse enough to make me industrious, and your censure will spur me on to improvement. I am much indebted to you; yes, truly, I am much indebted to you. It is my good fortune to have known you. Gratitude and love will never be extinguished in my heart." * The reader will recollect, Volkel was the friend who proposed teach- ing Paul chess and philosophy. 86 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL This friend possessed, and increased daily, an extensive library, that was equally valuable for the number and the importance of the books on many sciences. This was a rare thing in a country parish, and an extraordinary hap- piness for Jean Paul, or rather a work of Providence, that through these dead teachers he should enjoy the means of self-education. His thirst for knowledge constrained him to read books of every species, and of the most heterogeneous contents ; hence the origin of that wonderful universality in know- ledge, as the Germans call it, whioh indeed all richly-gifted minds seek, and of that power of illustration which, to the readers of Jean Paul, is a perpetual subject of wonder and astonishment. To the boy of fifteen years these books opened a mine of knowledge and of new ideas ; he could not make them all his own, and they must be returned ; therefore he adopted his plan of extract-books, that afterwards became a rich library by itself. Before his seventeenth year he had made many thick volumes, each of more than three hun- dred quarto pages. In the beginning, his extracts were from philosophical theology ; then from books of natural history, medicine, poetry, jurisprudence. In his fifteenth year, one of his extracts is entitled " On the eternity of hell punish- ments."* We may form an idea of the penetrating judgment and discrimination with which he read, from the following extract of a letter, in his sixteenth year, to his friend Vogel : ,,.,,., . "Adding so much benevolence to the old, makes it difficult to find words to express sufficient gratitude, and yet more difficult to be bold enough to ask for more. Shall * That Jean Paul was intended by his father for the study of theology may account for his earlier extracts being upon subjects of theology and controversial divinity. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 87 I venture to ask for more books ? Your goodness gives me courage, and T pray for the third part of Semlers Investi- gation of the Canon, Goethe's works, the second part of Lavater's Journal, Helvetius, and Lessing's Fragments. I do not distrust your willingness to serve me, when I humbly pray a second time for a book, from which I pro- mise myself the most valuable views. " The following proposition appears to me at all times safe : either this book contains truth or error if the first, nothing should prevent me from reading it ; if the last, it will not convince me if the errors are too obvious, and then it cannot injure ; or it does convince. But in the last cir- cumstance, what danger have I to fear, if I exchange a truth, of which I am not convinced from reason, but which is merely an opinion with me if I exchange this, I say, for an error that enlightens me ? Dare I once more ask for it? Yet I would rather want a hundred books than in the smallest degree make myself unworthy of your bene- volence and love." The sophistry of the youth of sixteen, and the reluctance of his friend Vogel to lend him " Lessing's Fragments," will not permit us to pass over the change that had taken place in the poet since the celebration of that first com- munion which in his Autobiography he describes with such elevation of religious enthusiasm. At this time he had exchanged the tenderness of a devout heart for " the most zealous heterodoxy." Such experiences as these have often been observable in minds of the highest order ; with the intense fervour with which the mysteries of religion take hold of these young hearts, do they pursue the painful doubts that afterwards arise, till they are led back, through faith and love, to the clear atmosphere of truth. Jean Paul's Schwarzenbach life had at this time a power- ful influence upon the direction of his mind and studies. He found no time and no object to satisfy the wants of the heart, and no food for the imagination. The little, round, red, pock-marked face of the little girl could scarcely have 88 LIFE Off JEAN PAUL. filled his fancy, and all his efforts were directed to the cul- tivation of the reason and intellect. A perfect cultivation consists in the equal unfolding of the affections, the imagi- nation, and the reason ; but he was entering that cold epoch of the understanding when his only desire was to heap up knowledge, and the warm lava-world of glowing feeling was for many years built over with a heavy crust of earth. A powerful genius will sooner or later recover the complete harmony of its nature ; but that Riehter injured the faculty of poetic creation, by filling his mind with the sciences, is certain, from the wonderful self-deception with which he expresses the doubt, whether he had not been created for a philosopher rather than a poet. In Goethe only, the complete harmony of all his powers seems from earliest life never to have been disturbed. CHAPTER II. HOP GYMNASIUM SCHOOL ANECDOTES DEATH OF THE FATHER DOMESTIC TROUBLES. AT Easter, in 1779, the^Lfher of our Poet took ^u. 1779> an important step, and placed him at the Gymna- ** 1& sium, or town school, in the little city of Hof *. The examining rector would have placed him in the first divi- sion of the Primaner, or first class ; but his father, to protect him from the ill-will of his companions, chose to have him placed in the middle division of the first classf. It depended on the talents and industry of the pupil to bring his place to honour, and his companions were a silent jury, who decided upon his merits. Paul was placed under peculiar disadvantages; for to preserve his rank he had only two years to stay in the school, while the others remained three years without exception. So great a dif- ference brought Paul into a false position, and he soon remarked that he stood alone among his companions. He has left a humorous description of his appearance when he entered the school, and the ridicule it excited in the city pupils. The stuff and the form of his clothes were of village manufacture, probably woven by his grandfather, made by his mother, and negligently put on. With a self-possessed * Hof is a little city of about five thousand inhabitants, and beside its Gymnasium, is distinguished for woollen manufactures. f To understand many particulars that occur in the Life, it will be necessary to bear in mind, that a gymnasium consists of eight classes, and that the Priinaner, or first class, is instructed by the rector. 90 LIFE OF JEAX PAUL. inward look, which seemed wholly unconcerned at outward circumstances, yet with penetrating glance, and true- hearted, unconstrained confidence, he met those who gave him only ridicule in return. Two instances are men- tioned, which, although trifling in themselves, must not be omitted, as they throw a pure light on the boyhood of the poet. There was one among the bo3 T s that took a malicious pleasure in tormenting him ; one, too, from whom Paul, in his warm-hearted and generous confidence, looked for sym- pathy, as he had been a previous acquaintance, and be- longed to a family connected with his own The French master was an indifferent and poorly-paid instructor, who had been a tapestry-worker. He had but one book, which he carried in his pocket ; and when he laid this book upon the long table, at the head of which he sat, only one, of twenty or thirty pupils, could look over to translate a passage. The mischievous boy already mentioned, told Paul that it was an established custom for the pupil, when he first entered the French school, to kiss the hand of the master. This seemed to Paul but a suitable custom, and by no means extraordinary, as in his own family it was an established expression of reverence from the young to the old, and Paul, whenever he went to his grandfather's, kissed his hand behind his loom. When he entered the French school, 'therefore, he approached bashfully to the master, and with honest faith, carried the brawny hand to his lips. The poor Frenchman, suspecting some mystification or insult, broke out into the most violent anger, and Paul barely escaped a blow from the hand on which he was imprinting his loyal homage. The mirth of the class broke out into a loud jubilee ; and between them both, Paul stood confused, ashamed, and in the highest degree mortified. In this instance, he was taken by surprise, and betrayed by his loyal nature; but in another attempt to impose LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 91 upon him, he asserted his rank as a scholar with firmness, nay, with a dignity that compelled them ever after to respect him. Every week, two of the pupils among the under Primaners were called out in succession to bring in the bread with which they were regaled between the lessons, when the teachers were exchanged. As before mentioned, his companions were determined not to acknowledge the rank of Jean Paul as a. first Primaner, and therefore called upon the village boy to be their purchaser of bread. But the village boy, who would have sacrificed everything to them in honest love, stood firm in his rank as Primaner. When they pressed the kreutzers upon him for the pur- chase of the bread, he let his arms sink down with his closed hands, and stood firmly in that position. Thus, without complaint to the teacher, or a word of contest with his companions, he gained for ever that ascendancy which a firm will asserts over the wavering multitude. But if Paul was always victorious, he had many dark hours to conquer, that left a life-long impression upon his mind. Although his companions unwillingly acknowledged his first rank in almost all branches of knowledge, it is impossible they could have appreciated the splendid gifts of his mind, or the extent of his already acquired know- ledge. He overcame with his mighty power the difficulties of his school life, though he felt keenly the want of what he says in his notes, Heaven had denied to his youth, " teachers and love." Between the coni-ector and Paul no good understanding could exist. However judicious may be the arrangements of a school, and the prescribed method of teaching, every- thing depends on the talent of the instructor for teaching. This talent, like every other, must be native or original, and united with a cheerful, unsuspicious, and hopeful dis- position, that strives for nothing so much as to be always young, that it may enter into the sympathies of youth, anticipate and help its efforts to rise into the higher 92 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. regions of knowledge and wisdom. This talent is alone able to excite pure scientific zeal, and to awaken a grateful disposition in youth. Sometimes this honourable aim is found in men who have devoted the whole of life from free choice to the art of teaching; but it can scarcely be expected of those scantily-paid teachers who have stepped into the office as a passing resting-place, while they are waiting upon Providence for something better, and their compelled and reluctant instruction can hardly fail to disgust an in- genuous youth. Neither of the instructors of Paul in the Hof school possessed the great and generous art of teaching ; and from the conrector's method alone, the elevating science of history became absolutely disagreeable to Paul. As, through the accident of his birth, theology occupied much of his attention, and his mind had been so early turned to philosophy, he followed the critical judgments of the age, and looked upon the heterodoxy of the time as the companion of philosophy. Histoiy, in as far as it is a collection of names and dates and places, without claiming "the exertion of any particular talent, or of any faculty except that of memory, had no charm for him ; but as his theology or his scepticism led him to study the history of the church, which introduced him to the general history with which it is inseparably connected, his aversion yielded, and some years after, he wrote thus to a friend: " History has the highest value, in so far as we, by means of it, as by the aid of nature, can discover and read the infinite Spirit, who in nature and in history, as with letters, legibly writes to us. He who finds a God in the physical world, will also find one in the moral, which is history. Nature reveals to our heart a Creator ; history a Pro- vidence." When Paul entered the Hof gymnasium, he was taken under the roof of the honest cloth-weaver, where a little " chamber in the wall " was prepared for him, and where LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 93 he was soon furnished with a complete suit of clothes woven by his grandfather. The situation of the house, and the comparative abundance of his grandfather's means of living, had for Paul's mind a peculiar charm ; for we cannot forget how the old errand-woman, in his childhood, coming from Hof to Joditz, laden with his grandmother's presents, was anxiously looked for, and when after any delay she arrived, all the joyful family were collected in the common apartment to receive her. His romantic walks also from Hof, when he returned secretly laden with pre- sents, and the reflection of the setting sun upon the Saale, awoke those vague longings in the boy that were never appeased, but that could not be forgotten. Soon after Paul entered the Hof school, his father, who had long been an invalid, died, leaving to Paul, the eldest of his children, the care of his mother and the payment of his debts ; and he had not been many weeks under the roof of his grandparents, when both, within a short period of each other, paid the debt of nature. The favourite daughter, Paul's mother, had the misfortune to be invi- diously distinguished in their will, and that which might have been a blessing, became, through her character and the envy of the other relatives, a perpetually increasing evil. His mother, although tenderly loved by Paul, appears to have been a weak-minded and obstinate woman. She was, however, no less the favourite of the grandmother, and the presents she used to send to her under the pretence of payments gave offence to another daughter, who was less favoured by the grandmother. This injudicious partiality was continued after death, as already mentioned, by leaving to Paul's mother the house and estate at Hof. Envy and displeasure were now no longer silent, and a lawsuit was instituted by the other relations to break the will. Meantime, as the produce of the small family estate was contested, the ground was left uncultivated, and be- came every day less and less valuable ; so that Paul, when he was scarcely eighteen, was called upon to be the adviser 94 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and guardian angel of his mother, and as far as it was in his power, the protector of his family. His mother, notwithstanding the earnest dissuasion of Paul, and the advice of friends whose countenance and support she enjoyed there, determined to leave Schwarzen- bach and remove to Hof, where she was drawn hy the possession of two small houses, and her love for the grave of the buried parents. In Hof she was wholly isolated, without friends or advisers, as Paul had already gone to Leipsic. The successor of the pains-taking cloth-weaver, whose whole life had been spent in gaining and saving, could hardly escape the charge of extravagance, if she only spent, in the most frugal manner, what had been so indus- triously gained and so thriftily hoarded. The proverb was soon applied to the poor widow : " The sparer will have a spender." With debts which she could not pay without incurring new ones, and in contest with her nearest relations, while the house that she inherited was fast going into decay for the want of repairs, which her wasted funds prevented her from making, the situation of Paul's mother was far from enviable. Added to all this were the re- proaches of her neighbours, who did not fail to ascribe to her own unthriftiness and incapacity the decay of such a long-honoured family, so that she soon learnt the truth of the adage, " The unfortunate stand alone." But not alone stood the mother of Jean Paul. Her widowed, deserted, and humiliating position, seemed only to excite the generous and self-sacrificing affection of Paul, and to stimulate his filial piety. From this glance into his domestic circumstances we see how much Paul's youthful years were darkened and oppressed by the cares and sorrows of his mother, as well as by his own sharp contests with actual want. CHAPTER III. YOUTHFUL FRIENDSHIPS WERTHER PERIOD FIRST BOOK- MAKING "ON THE PRACTICE OF THINKING." I HAVE anticipated the time of our narrative, to A D 1780 give the reader a glimpse into the domestic cir- "* 17- cumstances of Paul's family. We return to the gymnasium at Hof, to mention the youthful friendships of one, of whom it has been said, " his writings would have created friendship if it had had no existence before." We find, that although his friendships ripened slowly, they were life- long, living in his memory even after the death of his friends, and cherished as the memorials of buried love to the day of his own death. His acquaintance with John Bernard Herman began at the gymnasium in Hof. He was the son of a poor tool- maker, and his late appearance every morning at the school was reluctantly consented to by the teachers, be- cause he was a mechanic's apprentice, and had daily a prescribed quantity of sheep 's-wool yarn to reel off and prepare for his younger sister's knitting, before he could think of the necessary preparations for the hour of school. The generous nature of Paul led him to be the friend and helper of one more indigent than himself, and to offer him not only his personal assistance, but the use of all his extract-books and manuscripts. But Paul must have been irresistibly drawn to a character like Herman, who had the power of rising above the discouraging circumstances of his life, and of devoting himself to elevating pursuits ; and Herman's influence 96 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. upon the moral and spiritual being of Paul was so much greater, as his present devotion to philosophy and the natural sciences coincided with the bent of Herman's genius. It is to be regretted that scarcely anything remains, by which we can know the influence which so remarkable an individuality of character as that of Herman's, must have had upon Jean Paul. We know only that his was the germ of a character often introduced in Paul's later works. The next in time, but perhaps the first friend in con- fidential intercourse, was Adam Lorenzo von Oerthel, the eldest son of a rich merchant, who possessed many estates in the neighbourhood of Hof. Topen was his place of residence, after he left off business ; but for his son he had built a small garden-house in Hof, and devoted it to the use of the young man while he was at the gymnasium. This retreat, situated in the bend of an arm of the Saale, and surrounded with lofty trees, looked upon rich meadow- grounds, which were terminated by a beautiful lake. Delightful must it have been to the youthful friends, after their school duties were over, to wander here in the moon- light, and with harpsichord or singing, or listening to the music in the neighbourhood, (for all Germany is musical,) to have passed their confidential hours. Had Paul con- tinued his Autobiography to this time, how would he have delighted to describe this place, and to recall the friend- ship here knit so closely with Oerthel. This was the remarkable Werlher period, when every youth was infected with sentimentality. Paul also passed through this period, and was only slightly, and for a very short time, touched with the disease. His slight symp- toms were more from sympathy with his friend than from a real infection. One fragment only of a remarkably sentimental letter remains, which should be literally translated : " Ah ! thy few lines have caused me tears me, who have so few joys ! and these also I shall soon miss, for I LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 97 perhaps shall be absent. I shall imagine thy walks in the garden at night, when the full moon shines, and think how we formerly looked together over the flashing water ! how we raised our eyes, filled with warm tears, to the universal Father ! Ah, the days of childhood are passed ; soon, with both of us, will these of pupilage be completed ! soon the whole of life ! . . . " At this moment you came in and interrupted me. I read the paper you gave me ; and now I can write no longer. My tears flow ! Yet something more distinct thoughts of death occupy me now perhaps you also. Now shimmers the moon calmly. Peace sinks into the troubled soul ! How awful, under the pale shimmering of the moon, to imagine all the neighbouring hillocks turned to graves, and there to wander, to watch ! " How awful the death-stillness that surrounds me, and the immeasurable feeling that seizes upon me ! How elevating is it nightly to visit the graves of sweetly slum- bering friends, and, ah ! the trusted heart that now the worm feeds upon ! " Read, in Yorick's journey, where he was by the grave of the monk ! But of this description speak not a word ! You can write at any rate." From this fragment we see how, at this time, Jean Paul was ashamed, even before his most intimate friend, of his own emotions, and could only trust himself to speak of what interested him on paper. He who at a later period had the courage to give to the world the tenderest, most touching, and most enthusiastic emotions, without even the veil of rhyme or verse, and without seeking to conceal himself behind the mask of a fictitious character. These emotions, that at the same age in Goethe took the form of poetry, and were embodied in the romance of Werther, were guarded with the strong armour of science in Jean Paul. But the deep fountain was in his breast, gathering fullness from every little rill, and from every F 98 UFE OF JEAN PAUL. summer shower, till the time was ripe for it to be unsealed, and to pour its streams around. The reason that Werther, and the sensation which the publication of so remarkable a work produced, made so little impression on Jean Paul, appears to have been that his mind at this time, together with his friend Herman's, whose enthusiasm for the natural sciences was boundless, was turned to subjects of natural history and philosophy, as the titles of his Essays in his manuscript books show : " Is the world in perpetual motion ?" " What is universal in physiognomy ? " " How are men, animals, plants, and still smaller beings, made perfect ? " Although Jean Paul had not at this time found the true direction of his genius, yet that spiritual activity was thoroughly awakened, that never permitted him after- wards to be idle, but continued unwearied till his death, when the pen dropped from his hand, and an unfinished work was borne on his coffin to his grave. As a child, he played at book-making ; he now, as a school-boy, made a book for his own benefit, " on the practice of thinking." It is remarkable, that in this book there are none of those peculiarities of expression which have been called affectations, which make his books the despair of English students. On the contrary, the style is clear, concise, and remarkably simple. The limits of this work will allow but a few short extracts. After the title-page he writes : " These essays are merely for myself. They are not made to teach others anything new. They are not ends, but means ; not new truths themselves, but means to find them. I shall often contradict myself; declare many things truths here, and errors there. But man is man, and not always the same." The passage, in which Paul speaks of florid and orna- mented writing, is remarkable, as he condemns a style that was afterwards so singularly his own. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 99 " The writer who produces many comparisons, who com- poses in an ornamented style, appears to me to have little depth ; at least, comparisons and figures cannot occur when he thinks severely. Whoever reflects, places the subject upon which he thinks alone before him ; all his views are turned to that alone ; there is room for no ideas but such as immediately concern it. On the con- trary, when he revises his work, he can bring comparisons and figures to illustrate the subject. But is that useful with heavy materials ?".... " Many think themselves to be truly God-fearing, when they call this world a valley of tears. But I believe they would be more so if they called it a happy valley. God is more pleased with those who think everything right in the world, than with those who think nothing right. With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?" In the next extract, Paul differs widely from the prac- tice of the present day. " Many theological propositions that the enlightened consider false, may have their use, their ,manifold use, with smaller and less enlightened people. They are spurs to certain actions that would not be done without them. To people who believe them, because they have not .power to investigate them, they have their use ; but to the wise the benefit ceases, for he believes them not, ; and cannot, because he is too enlightened. In the world, truth and error are as widely distributed as storm and sunshine. Thou rejectest certain dogmas that are false ; but canst thou substitute truths in their place, that will be as useful as the errors ? Perhaps an error ,hfts .more useful results than a truth in its place In God's bes.t world there is no error without useful consequences. Wherever an error is, it is not in vain. It is, in its place, better than a truth ! "* -* The reader must bear in mind that this was written by a youth of ixteen years. F 2 100 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " Leave the ignorant an error of which he is himself convinced, and bring no truth before him whose proofs he is incapable of understanding. Observe especially what promotes the piety of thy brother, and do not mix with the benefit of his faith the proofs of its truth, but observe its good or evil influences. The wise love truth, for truth itself, as they delight in reason ; the unwise, as it is of use to them. Take away the usefulness of truth, and, as they are no philosophers, they have nothing left." . . . " We do not discover our weaknesses to those whom we believe to have none themselves. For this cause geniuses appear to form friendships most readily with those who are in understanding far beneath them. " Weak people live more in confidential friendship with each other than geniuses." .... " Words never can express the whole that we feel, they give hut an outline. When violent affections press, the word is never found that can paint the circumstances of the soul. We say only that something is there, but not what, and how it is. Only he whose soul is equally tuned feels the same ; but he feels not merely what the other expresses, but what he cannot express. He paints out the picture that the other has only faintly sketched in outline. Two words are often enough to place a soul in a situation that no added words can paint. But the better the sketch is that the full soul makes, so much easier is it for the reader to complete the picture. Goethe is such a sketcher; he touches the sympathizing heart at every point. Has not all Germany wept with him ?" "Writings, where the author has thought, please us; but those please us more that excite thought in us. We appropriate to ourselves what the author has found, and flatter ourselves that we have already known what he has done for us." . . . . " Every one is pleased when a writer is humble when a genius says he is none. We praise this apparent blind- ness to one's own merit; but, I believe, with injustice. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 101 Wherefore should a man that feels his own greatness not acknowledge it? Wherefore should a wise and enlightened man appear before the public making a leg*, like a dunce? Perhaps this is the cause : We allow such an one to be a great man, but we will not learn it from himself ; our self-love is too much offended. If a man says of himself, that he is great, it is as much as if he said, we are little. But geniuses, in seeking to recommend themselves, show too much humiliation. They can be just, but they need not on that account lower themselves. Man is just, when he does not appropriate to himself more merit than belongs to him, or rob another of what is his due." I have given these extracts, not so much for their in- trinsic value, but as private memoranda of a youth of sixteen, at the time he was contending with poverty at home, and with enemies at school. The pastor Vogel, to whom he had lent the manuscript, sent him, the day before his departure for the university of Leipsic;a letter, that would be injured without a literal translation. " Excellent young German ! from whom I promise the world much in future : My dear friend ; you go, then, in the morning, to Leipsic? Go, then, in God's name, and come not again until you are THE that you must and shall be. My good wishes follow you. I know your mind, I know your heart. Upon mine you have, with your good- ness, impressed the most grateful emotions ; and you may yet acquire more desert with me than I at present possess with you. Fulfil only my prophecy ! and, yet once more, farewell ! " The University of Leipsic was chosen for Jean Paul, instead of Erlangen, in his native principality, in the mis- taken idea that a youth needed nothing in Leipsic but a certificate of his poverty, and free tables and free lectures would bo open to him. * The German word is Bucklingen, which means literally to make a leg. 102 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The fame of the Professors, especially in theology, to which Paul had been destined by his parents, offered another inducement ; and the great mercantile activity of the place presented a theatre where a young man could, with most facility, by the exertion of almost any species of talent, gain the meane of support for himself and his indigent family. CHAPTER IV. RICHTER ENTERS THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPSIC LETTERS FROM LEIPSIC CHANGE OF STUDIES LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER. ON the 19th of May, Richter entered the Univer- AI) mit sity of Leipsic, and was on the same day matricu- ** 18- lated. He soon found himself deceived in almost all his hopes. At this time, without any especial choice of his own, he was destined to the study of theology, as it was understood by others, as well as himself, that the preacher's son must follow in his father's footsteps ; but, before he entered the university, the philosophical theology and the heterodox critical direction of the age had had much influ- ence upon his mind, and the lectures he heard there were only aids and accessories to his own self-instruction. Yet he perseveringly attended the philosophical lectures of Plainer, the exegetical and dogmatical instructions of Morus, and the lectures upon morals by Wieland. He listened with attention, and when the proposition of the teacher excited an idea, or awakened an objection, made a minute of it in his common-place book. At this time also he began to learn English ; but his only instruction in that language was a two-hours' public lecture, once a week ; the rest he gained by private reading. But his life at Leipsic may best be learnt by extracts from his letters, premising that the enthusiastic youth found himself'alone, without friends, in a noisy and expen- sive city, where he had gone with the mistaken idea that he could live without money. 104 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. In his first letter to the rector Werner, he had not been wholly undeceived*. " LEIPSIC. The city is beautiful, if a city can be called so that has only great houses and long streets. The splendid places that you promised I find not ! Every- where an eternal uniformity no valleys, no hills ; it is completely without the charm that makes our native region so agreeable. In many things it is as you promised, in others not. I can dine for eighteen pfennigs}. Further, I have been presented by the rector Clodius to all the colleges. " For my beautiful room at the Three Roses, Peterstrass, No. 9, in the third story, precisely where Oerthel lived, I have to pay only sixteen rix-dollars ; but I must leave it in the time of the fair. The students also are as courteous and polite as you led me to expect. In the following particulars alone your information appears to me incorrect. The informazions\ are rare, or the number of those who inform is immensely great. In the great houses they take only those who have a recommendation, and a good one is rare. From every one I have heard that not very consoling proverb Lipsia vult expectari; and that expectari is so undecided, that if one has lived fifty years in Leipsic, and all this time has received no office, they yet preach to him ' to wait, they will give it to him.' " Herr M. Kirsch is with me from Hof; his presence has helped me much, and he has written me a right good testimonium paupertatis. I need only produce this to receive presents from the colleges. This testimony has helped me also with Professor Platner, who loves philo- sophy so much." Paul wrote again, soon after, " My conjecture of the * In these letters, as in all that I have translated, I have selected merely such passages as will throw light on the biography, as they are too long for entire insertion. + About twopence English. J Informasion appears to be giving private lessons. LTFE OF JEAN PAUL. 105 expectari is not contradicted, it is rather strengthened. I have yet no informazion, no free table, no acquaintance with students ; in truth, nothing ! It is not easy to obtain an introduction to the professors. The most renowned, whose esteem would be most useful to me, are oppressed with business, surrounded by a multitude of respectable people, and by a swarm of envious flatterers ; so that those who are not distinguished by dress or rank approach them with difficulty. If one would speak to a professor without an especial invitation, he incurs the suspicion of vanity. When I think of the multitude of students who are par- ticularly recommended to them, of the numbers of bad students who get the ear of the professor, and prejudice him against the better, the whole phenomenon is explained. But do not give up your hopes. I will overcome all these difficulties. I shall receive some little help, and at length I shall not need it. Here I touch upon a riddle, whose solution you must wait for. To my mother I have only darkly hinted it, for at present it has no solution; only this will I say to you : it is neither stipendium, nor table, nor informazion, nor anything of the kind. It relates to something that I cannot speak of until my expectations are answered. " But know you what especially impels me to industry ? Precisely what you have said in your letter my mother. I owe it to her to endeavour to sweeten a part of her life, that otherwise has been so unfortunate, and to lessen, by my help and sympathy, the great sorrow she has suffered through the loss of my father. It is also my duty to do something for the happiness of my brothers. Were it not for this, my studies would be wholly different. I would only work at what pleased me ; for what I felt strength, power, inclination. Were it not for my mother, I would never during my whole life take a public office. This assertion, which perhaps surprises you, did you know the whole cir- cumstances of my situation, the disposition of my mind, F 3 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and the strange direction my destiny has taken, would appear to you reasonable* " Dr. Ernesti was buried on the 15th of September. He will allow himself many hours in heaven with Cicero. His noble Roman head now moulders in dust. His fame flutters over his grave, but he hears it not. Truly, Pope is right : Fame is an imagined life in the breath of others. Thus the blow of death scatters all the frippery of our follies. The wish falls often warm upon my heart, that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world ! that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven ! Enough." " And you O ! a thousand thanks for your excellent letter ; a thousand thanks for the love you express to me. But I wish more than merely to say my thanks to you for all that I owe you ; for the foundation of my mind and heart. In that for which a pupil can never repay his teacher, I can only shed a tear of gratitude, and offer up a wish to the All Good ! " " I write to you very differently from what I write to others. Everywhere else I may put on a little mask, or paint at least, a little ; but with you I do it not. I show myself to you as I am. You know my faults, and I give myself no trouble to conceal them ; therefore will you let no one see my letter, for everybody will laugh at one who is honest enough to let his heart be seen at the expense of his understanding. There are people who take every one for a fool who is not as frivolous as themselves." " Fashion is here a tyrant under whom all bow. Beaux cover the streets, and in fine days they flutter about like butterflies. One like the other, they are all puppets, and none has the heart to be himself. These gentlemen flutter from toilette to toilette, from assembly to assembly, till they sleep from weariness." In another letter to the same friend, we find Paul's views * Paul no doubt hints at the scepticism under which his mind was now struggling. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 107 upon the present direction of his reading, and that he had already thought of relinquishing the study of theology as a profession. " In permitting me to answer with frankness and can- dour the questions that your kindness has led you to ask respecting my present employments, my only fear is that I shall appear like an egotist. " I have heard, and still hear, many exegetical lectures upon John, and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Many on Paul's letters, and the history of the apostles, by Morus. Lectures on logic and metaphysics, by Plainer ; aesthetics, by the same ; morals, by Wieland ; upon geometry and trigonometry, by Gehlar; and the English language, by Hempel. When I tell you what I study, you will understand the reason why I have first heard these college lectures. The languages are now my favourite employment, merely because I have acquired a love for certain sciences. "It is difficult for me to say certain things to you, that I can scarcely say to myself, without the appearance of self-pride and ostentation ; but it becomes easier to say them when I recollect that you know me too well to sus- pect pride where it cannot be, or to find it where it is not. " I have made it a rule in my studies, not to force upon myself that which is decidedly disagreeable to me. That for which I am unsuited I find already useless. I have sometimes deceived myself when I have followed this rale ; but I have never repented falling into an error that * .... "To study what one does not love; that is, to contend with ennui, weariness, and disgust, for a good that we do not desire ; to lavish the talent, that we feel is" created for something else, in vain, on a subject where we fear that we cannot succeed, is to withdraw so much power from one where we could make progress. " But in this way can you earn your bread ? This is * There is something left unfinished. 108 LIFE OF JEAK PAUL. the miserable objection that is made against it. I know nothing in the world by which bread cannot be earned ; I will not therefore say that he can never succeed, who has for the end of his studies merely the relief of his pressing necessities. " In the one case there will be more, in the other, less success. " Granted and I know not whether I shall gain my bread by that for which I feel no power, in which I find no pleasure, and make no progress, or in that in which enjoyment stimulates, and my talents help me. " One must live wholly for a science, sacrifice to it every power, every enjoyment, every moment, and busy oneself with the other sciences only as they are accessories to the favourite. If, through adverse outward circumstances, the insignificant reward of common inferior talent should be lost, it will be repaid tenfold by the exquisite enjoyment that springs from the pursuit of truth, the charm that is found in the exercise of a favourite talent, and perhaps the honour that sooner or later may be acquired. This is my defence. " Formerly I read only philosophical writings, now I read in preference the witty, elegant, imaginative authors. Once I did not love the French language, now I read French books rather than German. The wit of Voltaire, the eloquence of Rousseau, the omamented style of Hel- vetius, and the ingenious remarks of Toussaint, all these impel me to the study of the French language. I do not believe that I learn much from them, but they please me. With the impression of the finest passages, and the witty, the remembrance of the art with which they were com- posed remains also. " I read Pope he delights me ; so does Young. There is undoubtedly nothing more splendid in the English lan- guage ! I learn it now chiefly to read that excellent weekly paper, the Spectator, of which we have in German but a miserable translation. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 109 " The eloquence of Rousseau enchants me. I find eloquence also in Cicero and Seneca. I love both these now, above all things, and prefer reading them to the best German authors. I love the ancients, and have given up many of those foolish judgments by which I was misled, through the poor instruction of my Latin master. " Will you allow me a little digression, upon reading the ancient authors in school? What I say may be false, but with me it was true. To imitate an ancient author, to find him beautiful, to love him and occupy oneself with him, a boy must have taste." Here Paul breaks off his digression about the ancients, and his account of his own studies. We find no more letters upon the subject at this time. Paul's correspondent objected to his estimation of fame in the case of Ernesti, and answered him thus : " If you believe that Ernesti has taken nothing with him but his reputation, and that this is only an imaginary possession, it appears to me you err, and would, like Pope, depreciate this imaginary life in the breath of others. Is it, then, not desirable that our memory should be honoured, that other minds, even after the lapse of centuries, should enter into union with our own ? If man looks upon Fame with indifference, he will not wish to be great himself, and the world will become poor in splendid deeds." 'Paul, in his next letter, sought to explain, rather than to excuse, his assertions upon Ernesti's reputation. " What you say of Fame is just ; what I have asserted thereon is not just. I have never looked upon reputation with indifference, never considered it an imaginary good ; for what is more probable than that in eternity we shall enjoy its richest and most enduring fruit ? At the time I wrote my letters to you, I was, through the recent death of Ernesti, through the idle pomp of his funeral, and the comparison of his former and present circumstances, exactly in the temper to assert an erroneous opinion. " But perhaps they valued the departed Ernesti more 110 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. than he deserved *. He spake Cicero's Latin, but he had not his eloquence. He had good Latin words, but not splendid thoughts; he was astonishingly learned, with moderate powers of understanding. He was more indebted for his reputation to his industry than to his genius ; more to reflection than to penetration. He was a great philo- logist, but not a great philosopher. Even this made him perhaps not half as great as a Lessing, or even as a Plainer. But wholly to paint the last, Platner, I must be himself, or more. One must hear, or read him, to know how to admire him. And this man, who unites so much sound philosophy with so much grace, so much knowledge of mankind with such extensive learning, so much know- ledge of the ancient Grecian with the modern literature ; who is equally great as a philosopher, physician, aesthetic, and learned man; and who possesses as much virtue as wisdom, is as much endowed with sensibility as penetration even this man is not only the envy of every inferior mind, but the object of the persecution and secret slander of every blockhead. " He was once called before the consistory at Dresden, to defend himself against the charge of Materialism. There is nothing of which he is less guilty. No one can have read his Aphorisms without perceiving that he is the most enlightened enemy of Materialism f . . . . "I have often made the remark, that a great man, "to preserve his reputation, must not live long. New monu- ments of his greatness are constantly expected of him. By making his past actions the heralds of his future, they raise him to an unattainable point. They turn always their eyes forwards, and seek what he is going to be, and forget what he has been, ceasing to admire when they have * Ernesti was called the German Cicero. f- I have not been able to find any account of Platner. Menzel says, " his Aphorisms do not contain so ingenious a selection of thoughts as Rochefoucault's, but very much that is striking, and worthy to be taken to heart even now." TR. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Ill nothing new to admire he has overlived himself. After his death, they go back with the great man over the whole course of his path ; but before, they refuse to give him unlimited praise, because they would allure him to greater actions, and not, through too great appreciation of the present, prevent him from striving for perfection. Thus it was with the great Young, in England ; and thus it has been with Ernesti, in Leipsic. A great spirit may only first attain that existence which unites him with the whole of humanity, when he has laid down the present." From the above extract relating to Plainer, we cannot avoid the inference, that he exerted a powerful and long- enduring influence upon Richter. He says, many years afterwards, that " Platner's manner in reading the lines from Shakspeare, ' We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep,', created whole volumes within him." Platner thought and wrote in aphorisms ; and, as this became Jean Paul's own manner, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the pupil imitated the master, especially as it cannot have escaped the most careless reader, that Richter's letters and jour- nals are at this time entirely free from his later-acquired peculiarities. He appears to have approached no nearer to Platner than the lecture-room. Paul's poverty and modesty held him in obscurity ; the warmest wish of his heart, the deep thirst of his soul to become personally acquainted with intellectual men, was wholly disappointed in Leipsic. But that he might not fail in everything, he then turned with renewed ardour, with more intense industry, upon books. His studies had taken a new direction ; foreign literature, the French as well as the English, particularly Rousseau, held captive the youth of eighteen years. Richter must have found in many of the characteristics of Rousseau a reflection of his own nature. 112 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. It is remarkable, that, in the copious extracts he made from Rousseau, he copied not the sentimental and impas- sioned passages, hut rather rules of practical wisdom and directions for good manners ; from the New Heloise, a long description of social life in Paris ; the reason is obvious at this time he longed to become acquainted with the more refined forms of social life in Germany*. He could see little life in Leipsic, except what he observed in the streets, at the theatres, and in the public gardens. So strong was his desire, that he says " he stood hours at the door of the hotel of Bavaria, to see an ambassador enter, that he might be able to describe one." At this period, his intellectual activity alone was che- rished, to the exclusion of the emotions of the heart, and this, too, united with the coldness of a heterodox theology ; added to all this was his admiration of Pope and Boileau, and the study of the French philosophers. But his heart was still full of the tenderest sympathy for his mother, as his letters to her at this time will show. Speaking of her A.D. i78i, lawsuit, he writes to her, in November, " A day ** 18 - win perhaps come, when your enemies will not be as happy as they now are, and when you will enjoy more rest, more satisfaction, more joy. If you are a Christian, (and this you must be !) truly then I cannot understand how things that concern only this short life can make you so uneasy. Do you suffer from the little vexations that now afflict you, remember Him also by whom the smallest good deed will not be left unrewarded, who looks upon every one of his creatures with love, who has formed for all a heaven, and will give one to all. Pray ! If you have no friend to whom you can complain, complain to Him who is the friend of all men ! Wait from him the help, that, however long delayed, never fails. Remember that our greatest troubles can rob us of nothing but life, and * The inmost poetic impulses of his nature were kept in subjection by his social desires, and the impassioned eloquence of Rousseau sank deep, but left no outward trace in his mind. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 113 that death will give us that sweet rest that life has denied ; that hereafter our sorrows will sleep calmly till we awake from slumber to that blessed day when an open heaven will receive the pious ; when friend shall meet friend ; the wife the husband ; the child shall find the father that he has so long lost, and eternal happiness shall stream through the heart of the blessed." Paul writes again on the first of December : " I daily hope and expect to receive news of what passes with you, and the help I have so long prayed for ; but I learn nothing from you. You leave me between hope and fear. I have lately written to inform you that I have already been trusted ; and, as I have no longer any funds, I must continue to be trusted. But what can I at last expect ? Be so good as to give me some counsel. I must eat and I cannot continue to be trusted by the traiteur. I cannot freeze but where shall I get wood without money? I can no longer take care of my health, for I have warm food neither morning nor evening. It is now a long time since I asked you for twenty rix-dollars ; when they come, I shall scarcely be able to pay what I already owe. Do you believe that I would ask you unnecessarily for money to spend extravagantly ? Ah ! I know how indispensable it is to you ! If you can help me now, I trust you will not, with God's help, be called upon to assist me again. Perhaps the project I have in my head will enable me to earn for you and myself. But at present I know not truly what I shall do if you suffer me to wait longer." He writes again : " Now tell me of yourself. Are you already in Hof, and how are you pleased ? and how stands it with your lawsuit ? Do you win or lose ? I expect bright news from you. I pray only that you be not melancholy. Take care of your health. Be steadfast, and bear the sorrows that you may yet expect in greater number, with increased resignation. Keep my brother industrious ! " 114 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. After Paul had received the money, wrung with so much difficulty from his mother, he writes : " I thank you so much the more, as it cost you so much trouble to collect it. Oh, how gladly would I refund this, and never receive more of that which you need so much yourself." At this time, also, his mother wrote to him, in great distress, that his idle brother had enlisted as a soldier. Paul answered : " I am much less troubled that my brother is a soldier, than that you are so anxious about it. Indeed, it would have been better had he remained at his craft. But when you think how unsteady he was, and that no master could keep him long, the evil is not so great. You err, when you think of the soldier's situation as anything con- temptible. Are not noblemen's, counts', and even princes' sons soldiers ? Is not the son of the old Frau Pfarrarin in Koditz also one ? " Adam may be promoted, and, in any event, a soldier is better than a barber. Write to my brother, to conduct himself well for the rest, God will care. Do not trouble yourself so much about it, and, above all, dismiss that con- temptuous notion you have of a soldier's life. The state could not exist without him. " I would gladly send you some coffee, but my want of funds is as great as yours. If only my expedient succeeds as I hope, in four weeks it will be decided*, and I shall certainly know whether I shall be able to earn money by it or not. Good mother, trouble yourself not so much ; for with all your anxiety you cannot alter anything, and your cares will injure your health." Paul writes thus to her on the death of the relation who had contested the will and the inheritance of the cloth- maker : " Leave R to rest in peace. He is in his grave hate him then no longer ! Death ends all ! even * This was his intention of becoming an author. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 115 our enmities. Has he been unjust to you ? he has now failed like other men." His poor mother was much dissatisfied that Paul should think of writing books, instead of preparing himself to tread in his father's footsteps, and occupy the pulpit in Joditz or Hof. She had flattered her imagination with the thought of sitting, a devout hearer under his pulpit, and listening to the pious eloquence of her gifted son. Paul wrote to her: " You ask what kind of books I write ? They are neither theological nor juridical, and if I should tell you the titles it would signify nothing. They are satirical or droll books. Indeed, I cannot but smile when you make me the edifying offer to listen to my preaching in the Spital Kirche in Hof. Think you then it is so much honour to preach ? This honour, however, can any poor student receive, and it is easy to make a sermon in one's dreams ; but to make a book is ten times more difficult. Besides, you do not know that a poor student like myself dare not preach in Hof without gaining a permission from Bayreuth, which costs fourteen gulden. " You think that I lay up my clothes. How can I do this when I have no new ones ? I have indeed worn-out garments, but no new ones. Now, dear, good mother, I must speak of myself. If you only knew how unwillingly I do it ! But can I do otherwise ? Yet I will not ask you for money to pay my victualler, to whom I owe twenty-four dollars, nor my landlord, to whom I am indebted ten dollars, or even for other debts that amount to six dollars. I can let these rest till Michaelmas, when I shall undoubtedly be able to pay these and other future ones. For these great sums I will ask no help from you, but for the following you must not deny me your assistance. I must every week pay the washerwoman, who does not trust. I must drink some milk every morning. I must have my boots soled by the cobbler, who does not trust ; 116 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. my torn cap must be repaired by the tailor, who does not trust; and I must give something to the maid-servant, who of course does not trust. I know not indeed what I shall do if you do not lend me a helping hand for these things. Can you believe that I would plague you thus if I could help it ? I need not, indeed, much ; eight dollars of Saxon money will satisfy all, and then I shall need your help no longer. Good mother, you must not believe my project for gaining money is good for nothing, because nothing is yet decided. Ah no ! I trust even to maintain us both, but all depends upon the beginning." The project which Paul, with so much mysterious confi- dence, imparts to his mother, was his hopes of emolument from the books he was writing; and so sanguine was he of success, that he not only hoped to pay all his debts, but to have the means of making a journey to Hof. " When I come to Hof at Whitsuntide, I shall not only bring myself, but all my old linen, and you may send my stockings and shirts after your recruit. I have indeed no whole stockings, only some few that are patched. But what is that ? Do not be angry that I am so merry, for I write the whole day nothing but amusing books. Yet more ; I am not in my old chamber, but in the summer-house of a beautiful garden. The garden belongs to the same gentleman to whom my former lodg- ings belonged." His poor mother, whose character bore a strong resem- blance to that of Lenette. in his novel of " Siebenkas," was not at all pleased with her son's writing all day nothing but amusing books, for Paul answers : " You have sent me a reprimand, in order that I should preach a penitential sermon in Hof. Do you think then that it is so very easy to write a satirical book ? Do you believe that the ministers in Hof, understanding one line of my book, would wish to silence it, and that the pastor in Rehau does not understand the thing that he praises so LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 117 much ? If I had studied theology only, by what should I support myself? Yet once more, the permission to preach costs fourteen gulden. I do not despise ministers. I have no contempt, and shall never have, for linen-weavers. Good mother, I trust yet to write books, little as I have received for this, by which I shall gain three hundred Saxon dollars. Besides, is it not right that I should write facetious books, when you write facetious letters ? Over the conclusion of your last I could only laugh." CHAPTER V. EXTRACTS FBOM JOURNAL FIRST LITERARY EFFORT GREENLAND LAWSUITS. I HAVE rather anticipated the course of events, in A>D- 178I> order to place the extracts from Paul's letters, *' 18< written while at the University, together, to enable the reader to understand the difficulties he had to encounter, and the constant demands made upon his patience and sensibility by his mother. I give a few extracts from his journal to show how he brought his philosophy to act upon his daily life. , " August 11, 1781. " Thou wouldst learn thy faults from thy friends ! Thou errest much. Their sincerity goes not so far as to discover to thee the undeniable spots upon thy character. Their sincerity goes not so far as to tell you of faults that you cannot excuse in yourself. The best means to learn our faults is to tell others of theirs. They will be too proud to be alone in their defects, and will seek them in us, and reveal them to us. A friend cannot be easily seen in his true form. We see him as in a glass that our warm breath renders opaque. An enemy is often the truest discoverer of our faults. Our bosom friend, who loves us, tells us of our virtues ; our enemy, who hates us of our faults. Both often say too much, but it is easy between these extremes to discover the truth. I believe the faults of many lively men have more merit than the virtues of the cold and unexcitable, that cost them no trouble Our century is tolerant to opinions, and intolerant to LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 119 actions. We dare express every opinion freely, but practise no virtue without the fear of ridicule. We dare judge without knowing the opinions of others to guide us, but we dare not act without seeing what others do. We tole- rate all sorts of free-thinkers, but not all sorts of saints." Every extract from this journal would show how much Paul's thoughts dwelt upon the manner of thinking and being, and the outward relations and appearance of gifted and great men. It anticipates that longing after sympathy and fellowship with the beautiful and good, that he after- wards describes so faithfully in the life of his Walt. " We have had great spirits," he says, " but not great men. All our geniuses raise themselves by their under- standing too far above this earth. We look sorrowfully after their flight, and regret that we are only men. We reverence, but we do not love them. Rousseau alone is an exception. His talents made him great as an individual ; his heart allied him to all humanity*. We love him the more because he discovered his faults to us, and was not ashamed to be our fellow-creature. . . . . We know more of the heads of celebrated men than of their hearts ; they have sketched the former in their works ; their heart is found in their secret actions, and they would more certainly please if they represented their thoughts, opinions, and feelings with less disguise There are certain men that we do not willingly thank those from whom we expect even receive good with reluctance. We feel deeply humbled when another makes use of our misery as a staff to raise himself to higher honour. It is insupportable to be obliged to acknowledge good in wicked- ness, and through our gratitude encourage the vice of pride and vain-glory." " The learned man is only useful to the learned ; the wise man alone is equally useful to the wise and the simple. The merely learned man has not elevated his mind above that of others ; his judgments are not more penetrating, * Literally, hie talents made him a great man ; his heart, great men. 120 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. his remarks not more delicate, nor his actions more beautiful than those of others. He merely uses other instruments than his own ; his hands are employed in business of which the head sometimes takes little note. It is wholly different with the wise man. He moves far above the common level. He observes everything from a different point of view. In his employments there is always an aim, in his views always freedom, and all with him is above the common level." . . " The great man is proud, for he would not have attained the perfections he possesses, if he had not seen their worth and felt their value. But as he has acquired true advan- tages ; as his excellences compel his own applause, some- times even his own admiration, he feels it unnecessary to beg the miserable praise of fools, and to attain greatness through previous humiliation. He is indifferent to the applause of others ; his own is sufficient for him ; for this reason he appears humble when he is entirely the opposite ; he is only modest. He seeks his own deserts, not in hearing it said that he is great, but in proving it. He does not boast of his views in the preface; in the book alone he sketches his image ; and if he often speaks of his weakness and imperfection, it is not to place those above him who have the perfections that he wants ; but in pro- portion as he is great, he knows how much he needs to attain the greatness that he has held before him in his ideal of perfection." It is obvious from Paul's letter to the rector Werner, that he was only withheld from giving up theology as a profession, from a sense of duty to his mother, and the fear that his project of becoming an author would involve her in deeper distress. A passage in his journal shows the dread he had of being indebted to a patron, and no doubt he felt as his father did, that the Spirit only should call the labourers into the vineyard of the church. He says, " At length, oh God ! if I must suffer, grant only this, that I have not to thank foolish and wicked men, that through our misfortunes make demands upon our gratitude." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 121 At length, after long struggles, Paul decided to give his thoughts to the public through the press, rather than the pulpit to write, rather than to speak ; and his resolution once taken, he never wavered. The history of the first creation of every genius is very interesting. He hears the whisperings of the Muse, that assure him of his future power, but he conceals them as a precious secret, till from his own consciousness he has accumulated the materials of his future fame ; but Richter's first works were not written to lighten the labouring mind of the riches that weighed upon it, as the Werther of Goethe is said to have been. The pressure came from without; the necessities of his mother prompted his in- vention, and sharp hunger impelled the industry of his pen. This pressure from without solves also another enigma. It has appeared incomprehensible, that an author of so much tenderness, and afterwards so full of sentiment, should have begun with works of satire; but Paul en- hanced the splendid gifts of his genius by a distrustful humility. Speaking of himself, he says, " I am richer in a receiving than in a creative imagination, in what may be called a negative poetic talent, in opposition to the positive, which is the power of creation. I possess only a lower order of imagination, that of being penetrated and excited by the creations of others. In youth it is dangerous, but very easy, to mistake the one for the other, and imagine that a day of pentecost has given us the power to speak with inspired tongues." Paul was a philosopher before he was a poet, and his French and English studies determined the character of his first book. He judged humbly and wisely, that his mind was not sufficiently furnished with materials, and his imagination not ripe enough for great creations in the regions of poetry. In his French and English reading he had found a multitude of Essays, that without characters or action, enjoyed the highest celebrity. They demanded only wit, satire, irony, and poetic illustration, and he felt o 122 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. himself capable of producing a book of this species. His studies of late had been almost wholly confined to works of this kind ; and although Rousseau was his favourite, yet with the wit of Voltaire, the satire of Pope, and Young in his memory, he could play with the poverty of his materials, and reproduce the same thought almost without end. The pressure of reality, the chill and wet cold of outward life, had closed and sequestered in the bud all that rich bloom of imagination, that afterwards, when opened by the sun- beams, became so beautiful and luxuriant. In a letter to his friend the pastor of Rehau, to whom he sent the manuscript of his first book, Das Lob der Dummheit, (Eulogy of Stupidity,} he says : " You know, perhaps, that I am poor, but perhaps you do not know that no one has lightened my poverty. If you would gain a patron, you must not let it be understood that you need one that is, if you would be rich, you must not be poor. Yet more God has denied me four feet, to enable me to look up for the favourable glance of a patron, and creep for a few crumbs from his superfluity. I can neither be a false flatterer nor a fashionable fool, nor win friends by the motion of my tongue and the bending of my back. . . Think of all these things, and you will know my situation, but you will not know how I am going to improve it. It came into my head at one time, I will write books, to be able to purchase books ; I will teach the public (pardon the false expression, for the sake of the antithesis) to be able to learn at the university ; I will put the horse behind the wagon, to get out of this wicked hollow way. I altered only the species of my studies. I read witty authors, Seneca, Ovid, Pope, Young, Swift, Voltaire, and I know not what. Erasmus's ' Encomium Moria ' gave me the notion of eulogizing prosing stupidity. I began I im- proved I found difficulties where I did not expect them, and none where I expected them most ; and I ended my book the very day I received your letter. You will exclaim, ' wonderful !' if you do not exclaim, ' foolish !' LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 123 " Here you have my experiment the experiment of a man of nineteen years. A professor, whom the manuscript reached through a third person, did not wholly deny me his applause. Dare I hope for yours ? Perhaps you will review it in the following manner : ' The author can easily substitute himself for the book certainly the Divinity that he praises inspired him.' " I will owe you the utmost gratitude if, before I hand the manuscript to the publisher, you will give me some information with regard to its value ; and yet more, if you will point out its frequent faults. But enough ; or I shall write a bad letter over a bad book." Vogel answered, with all the delight and pride of one who had discovered and prophesied Paul's future distinction : " I praise not your folly, but your splendid, wonderful wisdom ! Confess ! did not Wisdom herself appear to you in person, and with her veil thrown back reveal to you her divine beauty? Nevertheless, I fear, if it is published, half the world will quarrel with you, if not the whole." After waiting a year, and being unable to find a pub- lisher for his Lob der Dummheit, Paul wrote to the same friend : " I left Hof last year (at the end of the vacation) full of hope, followed by the beautiful and variegated dreams with which a too-easily trusting phantasy brightened my future plans. No one, thought I, is happier than myself; my Essay will bring me a hundred dollars. With that I can live one summer, although the book will scarcely live so long. But I can write another for the next fair, with fewer faults, that will bring me more money. Herr Pro- fessor Seidlitz will have already disposed of this satirical abortion, and at my next visit will undoubtedly hand me the author's reward. " But Herr Professor Seidlitz had not disposed of my satire, and of course could not hand me the author's reward. Yet had the gentleman so long and so kindly G 2 124 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. patronized the book, by letting it lie on his desk, that the time when it should have been published, at Michaelmas fair, was half over. Now, I had the book, but no publisher. 1 read it through to quiet my ill-humour, and thanked God that I had found no publisher. ' Lie there in the corner,' I said, with paternal expression, to the little Eichter, 'together with school exercises, for thou art thyself no better. I will forget, for the world would certainly have forgotten thee. Thou art too young ever to have been old, and the milk-beard upon thy chin would never suffer me to believe that thou wouldst have grey hair.' " From this fit of angry enthusiasm my right hand awoke me, that had accidentally come in contact with my empty purse in my breeches pocket. The hand afterwards struck my stomach, that through its murmuring veto gave a wholly different direction to my resolutions. In short, I undertook again a wearisome work, and created in six months, observe, not in six days, a bran new satire, such as I now send you. Perhaps you will think I have said nothing to excuse myself; permit me to think I have said all. Think only of the anxiety with which one strives after a good, for the want of which the future is armed with greater terrors than even embitter the present. Think only of the melancholy discord between laughter at strange follies and discouragement over one's own future." While Paul was so occupied in preparing for the press his second book, " The Greenland Lawsuits," he neglected to write to his friend Vogel. After answering his reproaches, he says : " I thank God this steep mountain is passed now ; I can write again to my friend with my former freedom. Now I believe myself to be, by a sweet deception, not in my own, but in your apartment. Again I believe that I press your hand, and that you read in my moist eyes the remembrance of your past benevolence, and I read in yours the forgetful ness of my past faults. But enough of letter-writing, and something of book-writing. LIFE OF JEAN 1'AUL. 125 " My book has a thousand faults. It is overladen with comparisons, as the Eulogy of Stupidity was with antithesis. I could collect out of it a regiment of six hundred com- parisons. My satire commands with its scourge nothing but thoughts, from which every one may furnish himself with a comparison, as in the Persian camp every soldier had a mistress, and the king as many mistresses as soldiers. "You think, perhaps, I am wise to blame myself, lest I should be blamed by others ; as prisoners, for fear of being hanged, hang themselves in prison ; and, instead of the gallows, use a nail, and for rope a garter; or through previous criticism defend myself from every other, as the peasant, to secure himself from the thunderbolt, carries one that he has picked up, about with him in his pocket. "I acknowledge that an excess of com- parisons is really a fault; but can cold criticism subdue the charm of rich intemperance ? Does the wine-bibber with the red nose know the poisonous effect of excess ? He knows it well ; but he cannot fly from it. Even so consists the cold disapprobation of lavish ornament with the warm love of the same. There was a time when truth charmed me less than its ornament, the thought less than the form in which it was expressed. I was like the young painter who sketches a picture on the canvass from Nature, and then gives it the features of his beloved. "But how I radotire ! I cannot even lay aside my faults while I condemn them. A book without beauties is certainly a bad thing, but one without faults is not there- fore good. Toussaint asserts that such, even if it could exist, would possess only moderate merit. Besides, it is of little consequence whether my kindlein dies, and is gathered to its brothers, with a quick apoplexy or a slow consumption ; that is, whether the book is forgotten, with its ten or its twenty faults. To prevent literary death, no herb has yet grown, perhaps not even the laurel. "There are always many objections to the value of self-criticism. Who can protect his ears from the grating 126 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. of his file ! The file shapes, but begets no beauties. Not the poet merely, but his poem is born, not made. Jupiter begets the gods, but those who are not immortal he makes ; these are the work of his hands, but Minerva sprung ready- formed from his head. Besides, Genius, like Love, is winged, but blind ; it feels, like the polypus, the critical light, but sees it not. The self- critic lessens indeed the number of faults, but also of beauties ; for the time that would improve Genius, shortens that in which it would create ; as the one child nursed too long robs the embryo of nourishment. Ohejam satis est, will you exclaim ! " I send you my book, not merely to remind you of your kindness, but to invite your criticism ; that is, perhaps, I am so selfish as not to requite your kindness, but to hope for more. In your criticisms, or, which is the same thing, in your censure, I shall rejoice, because they are not more painful than instructive, as Herr Cantor Grossel, in Schwarzenbach, used to teach his pupils their letters with the same stick with which he whipped them. " Decide further if the satire is not too bitter though I believe satire, like beer, derives its value from its bitter- ness ; but the bitterness should not be heightened, like that of the Bohemian beer, by the mixture with the hops of soot and gall. Decide finally, whether shimmering modish bombast does not too often take the place of genuine strength of imagination, and whether the whole thing is not too much like certain birds, the penguin, with shining feathers, but little naked wings. This is certain, that if the book is a bad satire upon others, it is the best upon myself. But I shall write a book upon a book, as Martenelli emptied ever an ancient inkstand I know not how many inkstands, for he wrote two great quarto volumes upon it." The Greenland Lawsuits were a collection of moral, satirical sketches upon life, under the titles of " Litera- ture," " Theology," " Family Pride," " Women and Fops;" of these last, at this time, the author could know little. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 127 Paul had at this time gained sufficient courage to present himself personally, manuscript in hand, to the Leipsic booksellers. It was refused by all, and he sent it to the bookseller Voss, in Berlin. While he was waiting the answer from Voss, he learnt well the severest experience in physical existence, that of a cold stove and an empty stomach. But a sunbeam soon entered his cold and desolate apartment. On the last day of December, as he sat shivering in his chamber, a knock at the door brought the joyful intelligence, that Voss would receive and furnish out, this his first birth of love, so that it could appear with the other enfans perdus at the Easter fair in Leipsic. Through his whole life Jean Paul looked back to this moment with the deepest emotions of gratitude the moment when he received fifteen louis-d'ors, the first fruits of his industry and genius. Vogel, to whom he sent it, expressed the utmost delight and approbation of the book, and Paul answered : " Truth commands me to admire your letter, but I must not listen to it alone, as you praise my book too much. Did you forget that the same perfume that stimulates the nose so agreeably, brings clouds and tears into the eyes ? Your judgment of my book needs the other half, the blame. You send the silver only earlier than the pill, and the vapour of vinegar that perfumes comes only a little earlier than the vinegar that bites. " You ask after the plan of my life. Fate must first project it. My prospects furnish none. I swim upon occasion without rudder, but not without sails. I am no longer a theologian, and I follow no science ex prqfesso, and att only so far as they promote my authorship. Philosophy itself is indifferent to me, as I doubt of all. But my heart is here so full so full, that I am silent. In future letters, and when I have more time, I will write to you of my scepticism, and of my disgust at this foolish masquerade and harlequinade that they call life. "My Sketches have brought me fifteen louis-d'ors. 128 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The second part will be stronger and better than the first, and will sell dearer. Farewell ! I know not why, I am so melancholy that I could weep ! Oh ! we never weep more sweetly than when we know not why we weep. Love your friend. "J. P. F. R." This last extract allows us a glimpse into the real feelings and difficulties of Paul. He was writing facetious books, comic and satirical essays, while before him, in the future, stood the grim spectre of Want. He was trying to make others laugh, when he was so melancholy that he could himself weep ; like that poor comedian who was dying with melancholy, while he was exhausting his brain to amuse the world. We see also the origin of his peculiar manner of writing. It was not the spontaneous pouring out of an over full mind ; but his antitheses, and comparisons, and illustra- tions, were sought to embellish his ungrateful themes ; his sparkling crystals were distilled with much care and pains, and the poverty of his canvass thickly overlaid with jewels and ornaments. CHAPTER VI. EXTREME POVERTY FIRST SUCCESS COSTUME CONTROVERSY In the last extract I gave from Eichter's letters, A D I7si> the reader is made acquainted with the real state ** 19 - of his finances, and his painful struggles with actual want. His giving up all thoughts of a profession was as much a matter of necessity as choice. The question was not now how he should live, but if he should exist at all. As Carlyle expresses it, " he was at hand-grips with actual want." But at nineteen years of age, when he wrestled with poverty single-handed, there were added to these outward difficulties also moral pains, partly over the melancholy fate, partly over the sad and reckless incapacity of his brothers to take care of themselves. The most hopeful threw himself, from despair, into the Saale, and was drowned. Adam, .the barber, left his mother, as we have seen, and enlisted for a soldier, and Richter had to reconcile her to a profession, that at that time was looked on with fear and aversion. But there lay within him a giant's force, and stern unbending resolution. " He shook off the little evils of poverty, and contempt, and pain, as the lion shakes the dew-drops from his mane." With the fifteen louis-d'ors, after paying his debts, he was enabled to change his lodgings to a summer-house in the garden of his landlord, consisting, indeed, of only one small room, but where Paul could indulge the passion he carried through life, of studying in the open air. This little circumstance led to a curious episode, which his G 3 130 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. biographer calls his " costume martyrdom." Although it continued through many years it began about this time. Partly from necessity, partly from fancy, Paul had adopted a peculiar style of dress, entirely at variance with the fashion of the day. He writes to his mother " As I can make my vests last no longer, I have deter- mined to do without ; and if you send me some over shirts, I can dispense with these vests. , They must be made with open collars a la Hamlet ; but this nobody will understand ; in short the breast must be open, so that the bare throat may be seen. My hair also I have had cut. (It was the day of queues and powder.) It is pronounced by my friends more becoming, and it spares me the expense of the hair- dresser. I have still some locks a little curled." As already mentioned, he had hired a small room that opened into the Kornerchen garden, with the privilege also of walking in the garden at all times, night or day. The magister Grafenheim had also hired the principal building in this garden, which brought him into near neighbourhood with Paul. Paul, with good reason, supposed that he had au equal right to enjoy all the walks in the garden, and felt no disposition to imprison himself in his little apart- ment. But the magister was not of this opinion ; he chose to have the garden wholly to himself, and complained to the proprietor, requesting him to restrain Paul's walks, and, moreover, complaining of the offence against fashion and propriety in the bare throat of his plebeian neighbour. Paul defended himself with meek condescension in a letter to the magister, in which he tells him, " that he will no longer approach so near to his dwelling as he did yesterday ; that he will visit the garden only at morning and evening, so that he shall rarely be offended with a dress, that his convenience, health, and poverty oblige him to wear. Moreover, he would, when walking in the garden, cover his throat, and that he should not be annoyed by other students, as he had only one friend, who visited him, and not the garden." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 131 The magister was not satisfied with these four conditions, and soon complained that they had been infringed, and that Paul had actually passed a certain statue, that stood without his limits. At this, Paul's patience vanished. He wrote again, " that he revoked what he had said before ; that the statue had nothing to do with his promises ; that he had hired the privilege of walking in the garden, and had paid for it ; and that he would walk whenever and wherever he pleased, without fear of Herr Korner, or the magister." And he closed with these remarkable words : " You despise my mean name ; nevertheless, take note of it, for you will not have done the latter long, before the former will not be in your power to do." But, at the same time, with a generous spirit of accommodation, Paul made this proposal : " I will freely consent to leave the garden, where the satisfaction of one disturbs the enjoyment of another, on condition that I pay for an apartment that I had hoped to enjoy for half a year the rent of three months only. It depends on you, therefore, whether you will constrain Herr Korner to accept these conditions." They were accepted ; and Paul evacuated the garden, and returned to his old room at the Three Roses, Peterstrass. Paul's martyrdom was not at an end. He went down to Hof, to visit his mother, where his family were not in great favour, and his appearance made the most astonishing impression, not only upon the inhabitants of the little city, but upon his own family. So important, indeed, was the matter considered, that his firm friend, the pastor Vogel, remonstrated most earnestly in letters, that are yet pre- served, against this singularity. Paul seems to have been partly sensible that it was affectation, and, mild tempered as he was, he would not yield in this particular, but went about a la Hamlet for seven years. Some extracts from letters of this period will show the course of this costume controversy. Vogel wrote to him : " You value only the inward, not 132 LIKE OF JEAN PAUL. the outward the kernel, not the husk. But, with your permission, is not the whole composed of the form and the matter ? Is one disfigured, so is the other. You condemn probably the philosophy of Diogenes, that separated its hero so much from other men, that it placed him in a tub ? How can you justify yourself if your philosophy serves you in the same way ? No, my friend, you must open your eyes, and see that you are not the only son of earth, but like the ants in their ant-hills, you live in the tumult of life " Would you not hold that painter unwise who should offend in costume paint his Romans in sleeves and curled hair ; the person of a man with petticoat and open bosom ? Oh ! that is not to be endured ! Yet, a couple of pro- verbs ' Swim not against the tide.' ' Among wolves, learn to howl.' ' Vulgar proverbs ! ' will you say. Yes, but elevated wisdom. The true philosophy is, not for others to adapt themselves to us, but for us to adapt our- selves to others. Whoever forgets this great axiom, advances few steps without stumbling. But what do you seek ? In the midst of Germany to become a Briton ? Do you not in this way say, ' Put on your spectacles, ye little people, and behold ! see that you cannot be what I am.' Ah, to speak thus, your modesty forbids! Avoid everything that in the smallest degree lessens your value among your contemporaries." To this gentle remonstrance, Paul replied, " I answer your letter willingly, for the sake of its argument, which your good heart rather than your good head has dictated. Your proverbs are not reasons, or if they are, they prove too much for, if I would swim with the stream, this stream would often make shipwreck of my virtue ; the kingdom of vice is as great and extensive as the kingdom of fashion ; and if I must howl with the wolves, why should I not rob with them ? ' If the shell is injured the kernel suffers also,' you say. But wherefore? Let us decide what does injure the shell. You consider that an LIFE OF JEAK PAUL. 133 evil to Diogenes that others hold an advantage. Did the so-called injury rob this great man of his philosophy, his good heart, his wit, his virtue ? It robbed him not but it gave him peace, independence of outward judgments, freedom from tormenting wants, and the incapacity of being wounded ; and with this consciousness he could ven- ture upon the punishment of every vice. Great man ! Thank God that thou wert born in a country where they wonderedat thy wisdom, instead of, as at present, punish- ing it. Fools would commit the only wise man to a mad- house ; but, like Socrates, he would ennoble his prison. " ' The painter would be ridiculous in offending against costume.' This is true, but more witty than applicable to me. I need only say, that the painter of costume is not the greatest in his art ; he is great whose pencil creates, not after the tailor, but after God; paints bodies, not dresses. The painter's creations can only please through form, which is the shell ; and I am designed for that ? Is it my destination, with my organized ugliness, to please ? Scarcely if I would. " But enough. I hold the constant regard that we pay in all our actions to the judgments of others as the poison of our peace, our reason, and our virtue. Upon this slave's chain have I long filed, but I scarcely hope ever to break it." This humorous controversy was kept up for some months on paper, as games of chess are played in Holland, without either party saying check to the king. At last Paul consented, as he called it, to inliull his person, and put an end to this tragi-comical affair, by the following circular addressed to his friends. " ADVERTISEMENT. " The undersigned begs to give notice, that whereas cropped hair has as many enemies as red hair, and said enemies of the hair are likewise enemies of the person it grows upon; whereas, further, such a fashion is in no 134 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. respect Christian, since otherwise, Christian persons would adopt it ; and whereas especially, the undersigned has suffered no less from his hair than Absalom did from his, though on contrary grounds; and whereas it has been notified to him, that the public proposed to send him into his grave, since the hair grows there without scissors : he hereby gives notice, that he will not willingly consent to such extremities. He would, therefore, inform the noble, learned, and discerning public in general, that the under- signed proposes on Sunday next to appear in the various important streets of Hof, with a false, short queue ; and with this queue, as with a magnet, and cord of love, and magic rod, to possess himself forcibly of the affections of all and sundry, be they who they may. "J. P. F. R." CHAPTER VII. l.OVE PASSAGE SECOND VOLUME OF GREENLAND LAWSUITS PRESSING POVERTY FLIGHT FROM LEIPSIC DOMESTIC CIRCUMSTANCES IN HOF BOOK OF DEVOTION. IN the summer of 1783, after the publication of A.D. 1733, the first part of the " Greenland Lawsuits," Paul *** went to Hof to pass the vacation with his mother, and there occurred there a little love adventure, which must not be omitted in a full account of his life. Instead of a universal acknowledgment of the value of his book, it received only a partial admiration, and from one especially, who appears under the name of Sophia. This she expressed with so much enthusiasm, that Paul's susceptible heart was instantly wanned, although, instead of propitiating his beloved, as formerly, with sugared almonds and drawings of kings, he sent her volumes of rare extracts, which he had made out of the latest litera- ture. Some love billets were exchanged, and it went even so far that the young lady presented Paul with a ring ; but he was too poor to offer her anything in return but his empty silhouette. Upon his return to Leipsic, he waited nearly a month, and when he wrote, the letter was filled with trivial excuses for not writing sooner. The young lady remonstrated, and demanded back her ring. Paul answered: "Every sort of dissimulation is hateful to me, therefore it shall be wholly removed from the answer to your late letter. The letter that punishes my negligence, pleases me better than the one that pardons it, and you appear to love me better when you are angry with me, than when you are reconciled. 136, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The letter contains the silhouette of your head, but not that of your heart. The light of the one has taken the place of the warmth of the other, and I hear your reason speak in it, but not your love. Shall the warmth of your love depart with the warmth of summer ? This suspicion your next letter will destroy or confirm. The ring that I sent back yesterday, and the want of which you so sadly regret, you need not send me again. Not the ring, but the form it gilded, was valuable to me, and such an image, yes, a better likeness, you can always present me." This letter remained unanswered ; and Paul, whose fancy represented the good he was losing in more charm- ing colours, or who perhaps felt that he had not met the young lady's love with the warmth it deserved, wrote again : " The curtain is torn upon which so many hopes were painted, and our love will fade with the flowers that put forth their short bloom at the same period. This, and nothing else, can I understand from your neglect to answer my last letter. " We will not part from each other with reproaches. I leave you as we leave the grave, that we love and must ever love ! You can take your love from me, but not your image ; that will endure longer in my heart than mine in yours. You cannot deprive me of the happiness I have enjoyed, for the recollection of it will daily be repeated. May he who has taken my place, or who will take it, reward you for the happiness that you have given me, and may you reward him by loving him better than you have him who now is nothing more to you than, " Yours, &c., "J. P. F. R." Thus philosophically, after asking for the return of his letters, and telling her she could use his silhouette for papilottes, ended the love passage between Richter and the maiden of Hof, called Sophia. How different from his later loves ! His letters to her are stiff, cold, and poor in LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 137 thought, compared with letters to his male friends ; and when we recall that childish love for the little peasant girl, whose first stolen kiss seemed ever to glow in his memory; and when we think of the glowing, but pure light in which he could paint a higher and more spiritual love, so that he kindled the hearts of the German youth, and made himself the idol of the women of Germany, we cannot avoid the conclusion, that the attachment was chiefly on the side of the lady, and that Jean Paul suffered very little from the disappointment of his hopes. We can easily understand why the mother of Sophia for she was so fortunate as to have a mother should cut short the course of a love that promised only starvation to both parties. But that the young lady still cherished a lingering attachment for Paul, appears from her refusal to give up the book of extracts, that he had only intended to lend her. In December he writes to his mother : " In Hof is a blue bound writing-book of mine, with extracts from the latest authors. I gave it to Sophia to read. Pray forget not to demand it back." His mother did not succeed. The book was retained, and Paul wrote again " My book in Hof is only one copied out of other authors. I will ask no more for it. I present it to Mademoiselle with all my heart, and she knows well I would also present myself." Paul returned to Leipsic after the summer vacation, with the most extraordinary hopes as to his literary suc- cess, and consequently his introduction into the elevated circles of Leipsic society. The absence of a court, and of an arrogant aristocracy, together with the independence of the commercial class, and the great number of young literary aspirants, produced more equality of condition in this than in many of the German cities. Successful talent, or distinction in any art, was then in Leipsic, as it is with us at present, a passport to the most distinguished society ; and music, the passion of the Germans, was the medium of union in all classes. The circumstance also, that the 138 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. public offices were generally held by learned men, created a rare esteem for literature in a mercantile city like Leipsic. Paul had seen only the outside of concerts, balls, the theatre ; he had marked the charming exterior of the beautiful women of the upper class, and his fancy painted all these objects in ever-changing and ever-glowing colours. The touching naivete with which he has described the longing for the enjoyment of these scenes in one of his novels, does not exceed the vividness of his own desires to be admitted to them*. He had sold the second volume of his Greenland Law- suits to Voss, at the Michaelmas fair, for one hundred and twenty-six dollars, and he was at this time zealously em- ployed upon the third. The singular infatuation of Richter, in imagining his genius adapted to satire, was not yet enlightened, although this second volume suffered more than the first from poverty of materials. Strange, that Richter should be- lieve, that with the limited knowledge of mankind that a secluded village at the foot of the Fichtelgebirge, and a student's garret, could yield him, without characters, without action of any kind, he could write satires that would interest the reading public. Even Montaigne could not carry out his satires without living examples, and dramatic conversations with himself; and Carlyle, in our own day, has introduced a shadowy dramatis persona, in order to give a local habitation in the memory, to his beautiful satire of the Tailor. Paul, as usual, sent his second volume to his friend Vogel, assuring him, "that, as it was smaller and dearer than the other, it must be better." Not so thought Vogel, and he had the honesty and candour to answer : " Your second part will be read only by critics, and will not be relished or understood by the rest of the world. Whatever gives us trouble, that we are obliged to see through a telescope, or to dig out of the depths of the * In the character of Walt, in the Flegeljahre. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 139 earth, fails to please. It may be heavy gold; but the tinkling money that gives us our inheritance in the easiest way, is more desirable." And it must be confessed, that the dearest lovers of Jean Paul, of the present day, who read these satires as the first spiritual embryo of their favourite, find them heavy and uninteresting. For his third volume, which was now finished, Paul could find neither editor nor publisher. He presented it to booksellers' fairs, and literary collectors, in vain. Necessity at length suggested the only alternative, to send it, with letters stating his necessities, to distinguished and learned men. But he had not the good fortune that Crabbe has so well described, when he presented his poems at the door of the magnanimous Burke, and walked the whole night in anxious uncertainty as to their recep- tion. Paul received no answers to his letters, or was repulsed, unheard, from every door. He wrote short essays for periodicals and magazines ; but there was a sin- gular virtue in the readers of that day in Germany, and Jean Paul could create no taste for satire. While his fond expectations and unripe hopes were fast falling to the ground, the money he had received for the second volume was consuming also, and the poverty of the youth was again as pressing as ever. In this necessity he had no other alternative but to return to Hof. Under the same roof with his mother, their united housekeeping would be less burdensome to Paul than their separate expenditure. He had long since given up his evening meal ; and his supper of dried prunes he ate walking in the Kuchen garden. For about half a year, Paul had been in debt to his victualler for his mid-day frugal meal, and she gave him not a moment's peace, but seasoned his small pittance with the daily demand, " Now, Heir Eichter, has not your golden ship arrived ? " At last, in despair, he resolved to fly. His friend Oerthel bore his packed trunk to the spot v.-here the post- wagon would pass ; and Paul, who imagined 140 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. that, on account of his peculiar dress, and especially the manner of wearing his hair, he was known to the whole city, purchased, with his last groschen, a false queue, which he attached carefully under his hat behind, and with- drew himself from the city, where he had been nearly lost, as Munchausen drew himself from the swamp. In the manner in which Paul left Leipsic, he created the only real adventure of his youth, and the simplicity of his proceedings shows the remarkable naivete of his cha- racter. He thought it necessary to disguise himself in a city where scarcely ten persons knew him, and in the twilight to follow his friend, who carried his portmanteau. Even to his last days Richter loved to relate his flight, as he called it, out of Leipsic. As soon as Paul found himself under his mother's roof, he wrote to his friend Oerthel, who remained at the uni- versity : " I send thy mantle back ; and merely on account of the cold wind, of which in Leipsic I had formed no idea, do I owe thee more gratitude for this, and for the over-hose, than I could have believed possible. Speaking without hyperbole, to them I owe it that I was not wholly con- gealed, instead of having only my right hand frozen, on my arrival. I can scarcely write, and should this inflexibility, like that of all frozen limbs, return every winter, I shall be constrained to put off writing satires until the summer, and be like those porcupine men in London, who can only embrace their friends in moulting time. I journeyed under Herman's name, and first gave my own at my own door. I heard, on the way, one peasant say to another, who was under the strict government of his wife, ' You have found your Mann in her.' I took it merely for a bon mot*. " Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow band, that indicates a small wound, drawn crosswise over the brow. I saw this on a beautiful girl on the way. * Mann is German for husband. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 141 One should try, from time to time, to give his wife a little wound on the forehead, that she might be obliged to bind her brow with this pretty ornament." The darkest period of our hero's life was when A D 1784> he fled from Leipsic and went down in disguise *** 21> to Hof. The lawsuit had stripped his mother of the little property she inherited from the cloth-weaver, and she had been obliged to part with the respectable homestead where the honest man had carried on his labours. She was now living with one or more of Paul's brothers, in a small tenement, containing but one apartment, where cooking, washing, cleaning, spinning, and all the beehive labours of domestic life, must go on together. To this small and overcrowded apartment, which hence- forth must be Paul's only study, he brought his twelve volumes of extracts, a head that in itself contained a library, a tender and sympathizing heart a true, high- minded, self-sustaining spirit. His exact situation was this : The success of the first and second volumes of his Greenland Lawsuits had encouraged him to write a third a volume of satires, under the singular name of " Selec- tions from the papers of the Devil;" but for this we have seen he had strained every nerve in vain to find a pub- lisher. This manuscript, therefore, formed part of the little luggage which his friend Oerthel had smuggled out of Leipsic. It was winter, and from his window he looked out upon the cold, empty, frozen street of the little city of Hof, or he was obliged to be a prisoner, without, as he says, " the prisoner's fare of bread and water, for he had only the latter ; and if a gulden found its way into the house, the jubilee was such, that the windows were nearly broken with joy." At the same time, he was under the ban of his costume martyrdom ; this he could have laughed at and reformed ; but hunger and thirst were actual evils, and when of prisoner's food he had only the thinner part, he could well exclaim, as Carlyle has said " Night it must be e'er Friedland's star will beam." 142 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " Without, was no help, no counsel, but there lay a giant force within ; and so from the depths of that sorrow and abasement, his better soul rose purified and invincible, like Hercules from his long labours." "What is poverty," he said, at this time, "that a man should whine under it ? It is but like the pain of piercing the ears of a maiden, and you hang precious jewels in the wound." The very day of Paul's arrival at home, the 16th of November, he made known to his friend Vogel, the pastor of Rehau, his return. He seems to have felt some timidity about presenting himself at his house, as he had been a negligent correspondent. But there was no reason. Vogel answered immediately " I am so rejoiced at your arrival in Hof, that for joy I cannot contain myself, much less write a letter. Hof is only two hours distant from Rehau, and in the morning I shall see my best friend there, unless in the morning, at right early daylight, you step into the old apartment." The intercourse of the tWo friends was immediately esta- blished on the most familiar footing. Vogel was himself an author, and his manuscripts were sent to Paul for his criticism and correction. In one of them Paul accuses his friend of stealing five comparisons from him fifty would scarcely have been missed from Richter's, at this time, exuberantly ornamented style. As Vogel's library had been the place where Paul had become his own instructor, he immediately resumed his rights there, and there was a continual sending backwards and forwards of books, manuscripts, and letters, and Paul's younger brother was the Mercury. Paul was also a favourite with the Frau Anna, the wife of Vogel ; and as the philosophy of hunger was studied so thoroughly at home, we may easily imagine that she took a womanly interest in providing for Richter, when he visited them, something more than the intellectual food of the library. That he had more pressing wants, the note of the 25th of December will show : LIFE OF JEAN PAtL. 143 " You are the Pope from whom the destitute souls in Hof receive a dispensation from fasting. You go further than the Pope. You give yourself the food that you per- mit. This time I pray for the Hareticorum Catalogus. Belisaire oder auch Lightfooii hora Hebraica, &c. Solo- mon asked for wisdom rather than riches, and received both. I imitate him in this letter may I also receive his answer ! "My mother is in the greatest perplexity. This festi- val's gifts and the tax falling at the same time, have wholly exhausted her. Ah, dear friend, if I could only help her ! I mean if you could do me and her so great a favour! If from your church income you could lend us about twenty-five gulden, secured upon a safe mortgage ! Dear friend, if you can do not desert me ! " The request must have been granted, for soon after Paul wrote in this sportive manner : " I have no news, except that the destruction of Hof by an earthquake has been prophesied, and appears to be confidently expected. It is to be hoped, in this short room for repentance, we may be all truly converted. I shall be well satisfied if I do not arrive in heaven so soon, for I would willingly, before, enjoy one more visit at Rehau, where I live in such freedom that I am not obliged from politeness to speak, if I would rather be silent. If we are neither swallowed nor shaken, I will visit you next week, and frizzle the heads of your spiritual chil- dren. \J..^;K,I;' "Locke! if thy spirit should overlook this letter while the Herr Vogel is reading it, influence him for the best, and induce him to send me thy work upon the Human Understanding, to improve my own ; for I know well thy spirit powerfully inspires his. (If I were in your place, I would not turn the leaf, for, dear heaven ! what can come now but something that will not please you.) " Having done with Locke, I must turn to some one else, and it is happy for me that the Saint Anna* comes * The sportive title of the Frau Vogel. 144 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. to my help, who, according to the Catholic faith, can enrich. Truly, Saint Anna, tell me thyself, is it suitable for me to pray again to the Herr Pastor Vogel, (who has already done so much for the nourishment of the two elementary parts of my existence,) to promise me again, in the name of my mother, eight or ten gulden from the revenue of God's house ? At least it is more suitable for the Saint Anna that she should present such a prayer in the name of benevolence. Thou art far holier than I, poor satire writer, and he can hardly deny thee. It is enough that thou art a woman ! " If, now, the ill-humoured church fathers should step into the room, use all thy power, whatever may be the reliques, to work a miracle. Give to my mother, in the eyes of the old fathers of the church, the form of the Herr Pastor; this is very easy you will only have to draw upon her a pair of hosen and a morning gown, and furnish her with a good stock of heterodoxy, reason, and gaiety. " P.S. Should the Saint Anna forget to say to you, that the whole thing is on account of an extremely pressing circumstance, that will last only as long as the moon, I do it herewith." I have quoted these letters that the reader may see in what friendly relations Richter lived with the family at Kehau ; and although there was an attempt to poison this mutually confidential intercourse by the slanders of some evil-minded persons in Hof, Paul's noble character was too well appreciated by the pastor and his wife, for them to succeed. The distance from Hof to Vogel's house was only a two hours' walk, and the protecting Saint Anna would not fail on a Sunday or holiday, when she expected the welcome Hofer friend, to offer those graceful and kind attentions, that only a woman, let alone a saint, knows how to bestow. Thus Paul continued, almost without a momentary inter- ruption of his cheerfulness, to study and write, never giving up the hope, the trusting confidence, that what he so pain- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 145 fully wrought out in concealment and poverty would one day appear in the full light of fame. Two books of this period, equally curious for the strange circumstances under which they were produced, remain. The mothers record of her gains from spinning cotton, which she carried far into the night, and no doubt often wetted with her tears*; and Paul's "Little Book of Devotion/'f composed also in the solitary night, when he strengthened his high-hearted resolution by self-communion and humble resignation to the will of God. A few extracts will shew the spirit of this book. OF PAIN. Every evil is an occasion and a teacher of resolution. Every disagreeable emotion is a proof that I. have been faithless to my resolutions. An evil vanishes, if I do not ask after it. Think of a worse situation than that in which thou art. Not to the evil, but to myself, do I owe my pain. Epictetus was not unhappy ! Vanity, insensibility, and custom, make one steadfast. Wherefore not virtue still more ? Never say, if you had not these sorrows, that you would bear others better. What is sixty years' pain to eternity ? Necessity, if it cannot be altered, becomes resignation. OF GLOBY. Most men judge so miserably ; why would you be praised by a child ? No one would praise you in a beggar's frock ; be not proud of the esteem that is given to your coat. Do not expect more esteem from others because you deserve more, but reflect, that they will expect still more merit in yourself. * Of this hard-earned money, twelye shillings, nearly half, went to pay for Samuel's new boots, t Andachtsbuchlein. H 146 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Do not seek to justify all thy actions. Value nothing merely because it is thy own, and look not always upon thyself. Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities for good actions, but make use of common situations. A long-con- tinued walk is better than a short flight. Never act in the heat of emotion ; let reason answer first. Look upon every day as the whole of life, not merely as a section ; and enjoy the present without wishing, through haste, to spring on to another lying-before-thee section. Seek to acquire that virtue in a month, to which thou feelest the least inclined. It betrays a greater soul to answer a satire with patience, rather than with wit. We never think of the sorrow of our dreams ; wherefore should we in the dream of life ? If thou would'st be free, joyful, and calm, take the only means that cannot be affected by accident Virtue. This little book, which should be called a manual of practical philosophy rather than a book of devotion, strengthened Paul's cheerful stoicism, to which he added devout prayer and strenuous exertion, " Evil," said he, " is like the nightmare ; the instant you bestir yourself, it has already ended." His strength and energy, and at last his trust, increased, and was established on the immoveable foundations of faith and truth. CHAPTER VIII. CHRISTIAN OTTO STUDIES HERMAN HIS DEATH. IMMEDIATELY after Richter's return to Hof, as AD mentioned in the last chapter, he formed that ffit - 22 - remarkable friendship with Otto, which continued without a moment's interruption through the life of the poet, and on the part of Otto it did not then cease. Grief for the loss of Richter hastened his own death, and put an end to his efforts to perpetuate the memory of his friend in the memoir, that has till this time furnished the materials for our biography. In the midst of the hard necessities that had driven Richter from Leipsic, his victualler followed him to Hof, and presented his demand for the frugal repasts he had furnished. Paul was in the greatest perplexity. It was impossible to send the man, who had come this distance on foot, empty away, and so large a demand was beyond the help of his friend, the Pastor Vogel, of Rehau. In his distress he turned to the only men in Hof who would not have repulsed him from their doors ; these were the two brothers Otto, who from this time united themselves to him with intimate sympathy. They became surety for the whole demand, and sent the man back with a considerable sum. This tormenting spirit, however, did not inform Paul that the brothers had become surety for the debt, and they had too much delicacy to mention it ; so that every fine day, this inexperienced debtor was alarmed with the dread of the appearance of his inexorable creditor. 148 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Christian Otto was the son of the Vesper preacher* in Hof, who, from his ascetic character, and the severe ear- nestness of his preaching, was called the Strafprediger. Christian had been sent to the university at Leipsic ; he returned after the death of his father, and occupied the same house with his mother and sisters in Hof. He had been destined to the ministry, as " the theological books were all ready for him in his father's study ;" but his taste led him to devote himself to general science ; and as the circumstances of the family were easy, he was able to follow his inclination. In all other respects the circumstances of the two friends were alike, and served to knit them in the bonds of the closest friendship. The elements of Otto's character were warm sympathy, unequalled tenderness, and self-sacrificing love, together with severe integrity and steadfastness of purpose. The penetration and discrimination of his mind, with his sympathy in all that was highest and noblest in literature and life, singularly fitted him for the office of a critic ; and in after years, when Richter had found publishers for his works, he never printed a line that had not passed twice through the ordeal of Otto's perusal and criticism. As these years, spent with his mother in Hof, were the most uninterruptedly studious of Richter's life, it seems the place to give some account of the manner in which he pursued his studies. That plan must be a good one, and of use to others, of which he could say, " Of one thing I am certain, I have made as much out of myself, as could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more." First in importance, he aimed, in the rules he formed for himself, at a just division of time and power, and he never permitted himself, from the first, to spend his strength upon anything useless* He so managed his capital, that the future should pay him an ever-increasing interest on the present. The nourishment of his mind * The afternoon preacher in Protestant churches is called the Vetper prediger. Strafprediger repentance preacher. LIFK OF JEAN PAUL. 149 was drawn from three great sources living Nature, in connexion with human life ; the world of books, and the inner world of thought ; these he considered the raw material given him to work up. We have already mentioned his manuscript library. In his fifteenth year, before he entered the Hof gymnasium, he had made many quarto volumes, containing hundreds of pages of closely-written extracts from all the celebrated works he could borrow, and from the periodicals of the day. In this way he had formed a repertory of all the sciences. For if, in the beginning, when he thought himself destined to the study of theology, his extracts were from philosophical theology, the second volume contained natural history, poetry, and in succession, medicine, jurisprudence, and universal science. He had also anticipated one of the results of modern book-making. He wrote a collection of what are now called hand-books^ of geography, natural history, follies, good and bad names, interesting facts, comical occurrences, touching incidents, &c. He observed Nature as a great book, from which he was to make extracts, and carefully collected all the facts that bore the stamp of a contriving mind, whose adaptation he could see, or only anticipate, and formed a book which bore the simple title "Nature." When he meditated a new work, the first thing was to stitch together a blank book, in which he sketched the outlines of his characters, the principal scenes, thoughts to be worked in, &c., and called it " Quarry for Hesperus" " Quarry for Titan," &c. One of his biographers has given us such a book, containing his studies for Titan, which occupies seventy closely-printed duodecimo pages. Eichter began also in his earliest youth to form a dic- tionary, and continued it through the whole of his literary life. In this he wrote down synonymes, and all the shades of meaning of which a word was susceptible. For one word he had found more than two hundred. Add to this mass of writing, that he copied all his letters, and it is 150 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. surprising how any time remained. He made it a rule to give but one half of the day to writing, the other remained for the invention of his various works, which he accom- plished while walking in the open air. These long walks, through valley and over mountain, steeled his body to bear all vicissitudes of weather, and added to his science in atmospheric changes, so that he was called by his townsmen the weather prophet. He is described by one who met him on the hills, with open breast and flying hair, singing as he went, while he held a book in his hand. Richter at this time was slender, with a thin pale face, a high nobly-formed brow, around which curled fine blonde hair. His eyes were a clear soft blue, but capable of an intense fire, like sudden lightning. He had a well-formed nose, and, as his biographer expresses it, "a lovely lip- kissing mouth." He wore a loose green coat and straw hat, and was always accompanied by his dog. As Richter from every walk returned to the little house- hold apartment where his mother carried on her never- ceasing female labours, where half of every day he sat at his desk, he became acquainted with all the thoughts, all the conversation, the whole circle of the relations of the humble society in Hof. He saw the value and signi- ficance of the smallest things. The joys, the sorrows, the loves and aversions, the whole of life, in this Tenier's picture passed before him. He himself was a principal figure in this limited circle. He sat with Plato in his hand, while his mother scattered fresh sand on the floor for Sunday, or added some small luxury to the table on days of festival. His hardly-earned groschen went to pur- chase the goose for Martinmas, while he dreamed of his future glory among distinguished men. Long years he was one of this humble society. He did not approach it as other poets have done from time to time, to study for purposes of art the humbler classes ; he felt himself one of them, and in this school he learnt that sympathy with LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 151 humanity which has made him emphatically in Germany the " poet of the poor." Paul's solitude was suddenly enlivened by the return of Herman from Leipsic. Herman is described as singularly interesting. To the noble qualities of his mind was added a high degree of personal beauty. His tragical contest with an ever-increasing poverty, his eminent attainments, vainly opposed to an adverse destiny, seem to have given him a touching interest in Kichter's heart. His friendship for Herman was softened by something like the tenderness of love for a feminine nature, and he says, in a sportive letter, that if Herman had a sister he should certainly wish to marry her, provided that her face was like Herman's. t ?. The reader will pardon it if I anticipate events a little, and place together all I have been able to collect of the history of this favourite friend of Richter's. I have already mentioned, that the son of the poor tool- maker was always sheltered from blame by Paul's con- siderate kindness, when obliged by pressing work to come late to the gymnasium. He followed him to Leipsic, and there his struggles with poverty must have been as severe as Paul's. Prepossessing as he was in appearance and manner, he might have possessed the key to all hearts*; but with a glowing love of freedom, he was timid and desponding about himself. Beneath a cynical and rough expression he concealed in the sanctuary of his mind a tender, even a virgin purity, and an exalted sense of honour. By his talents and information he was prepared to take a high place among scientific men ; but through the want of means and patronage, the bloom and fruit of his mind was doomed to wither and fall. Herman could not, like Richter, withdraw into his hermitage, and there oppose to his discouragements a waiting and persevering * Herman's person was so charming, that when Paul gave him a letter to the Pastor Vogel, he wrote on the margin " that he must take care of his wife and daughters !" 152 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. industry ; he was obliged to wage a daily contest with the saddening realities of life. Providence seemed not to permit that Herman's spirit should find the resting-place it sought ; he was, therefore, not master of his dejection ; and Richter, at the same time he was contending with his own hypochondria, saw with bleeding heart his friend hastening to the abyss of despair. He now first learned that deepest pain of the inward soul, the tragical contest of a noble nature, like that of Herman's, with the dif- ficulties that social and political institutions place in the way of success ; the dark riddle of the discrepancy between the mighty impulses of the soul and the trivial and low circumstances that follow its action, and weary out its efforts in ijs struggles after a better existence. Herman having gained the object of his ardent wishes, a doctor's degree, came to settle as a physician in the place of his birth. But the proverb was true in this, as in Richter's case, " a prophet is without honour in his own country," and he removed to Erlangen ; but there he found little alleviation of his limitless poverty, and was obliged to sell his moveables and go to Gottingen, invited to give instructions there to a young Duke de Broglio, from Paris. This employment, although it had few charms for Herman, who thirsted for occupation in his beloved science, yet saved him from actual want, and his letter to Paul, informing him of his plans, is written with much cheer- fulness. Paul wrote to him about this time " I say to others, ' Be what you appear ;' to you I say ' Appear what thou art !' Suffer like a man the Alp pressure of fate. Does one call thee by name, thou wilt open thy eyes, and instead of a crushing spectre the sun will appear. . . . You are refreshed and charmed by the most pitiful fables as well as by the weightiest truths ; like the lark, now sing- ing above the cloud, anon nesting in the damp ground. I am the devil if I do not, some time or other, evolve your whole character in a romance. But make me LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 153 understand how I can persuade my readers of the probability of your cynical mania ; they will say I mis- understood the character, and compelled the inconsist- encies to meet. " From excessive love for your doctor's hat, I send you Haller's Physiology. The part relating to the breath, I read so hastily that I lost my own. Write to me not only all that you experience, but also what you think and what others think, either new or evil. Trust yourself upon the broad shining wings of your understanding, and make them bear you over the Dead Sea, so as not to fall spiritually dead within. Do not, as a city physician, cure others, and suffer yourself to die. Do not allow your necessities to steal away the elasticity of your soul ; for if you are Her- man, you will be angry that you have ever been an anti or pseudo Herman, although never to " Your friend, R." Richter's letters were always full of encouragement and hope, and to assist his removal, he sent him a louis-d'or, which we may well suppose he could ill spare. A letter from Herman follows : " Dear Riehter, Saturday evening, the &th of Septem- ber, I departed, like a Don Quixote, in the brown vest and hose in which I took leave of the Hof gymnasium and its plagues, which the fashion has hitherto forbidden me to appear in, and my white coat, which I was ashamed to wear in Hof, as it had already served me a year as a night frock. In the right pocket, paper, of which this letter is part, the sketch of the necessaiy information about Gottin- gen, a pocket handkerchief, and a pair of red gloves that Oerthel gave me when he read me the most touching passages out of ' Moritz' Soul Experiences.' In the left, a pair of slippers, a 'box with sealing-wax, penknife, and razor. Under my left arm an umbrella, carried more t Richter's other school and college at. 23. friend, Adam von Oerthel, returned from Leipsic to his father's residence in Topen, and his friendship soon suggested a plan to make his friend Richter's situation, as he hoped, more comfortable. He had a younger brother, and he proposed that Paul should remove into their family as his instructor, principally in French. Paul consented, as he said in his answer to Adam's letter, " to become the crutch, or the wooden leg, to help the boy's halting and . stumbling through the language." His letter is so characteristic, that it seems wrong to withhold it from the reader. "Lieber Oerthel, J'y ai refleche. Enfin,j'ai dit a moi meme : En verite, mon cher moi, je vois, que tu n'a pas encore les ailes, qui te doivent porter de Hof. Pendant quelles croissent, tu te peux bien faire une beau nid a Topen, ou ton ami a le sein. Tu me feras un grand plaisir, si tu y ensiegnes, ecris, et lis, c'est a dire, si tu y veux etre le maitre de ton eleve, du monde entier, et de toi-meme. Aussi dois-tu comptu pour quelque chose que tu y es assure de ne mourir pas de faim. Ne crains point de perdre ta liberte ; tu changes seulement des bornes qui t'environnent deja." It was on New-year's day, 1787, that our Richter, with the hope of a better year than the last, entered upon his office of teacher in the house of the Herr Kammerrath von LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 157 Oerthel, in Topen, not many hours' distance from his mother's residence. In leaving his mother's narrow apartment, the pressure of poverty was lightened, and he was relieved from the eternal din of female labours, but he did not find a paradise of rest in Topen. Herr von Oerthel was a man of limited mind, rough manners, and cold heart. His manner of granting a request was so ungracious, that no one, with proper self- respect, could make one ; and in becoming rich, he had learnt to love and to hoard his money. But Paul's pleasure in being with his friend Adam was great ; and there was also presented to him the opportunity of opening in the depths of the innocent and hopeful soul of a child, new treasures for psychological observation, in the unfolding of the spiritual and moral germs implanted there. Although Topen lay deeper than Hof, the place was colder, rougher, and more mountainous. Paul was also further removed from the Pastor Vogel, and his library. It required all the affection of his friend Adam to make his situation in Topen bearable, as he soon found himself wholly disappointed in the character and disposition of his pupil. He never learnt to know the worth of the instructor who opened his whole heart to him. Kichter was unable to gain the love or confidence of the boy, who soon joined himself with his inferiors to injure his instructor. A man of Paul's sensibility would have suffered still more in such a family, had not the Frau von Oerthel regarded him with motherly care. He had the good fortune in this, as in every other instance, to gain the affection of the mistress of the family. Even in his latest years, Paul never forgot the goodness of this excellent woman, nor the cup of coffee which she secretly conveyed to his apartment, and the liberal hand that was only restrained by the avarice of her husband. The painful and dispiriting circumstances in which Paul found himself in the Oerthelschen house, seeui at last to have broken down his almost superhuman cheerfulness 158 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and elasticity of spirits, and to have attacked and injured his robust health. He became subject to hypochondria. His gaiety deserted him. Herr Oerthel's law library did not furnish him with books that he loved, and the increas- ing illness of his friend Adam deprived the house of all cheerfulness. At length, after much suffering, his friend expired in his arms. Paul's situation became less tolerable. His pupil possessed none of the endearing qualities of his brother, and with the father, his relations were not more agreeable, especially as his manner of fulfilling the con- tract with Bichter was harsh and miserly. He was abso- lutely in debt to Paul when he left his house. With this bitter experience, Richter returned, with wounded and sorrowing heart, to his mother and his old apartment at Hof. I have passed over, with great rapidity, the two years and nine months that Richter was private instructor in the family at Topen. They were, perhaps, the most unhappy of his life, rendered so by the stupidity and ingratitude of his pupil, his dependence on a harsh and avaricious prin- cipal, the death of one of his most intimate friends, and the absence and despair of another. But these years of outward mortification and sorrow were rich in their spiritual influences upon the genius of the poet. The question must have constantly recurred to the readers of Hesperus and Titan, how could Jean Paul for so many years have written nothing but bitter satires ? How could talents, so consecrated in after years to all that is true and beautiful in life, have found any other expression than that of love ? Perhaps one answer may be, that every healthy and eminent faculty is augmented in power through self-denial. He has himself said, " The young poet should devoutly and inwardly love, wonder, pray, and weep, but he should pass slowly from thought to ex- pression. The emotions should shut themselves in their sanctuary ten long years from that corkscrew, the poet's LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 159 pen. Insealed, they are condensed, and do not evaporate in the air of the market and the world." * The fact was, that his genius had as yet found no adequate expression ; but a succession of emotions on a mind like Kichter's had the serious and deep effect of great epochs in life. The image of his suffering friend, contending with the bitterest poverty and the deepest despair, turned his inward eye to the whole of suffering humanity ; and at the same time that he sought grounds of consolation for his friend, he looked deeper into his own soul, and there found, not satire for the imperfections of humanity, but a true understanding of the end of all suffering, and poetical illustrations of the same. How could he avoid forming the resolution, which he soon ven- tured upon, instead of wounding with satire or enlivening with caricature, to use such weapons only occasionally, against the oppressor and the wicked ? How could he refrain from the effort to alleviate the great sum of human sorrow, which, in the image of his friend, he found beating at his heart, by elevating views of human destiny, and the use of the rich treasures of love, and hope, and trust, his genius had placed at his command ? At this time he wrote to his friend Otto " When my brother died, I believed a day could not come when my heart would be more crushed. But the day came ! My friend Herman died of a quickly-destroy- ing hypochondria, beloved by nature, hated by fortune ! Then I read Klopstock's Ode to Death, and changed my question, 'Of three friends, wherefore hast thou lost two?' into ' Why, in this sad waste of humanity, hast thou found three friends ? ' and I could make no other than a grateful answer." We have frequent indications through all Richter's works, how deeply he was shaken by the death of these friends ; and, after representing the dying scene of one * Preface to Satires. 160 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. of them, he says, "I felt, for the first time, that upon the earth I was not einheimisch " (a native, or at home). These were the experiences that awoke in his bleeding and softened heart a deeply sympathizing imagination; his spiritual nature made giant strides, and his feelings of despondency gave place to a self-consciousness of power. His book of devotion may be considered as the precursor of his serious writings. In this he first poured out, with- out reserve or shame, the earnest and love-needing soul of the poet. Here he first expressed those worthy and exalted aims to which he ever afterwards aspired. He analyzed his own soul, and entered upon the noble effort to acquire for himself and others the exalted hopes, and the sure trust in God, and in human virtue, that is not shut out from the poorest and most limited relations of human life. Among all the authors of the time, Herder was the one to whom Richter turned with the strongest sympathies. Herder's great views of the world were as if written from the anticipations of his own soul, and to Herder alone he unveiled the deeper and more earnest impulses of his mind, which to others were concealed beneath the light garment of wit and satire. He sent through Herder to Wieland, who was at this time the editor of the German Mercury, two serious essays for that publication. In this instance, as all through life, his success was decided by a woman. Herder was travelling in Italy ; but the peculiar union, not only of heart, but of literary pursuits, that existed between Herder and his accomplished wife, per- mitted her to open and read all his literary communi- cations. She was deeply touched and interested by his essay, Was der tod est ? What is death ? and this was an introduction to a friendship with that charming woman, that lasted to the end of life. Richter had written " These two essays I venture not to send immediately to Herr Wieland ; they might be lost in the caravan of paper that closes around him. Perhaps they will gain by being presented by you, as disagreeable news is mitigated when LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 16] brought to a king by a favourite, or a beloved : as I have absolutely nothing, and hope by these productions born in the midst of hypochondria, heart-sinking and vanishing health to gain something. Might you only find them worthy to be read by you ! Might you, through their merits, find me worthy to have read yours." Madam Herder sent the essays to Wieland, with the request, that if he did not insert them in the Mercury, to return them immediately ; but, alas ! they were mislaid in his caravan of papers. They were afterwards sent back, and Madam Herder wrote to Eichter, " As my husband is more in connexion with the editor of the German Museum, I have to-day sent your essays to him ; and as soon as I receive an answer, or money, I will imme- diately forward it to you. Your second piece, Was der Tod est? has deeply pleased me. I had nearly placed your true name at the bottom." The editor of the Museum consented to print the smallest piece, on Death, but sent him no money. Thus Richter's ship, freighted with hopes, came back without the expected treasure, but with one more valuable, the friendship of the Herders, to whom he was never afterwards a stranger. Caroline Herder was the first of the German female world whose heart Jean Paul gained through a poetic work ; and that, a little serious essay. This was the first acknowledgment he received of warm sympathy in his writings, and it was a prophetic assurance that from the German women he should receive through life the richest reward of Fame. It could not fail to make a deep im- pression upon his mind, that through a little serious and Earnest work, he had reached in a moment that for which he had been striving in vain through so many years, in volumes of witty and satirical essays. As soon as Eichter had returned from Topen, A 31> fortune for our Poet, were already disappointed, and he obtained only two hundred dollars for the four volumes of Hesperus, he had given up his school and returned to his mother's still humble dwelling; but he found himself obliged to resort again to teaching, and received the young sisters of his friends as daily pupils in his own house. He says " Very little remained after dividing the two hundred dollars with my mother and brother ; and I am yet compelled, like the bird, to learn to sing in a darkened cage." His next work seems to have grown out of the circum- stances of his present life, in which he sought to solve the Xerxes riddle, not to create new joys, but from the enchant- ment of fancy to bring out the infinite riches of the old. Quintus Fixlein is only an enlarged and more elaborate Wuz, in which the Poet represents the small and contented joys of the Schoolmaster, increased beyond measure by rising a step higher in the scale of social life, and becoming a Pastor. The Poet knew no situation more depressed than that of school teachers, in so far as a higher education made them more sensitive to the poverty and limitations of their actual life. In BO situation in Germany are the discouragements and deceptions of life more apparent. At K 19i LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the same time lie could attain the other aim of all his writings, to contend for the oppressed against the original causes of oppression, the institutions of the state and the privileges of birth, and so, in a double sense, be the advo- cate of the poor*. The pecuniary reward that Paul received for the Hesperus was far the least of his compensations. After the publica- tion of that work, letters poured in upon him from every side. Vogel, wha had been estranged from him, renewed his friendship and his correspondence. Even those who had known him long were inspired with new admiration. Otto, who had judged his former works with calm severity, which was indeed the foundation of his own character, was excited by this to the most glowing expression of deep and inward joy. The joyful sense of the approbation of his fiaends, and the consciousness that, in striving to embody his own ideal, he had reached a higher point, though far below hia aim, made the summer of the year IT 94 the most precious he had yet enjoyed. The happiness of Richter was increased during the summer by a visit to Bayreuth. He was drawn there by his acquaintance with Emanuel, a Jewish merchant, whose genial and benevolent character attracted Puchter's esteem. Emanuel had been, like Wordsworth's Matthew, in early life a travelling merchant to the different villages in the Fichtelgebirge, until, through his activity and extreme honesty, he had gained the confidence of every one, and became a wealthy banker, or what we call an estate broker. The knowledge of the world gained by such a life, the union of integrity and feeling, originality and truth, acquired for him unlimited confidence, which was increased by a sin- gularly noble and interesting exterior. His peculiar busi- ness opened to him an extensive correspondence, especially with accomplished women, in which all the bloom of his * As Quihtvs Fixlein is known to the public through Carlyle's admirable translation, it is unnecessary to enter into any analysis of one of the most simple of Jean Paul's works. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 195 mind and heart was expressed. A sight of this corre- spondence had attracted Jean Paul to the writer. Emanuel met him with that reserve and self-respect which the higher natures among that oppressed people, the Jews, assume, from the notion that benevolence alone ex- cited his interest. This, for some time, kept up a reserve between them, that ceased after the publication of Hesperus. Emanuel was delighted with the Oriental glow and rich- ness of illustration in that work, and Bichter found in his new friend treasures of observation and experience, which he seized to enrich his future works*. For the first time in his life, Paul found himself in a study, furnished with articles of luxury and taste, in an elegant street in the little city of Bayreuth, where ducal residences alternated with two-story houses of red sand- stone, and the ornamental fountains of princely castles were intermixed with the green blinds of village houses. What was his joyful astonishment to find, twelve whole hours-t from Hof, his own writings known and read ! The friendly reception he met with among the accom- plished men of the city, contrasted as it was with the small value that was expressed for his poor family in Hof, gave him no doubt a predisposition for this city, and led to the reso- lution he afterwards adopted, after many changes, to make this the place of his future home. In Bayreuth, he had the double joy of finding himself appreciated, and, for the first time, becoming acquainted with an accomplished woman of high rank, the original from which he drew his Clotilde in Hesperus. She had been described to him by the pen of a friend, that might have been " cut by the god of love himself," and she had also written to him, * Emanuel's mind was richly furnished with the knowledge and images derived from Oriental poetry and philosophy ; and to Richter, who from childhood had been fascinated with these subjects, he afforded, in addition, a treasure of observation and experience. + Stunde is used in Germany for distances : thus, " Es ist eine Stunde bis dahin, "It is an hour's walk" means about two English miles. Bayreuth was twenty-four miles from Hof. K 2 196 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. asking for his friendship and correspondence in return ; and at the same time had warned him, that he must not rely on the description that had been given of her ; for her portrait, both physical and moral, had been heightened by the colouring of love. Now, when he had seen the ori- ginal, he wrote thus to Otto : " Touching the beautiful Clotilde. Saturday evening,, as soon as I arrived, I seized a pen to invite myself to visit her at five o'clock. She sent a billet by the return of the servant, in which she turned the hands of my watch two hours back. ' We will both,' she said r ' go about three o'clock through the Her- mitage.' (This was a princely garden in Bayreuth.) I crept then into the lower story of the Rutzensteenish house, and through beautiful rooms into a third, where she sat, half concealed by a curtained and flowery window, listening to two nightingales. Could I describe her, you would have a wholly new female character in your head, or rather in your heart. She is of a majestic height, is twenty-seven years old, and has a very slightly arched, but well-formed nose. A half-shadowy reflection of rose-colour was drawn over her face, which departs a little from the female oval; with the most beautifully ennobled Berlin expression. In the beginning merely, she made with the head eight or nine and a half (I may err in the number) motions too many, but her window conversation with me was full of benevolence, decision, and generosity. When she sings, her two nightingales strike in, and altogether is as if one's heart must escape by the enchantment from the breast." Paul had also the satisfaction in Bayreuth of having his Hesperus read by the bedside of the old Lady Plotho, the patroness of his father, who- was now on her death-bed, and who recalled the time when he used to stand at her breakfast table, and read the newspapers to her. After Paul's return from Bayreuth, he wrote to Ema- nuel : LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 197 "July, 1795. " The day that I left Bayreuth, the longest day of the year, was my shortest and happiest. Since then, I hear nothing of my friends. Are you then nightingales, that after St. John's-day are silent ? In Bayreuth, my moments were roses, and my hours polished brilliants ; so much the more readily do these images arise, like buried pictures, and the intoxication of memory renews my thirst for the present joy-cup, and joy begets hcimweh. " It is wonderful that men, in seasons of happiness, in youth, in beautiful places, in the fairest season of the year, incline more surely to the enthusiasm of longing ; they think oftener of a future world, and more readily form pictures of death ; while the opposite takes place In want, in age, in Greenland, and in winter. Thus the best men are humble through happiness ; pious, tender, thirsting for a higher happiness: misfortune makes them proud, severe, and full of earthly plans. With bad men it is often exactly the reverse. After praise, a man is modest and humble ; when blamed, he asserts an opposing pride. Thus the tear of joy is a pearl of the first water, the mourning tear only of the second. I begin a ball with gaiety, and conclude it with melancholy. Prolonged sounds of music, long-continued dancing, the midnight starry heavens, soften, as it were, the heart, as melon-seeds are made to swell in sweet wine, and the first shoot from this seed is a weeping willow."* In the mean time, Richter's industry was unremitting. Before the close of this year, 1 796, the Blumen-Frucht- und-Dornenstucke appeared t. This is a collection of pieces, one of which is the singular dream of the dead Christ, translated by Madame de Stael, that made Richter first known out of Germany. The longest of the fruit-pieces * I am too ignorant of horticulture to know whether this is truth or poetry. TR. t Flower Fruit and Thorn Pieces. 198 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. is the history of the poor's advocate, Siebenkas, one of the most remarkable, and, at his time, the most personal, of all Jean Paul's works. Under the veil of fictitious charac- ters, he describes his own transition from the every-day life of reality to the higher ideal of life of poetry and imagi- nation. This romance is remarkable also for a description of a Poppenshaw, or bird-shooting, so like that of Scott's, in Old Mortality, that if the German novel had been known at that time, we might almost imagine Scott had taken a hint from it. The actors in Richter's are a poor's advocate, a shoemaker, and a hairdresser; with these he has contrived to keep up an unflagging interest through more than a hundred pages. The character of Lenette in this work is said to have been drawn from Paul's mother. It represents a noble, but limited and uninstructed nature, in contention with all the little down-pressing circumstances of real life, and menaced with the grim spectre of actual Want. Nothing can be more true, and of more universal application, than Paul's view in this novel of the sufferings of an ill-assorted union, when there is neither vice nor crime, only an unequal standard of mind, and a deficiency of culture in one of the parties. The unhappy Lenette is incapable of under- standing her gifted husband. Siebenkas, full of tender- ness and all noble qualities, who has married her for her innocence and simplicity, is at length worn out by her narrowness, obtuseness, and want of sympathy ; and their mutual sufferings are rich in instruction for all married persons. It is impossible to present an analysis, or even an abstract, of this remarkable work. The Germans give it a philoso- phical and poetical interpretation. They say that Jean Paul intended to represent Siebenkas as dying to the actual, to the every-day life of man ; and in the reluctant and bleeding heart with which he tears himself from Lenette, is meant to be represented the great struggle of the soul to rise to a higher, an ideal life. LIFE OP JEAN PAUL. 199 As the half visible author of Hesperus*, Paul had drawn upon himself the attention of all Germany ; but now, in Siebenkas, he represents his own and his mother's struggles with poverty in the poor apartment in Hof, and first appears with his whole and real name. The truth of his representations having their foundation in the actual expe- rience of the writer, led irresistibly, in a new and surprising manner, to faith in himself ; only he who had felt the want of outward blessings could describe them so faithfully, and only one, who was possessed of the temperament of joy, could rise so easily above the pressure of calamity. The breathing form of love that he gave to everything that came from his hands was felt in every heart ; and grati- tude, as well as admiration, induced many readers to crave a personal acquaintance with him. From every side he received expressions of gratitude, which were as touching from their simplicity in some instances, as they were flattering from the distinction they conferred in 'others. He received letters from poor country schoolmasters and pastors, the class of persons that he has described with such simplicity and naivete, begging him to lend or give a copy of some one of his works ; and perhaps more welcome yet, one morning in May of this year, the postboy brought him a packet containing fifty Prussian dollars and the following letter : " You should be poor, Herr Richter, you ! the millionaire in understanding as such are usually poor ; and this is right, for the others write no books ; and as your books give me satisfaction, very great satisfaction, and nothing but satisfaction, I hold myself indebted to Herr Richter, and would give him a little proof that his readers are grateful. Many readers cannot show their gratitude, and that also is well, or Herr Richter would become rich, and write no more books " Your grateful and devoted "SEPTIMUS FJXLEIN." * In Hesperus he first signed his literary name, Jean Paul, without the Richter. 200 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The writer remained unknown until many years after, when a happy accident revealed him to Richter*. The next is a letter from Sophia La Roche, the grand- mother, that Bettine has so beautifully made known to us iu her correspondence with Giinderode : " It is impossible that the man whose susceptible soul and richly thoughtful mind hovers over all the leaves of Hesperus, can take it ill if a good Frau thanks him for the agreeable hours she has enjoyed through that wonderful book; if she bless him, that with so wonderful a genius he is so good a son, so good a brother. Let a mother, who has educated three sons, and has lost, in his three-and- twentieth year, the noblest, the most beautifully blooming, congratulate his mother, that Jean Paul is her son and lives ! " He will not take it ill, and my heart would yet say something more that Hesperus, and the little that I have heard of its author, makes me think. I tell you frankly that I wish to know more of you, for to me your appearance is full of truth and reverence. Heaven make you as happy as it has made you precious to others ; and when you read or hear my name, remember to say, ' That lady is my friend.' " SOPHIA LA ROCHE." * It was the venerable Gleim, of whom see Appendix, No. II. CHAPTER XIII. LETTERS FROM WEIMAR LETTER FROM MADAM VON KALB RICHTER PREPARES TO GO TO WEIMAR. WE come now to that period in the life of Richter A.D ITSW when the silk and golden threads of love began to *' 33- be woven thickly in his web of life ; when, borne in triumph by eccentric and distinguished women, although with chains of flowers, he often felt the concealed thorns pierce his heart. The publication of his last works, Hesperus, Quintus Fixlein, and the Flower Fruit and Thorn Pieces, drew upon him the attention of women in the higher ranks of life, who were not only penetrated with his peculiarities as a writer, but began to manifest for him a deep personal, and more than friendly interest. The reader must recollect Paul's easily-kindled imagination, the sentiment, amounting almost to reverence, with which he regarded women, his separation from the more elevated circles of social life, and the disappointment of his former hopes, to understand the excitement, the fulness of joy with which he met this new manifestation of the interest his writings had produced. Upon the first of March of this year, he received from Weimar the following letter, which bore the signature of a noble lady : " During the last months your works have been made known to us in Weimar. They excited attention, and to many have they been most welcome. To nie they gave the most agreeable entertainment, and I have to thank you K 3 202 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. for some of the sweetest hours of the past, which I willingly wooed to linger, while the images of your fancy, like lovely phantoms from the realms of spirits, wandered before my mind. Often was I so deeply moved by the charm and riches of your thoughts, that overpowered by my gratitude, I would seize the pen to express it to you ! But how insignificant would be such a token from one unknown to you ! In a happy hour I heard your praises from men that you have long known and revered, and the wish to write was again excited. Now, it is not the solitary flower of my own admiration that I send you, but an unfading wreath, which the applause of Wieland and Herder have woven for you. Wieland has extracted much from Hesperus and Fixlein for his Museum. He calls you ' our Yorick, our Rabelais the purest spirit.' He dis- covers in you the highest flights of fancy, the richest humour, that often displays itself in the most surprising, the most agreeable turns. " All this he recognises with joy in your writings. . . . You will find here yet many more friends, whose names I must mention to you. Herr von Knebel, the translator of Propertius, Herr von Einsiedel, Herr von Kalb ; your writings belong to their most agreeable reading, and long have ornamented their desks. Yes, we hope, through your susceptibility for knowledge of the world and of men, and this rare talent for delicate individuality, to receive many works from your pen. Farewell ! Be happy through the enjoyment of nature, and inspired through the creations of art, and continue to make us acquainted with ideals, that honour the poet and elevate the reader." Richter is represented like one struck by an electrical shock upon the reception of this letter. To be known and read where Goethe, Schiller, Wieland where Herder's elevated spirit shed an immediate influence upon all sur- rounding minds! This spot, that had lain in distant shadow, like an enchanted world before his longing fancy ! He immediately hastened to Bayreuth, where a sister of LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 203 the noble letter-writer, a young, amiable, and spiritual woman, lived with her husband. I have hesitated whether to give to the English reader the correspondence of Jean Paul with this lady, Charlotte von Kalb, who entered so deeply and powerfully into his life and poetry, and is said to be the original from which he drew his Linda, in the Titan. Sentiment, either in love or friendship, is like those delicate perfumes, so delicious when breathed from th plant as it grows in the sun and air of its native home ; translated, it resembles the same perfume distilled and mixed with foreign substances, which, transported from its native sun and air, becomes faint or nauseous. We must remember also, that the German language is full of expressions of tenderness that are wholly untrans- lateable; their domestic terms of endearment are like caresses, and their du and their Ja-wort, to use an expres- sion of Paul's, " are as if they laid a rose in your hand." Although much relating to this lady is, to us, involved in mystery, no one among his correspondents excites a deeper interest. She appears to have belonged to the Court of the Duchess Amelia, as she went with the Court to the country. She says in one of her letters, that she is older than Richter, and that she had wept the loss of two children. Her letters disclose the most zealous and disin- terested friendship, and their beauty and tenderness must have kindled the warmest attachment in a heart like Richter's, had there not been to him a fatal objection she was married, and unhappily married. Otto looked from the first upon this correspondence with coldness and alarm, and would have prevented his friend from going to Weimar. But at the same time Paul received other flattering letters ; one from Frederick von Oerthel*, expressing a glowing reverence for him, which his youth and inexperience would not allow him to conceal. * Oerthel was a literary character in Weimar, bearing the same nan, hut not related to the friend of his youth. 204 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The demand that Herder had made for a new poet, to be heard first, and before all, as a word from the heart, to the heart of man a sound of the universal voice of humanity, an echo of the mighty spirit of the age seemed to be answered in Richter. Still he was held back by his own timidity, or by Otto's anxiety, and answered the letter of his noble correspondent, of which I give an extract: . . . . " Now that I know women so well, and that their masks are only veils that heighten their intellectual beauty as much as they guard it now that I see better than a hundred others, that the female heart is as poetic and ideal as the head, and that it has little more to give to the earth than sighs and wishes ; that their May of life, instead of being, like ours, as beautiful as that of France, is like a German May, cold and frosty ; that, like the nightingale, they must collect the wool from thorns, from which, in a thorny hedge, they must prepare their nest what should a poet do more with the pen, than offer them, not pitiful German flattery, but morning dreams and gentler sighs than they can extract from life? If I spread, for one only, a rainbow over the cloudy morning of life if for one heart only I have drawn the angel of love from his cloudy -Parnassus to bear away the angel of death ! I have lived and written enough." Another pressing letter came from his correspondent. " Two-thirds of the spring is gone, as I see by the almanac. The trees are yet unleaved in the beautiful park, the nightingales have not yet sung you are not yet here ! All signs of spring are absent which waits for the other ? They may come with all their charms ! the beautiful foliage, the perfume of the flowers, the love-songs of the birds, the gentle fanning of the spring breezes but for your friends they will be nothing, if you do not appear also. You are the soul and spirit of our union ; we are rich only in the esteem, admiration, and hope that your writings excite ; LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 205 we know who are our friends by their admiration of you, and it is the first word of our greeting when we meet, Has not Richter yet come ? " He hesitated no longer. Like a travelling apprentice, he took his pack and staff, and turned his face towards the Mecca of his hopes, not as a merely modest, but as a humble pilgrim. For twelve years he had looked, longingly, from his solitary Fichtelgebirge, to this Para- dise of exalted men, tender and accomplished women, love and glory, and all that in a poet's golden dream awaited him. CHAPTER XIV. FIRST VISIT IN WEIMAR - LETTERS FROM WEIMAR - GOETHE HERDER - SCHILLER - WIELAND. A.D. 1796. I T i s we ll known, that at the time Jean Paul en- ffit ^ tered the literary circles of Weimar and its filial dependent Jena, the utmost harmony did not prevail among the great spirits of the age. Goethe and Schiller were at the head of what might be called the Conservative party in literature, at least until after the publication of William Tell. Herder, although he was fettered by holding an office at Court *, was opposed to them, both as a patriot and a philosopher. When Richter and his works appeared, he was received with joy and outstretched arms, both by Herder and Wieland ; but from different points of view by Wieland as a poet, by Herder as a man. The first was charmed by his glowing descriptions of nature, and his Sterne-like humour ; the last by his purity of heart, and the deep religious feelings of the Poet's soul; and both, through the manly independence and love of freedom that breathed through every line from his pen. The absence in his works of all established rules of art, which had so offended Goethe, was forgiven by men, one of whom had read Tristram Shandy eighty times ; and the other carried his indifference to forms of art so far, as to condemn all rhyme. In relation to Jean Paul, Goethe and Schiller stood opposed to both Herder and Wieland. Goethe, who was * Herder was Court Chaplain to the Duchess Amelia. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 207 present in Weimar, could not be ignorant of the influence which both these authors exerted upon the cultivated men and accomplished women there. He knew also, for he had experienced it in his own case, how important a help the enthusiasm of women is in reaching the higher and more dazzling elevations of fame ; but his whole cor- respondence with Schiller, who was at this time living at Jena, betrays his contempt for Richter and his writings. But with what feelings of reverence was Eichter now approaching these men, who, from his earliest age, he had looked to as shining worlds in the heaven of literature ! He would see Herder face to face perhaps receive from him a word of sympathy ! He would approach still nearer to the unknown writer of those flattering letters, to whom his imagination had lent every enchantment ; but his unaffected and genuine humility prevented him from form- ing even a faint idea of the enthusiasm with which he was received in Weimar. Immediately upon his arrival, he visited his unknown correspondent, Madam von Kalb, and through her was his presence made known to the distinguished literaiy charac- ters of the day. All wanted to see the wonderful man. The men received him with outstretched hands the women with beating hearts. They vied with each other in attentions to him ; even the Duchess Amelia, who had given orders that they should immediately inform her of his arrival, flattered him by many expressions of sympathy and admiration. Herr von Oerthel, brother of his friend and correspondent in Leipsic, took him as a guest to his house, and supplied all those little domestic attentions so grateful to a stranger. Whoever had read his books wished to be introduced to him, and whoever saw and heard him was compelled to love him. Contrary to the fashion of the time, he had persevered in the custom of wearing his throat open ; and his hair preserved its natural curl around his head, and fell in thin locks upon his neck ; in short, he dressed, when powder and periwigs were worn, as gen- 208 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. tlemen dress at the present day. Although strongly and well built, he was thin, and his pale complexion had a tinge of yellow ; his eye only revealed all the enchantment of a higher world, and kindled at every thought. His conversation, like his writings, was fresh and original ; his voice musical and well-toned, but tender, and its Voightlandish accent had peculiar charms for the culti- vated inhabitants of Weimar. Added to this, the sim- plicity of his nature, the truth and warmth of his emotions, his deep-grounded faith in humanity, which was to him a sacred religious belief, in a place where so many com- plaints were uttered over a concealed egotism, and an unconcealed infidelity, and his appearance must have been like a day of sunshine in a dark and rainy season. Madam von Kalb did not disappoint the expectations of Kichter. Her imposing exterior, the glance from her large dark eyes, the strength and elegance of her language, the exalted sentiments by which she made herself known as the pupil of Herder, the fire of her emotions,' that might consume as well as warm, marked the first impression as very powerful, and gave her the name by which he was accustomed afterwards to distinguish her, the Titanade, as the original of his Linda, in the Titan. To her, Richter was more even than with all her en- thusiasm she had dared to imagine him ; and from her previously kindled mind resulted the purest warmth of friendship and good-will. He was furnished with every gift that the most excited imagination could desire, and filled the ideal that had hovered before her enchanted fancy. Generally, fancy is employed to heighten the real impression on the heart ; but in this case, on the contrary, the heart followed the fancy, and loved where that had idolized. She was daily with him, sent him books and newspapers, and procured for him the smallest conveniences with the same solicitude that she provided the highest enjoyments of life. The day of his arrival she introduced him to Knebel. On their way, they met Einsiedel, and LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 209 they were no sooner seated in Knebel's apartment than Herder, his wife, and their two boys entered. - The reader will recollect the correspondence Jean Paul had already had with Caroline Herder ; as her husband and Richter met, they could neither of them speak for joy, and Knebel's eyes were also moist. They passed the evening together, and were quickly the most confidential friends. Herder soon after, in writing to Jacobi, said " Heaven has sent me a treasure in Richter that I neither deserved nor ex- pected. Every time that we are together he opens anew the treasures that the three wise men brought, and the star goes always before him. I can only say, that he is all heart, all soul ; an harmonious tone in the great golden harp of humanity, in which there are so many cracked, so many discordant strings." This little circle passed every evening together, and the confidential supper-table, at which Caroline Herder, rich in heart and intellect, presided, was the central point of their union. To Jean Paul every intellectual and accom- plished woman was the sun that ripened the fruit of his intellect, and imparted the beautiful colours to the flowers of his fancy ; and the presence of Madam von Kalb, who had completely captivated him by the powerful enchant- ment of her character, heightened the charm of these reunions. Wieland was not in Weimar at this first visit; but from his distant Alp home, where he now was, he sent him the most cordial greeting. Jean Paul looked forward with much delight to his introduction to Goethe and Schiller. Goethe now dwelt in his own house in Weimar, and Schil- ler in Jena. They had expressed different, but depreciating opinions, about Richter's works*. Richter's unbounded * I cannot pretend to understand the literary or political dissensions of the time. But no one can read the correspondence of Goethe and Schiller without observing the disparaging remarks of Goethe upon Jean Paul and his works. 210 LIFE OP JEAN PAUL. reverence for Goethe had already been expressed by send- ing him his Quintus Fixlein and Hesperus, and there was not a single work of Goethe's that he had not read and copied with infinite zeal. With this disposition he came to Weimar. The peculiar reserve of Goethe, which per- haps arose from his disposition to hold all subjects at an impartial distance, and to observe them from an artistical point of view, drew upon him, among his acquaintance, the reproach of coldness, and this judgment had some influence upon the disposition with which Richter ap- proached him. Illness and domestic trouble prevented Schiller from welcoming Jean Paul with much cordiality, when he visited him at Jena. Far different was it with Herder. Striving in different paths for the highest point to which humanity can reach, there is, in minds like his and Richter's, a predestined friendship, "a clasping of souls before the hand is reached or met, and it endures from the first moment to the last." The reception that the Duchess Amelia gave to Richter was of peculiar value to him. When she withdrew to the country retirement of Tieffurth, where she collected around her a circle of distinguished men and accomplished women, among whom were his friend Madam von Kalb and the Herders, Richter was invited in the most cordial manner to join them ; and here they formed a mutual high esteem for each other, to which the Princess herself gave the name of friendship. This sentiment she extended afterwards to his family, when she became godmother to his first child *. * This was the Dowager Duchess Amelia, daughter and sister of the Dukes of Brunswick. This remarkable woman was the presiding spirit of the Court of Weimar for half a century. Married in her seventeenth year, she was left a widow in her nineteenth. She appointed Wieland governor to her son, and drew around her a circle of learned and accom- plished men. Her palace at Weimar, her country houses at Tieffurth and Ettersburg, never ceased to be the rendezvous of literary men and travellers of merit. A tour in Italy, which she made in company with LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 211 It has been said, that Jean Paul had no knowledge of Courts, and that his princesses were drawn from imagina- tion ; but here and afterwards he was collecting materials for his great work, the Titan, and the Court of the Duchess Amelia imparted a deeper and richer colouring to the beings of his imagination. But Richter must speak for himself; the reader must not be deprived of that mixture of gratified self-com- placency, childlike simplicity, and warm-hearted con- fidence, with which he pours into the ear and heart of Otto the delightful incidents of his three happy weeks in Weimar. "Weimar, June 12, 1796. " God saw yesterday upon his earth a happy mortal, and that was I. Ah, I was so happy, that I thought of Nemesis, and Herder consoled me with the Deus averruncus. I cannot put off writing till I can send a letter. I must say something. Yesterday I went at about eleven o'clock, as I had missed two of her billets, to Caroline (she is sister to the Bayreuther, and, I believe also, mine). I had in my note asked for a solitary minute, a tete-a-tete. She has two great things great eyes, such as I never saw before, and a great soul. She speaks exactly as Herder writes in his letters upon humanity. She is strong, full, and her face I would 1 could describe it. Three quarters of the time she smiles, but half only from nervous irritability, and one quarter she is serious, when she raises her heavenly eyelids, as clouds when they alternately conceal and reveal the moon (I do not trouble myself about the accuracy of my expressions). 'You are a wonderful man,' she said to me, thirty times. Ah, here are women ! and I have them all for my friends ; the whole Court, even to the Duke, reads me! I dine, for reasons, Goethe, heightened her taste for the arts. From her glowing descriptions of Italy, Jean Paul derived the knowledge of that country, so exquisitely employed in Titan. The invasion of her country by Buonaparte broke her heart. She died in 1806, a few months after. 212 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. not with Madam von Kalb. She informed Knebel of my arrival (he is chamberlain to the Duchess); at three o'clock I went again, and Knebel was there *. He is a courtier, as to the exterior, but so much warmth and knowledge, and so simple ! All my male acquaintance here (I would it were not these alone) meet with a cordial embrace. There is none of the pitiful affectation of Hof ; none of the fear of being out of fashion.- I wish I had brought my green gown, or even the blue short coat would be allowed. Towards five o'clock, we all three went to Knebel's garden ; on the way, Einsiedelf met us, who took me immediately by the hand, but he could say only three words, as he must follow the Duchess to the comedy. After some moments, Knebel said, ' How gloriously it all happens ; here comes Herder, his wife, and the two children.' We went to meet him, and under the free heaven I threw myself into his arms. I could scarcely speak for joy, and he could not embrace me enough. As I looked around, Knebel's eyes were also moist. With Herder I am now as familiar as with you. He will write to me when I re- turn, and when he journeys through Hof with his wife, who loves me heartily (she is a modification of Von Kalb), they will visit me. I wish it were possible to tell you all with- out blushing. He praises all my works, even the Green- land Lawsuits. He looks as noble, but yet not exactly as I thought, but speaks as he writes. He says, ' Whenever he reads the Hesperus, he is for two days unfit for business.' * Knebel was tutor to the second prince, Constantino. After the early death of his pupil, he received a pension for life. He remained in Weimar, an ornament of the circle which made that little Court the resort of the intellect and genius of Europe ; a friend of Wieland, and Herder, and Jean Paul ; living in philosophical serenity in his little garden, a stranger to artificial wants, a contented Sage of the school of Aristippus. He died in 1834, at the age of 90. MRS. AUSTIN. f Herr von Einsiedel united the most amiable and agreeable character with engaging exterior and manners, qualities that were surpassed by the integrity and kindness of his heart. He was chamberlain to the Duchess Dowager Amelia. He wrote several pretty tales. MRS. AUSTIN. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 213 "As we all sat together, I said, ' If only my Otto were here, and heard us !' Herder loves satire infinitely, and has twice as much irony as seriousness in his conversation. He asked me the occasion of many places in my books, and gave me oppressive praise. Your Paul ventured sometimes to speak, although at intervals, in the five hours the evening lasted. " They all said that I received scandalous payment ; that for the Meister and Horen the booksellers gave five louis- d'ors a sheet ; that I was read everywhere in Germany, and that in Leipsic all the booksellers received commissions for me. Wieland had read me three times, and Herder said Gleim continued to read all day and all night. He spoke of Kant's system with the highest degree of displeasure. Of his own works Herder spoke so slightingly, that it cut me to the heart to hear him, so that I had scarcely the courage to praise him. ' What I erase,' said he, ' is the best, as I dare not write with freedom.' " In the evening we supped with the Kalb. They have the most liberal manner of thinking. I made as many satires as at Hof in short, I was as unrestrained and as lively as I am with you. By heaven ! I have become courageous, and could trust myself to talk with twenty gentlemen, and yet more, with the Burgomaster and all his kindred. I have not told you one third part, but the bitterest drop, Otto, swims in my Heidelberg cup of joy. What Jean Paul wins, humanity loses in his eyes. Ah ; my ideal of great men ! All my acquaintance with them only increases the value of my beloved brother Otto." "June 17. " The late date will inform you of my joy-intoxicated life. I have lived twenty years in Weimar in a few days. I have wholly incomprehensible, unheard-of, but not disagreeable things to tell you but to you alone. I see no possibility of sending you more than a duodecimo of my universal history. I shall need as many days as I now should 214 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. employ pages, to tell you only this division of my life. I am happy, Otto, wholly happy ! not merely beyond all expectation, but beyond all description, and I want nothing in the whole world but you ! only you ! " I went yesterday with Caroline to visit the Duchess- mother at Tieffurth, and I shall dine with her next time. The Duchess is worthy of her Wieland and her beautiful Tieffurth. Of our conversation I will tell you verbally ; Madam von Kalb is in correspondence with all the mag- nates in Germany, and in connection with all in Weimar, and I could see everybody that I wished at her house, but we both remain every evening alone together. She is a woman like none ; with an all-powerful heart, incomparable firmness in short, a Waldemarin*. " On the second day I threw away my foolish prejudices in favour of great authors. They are like other people. Here, every one knows that they are like the earth, that looks from a distance, from heaven, like a shining moon, but when the foot is upon it, it is found to be made of boue de Paris (Paris mud). An opinion concerning Herder, Wielaud, or Goethe, is as much contested as any other. Who would believe that the three watch-towers of our literature avoid and dislike each other ! I will never again bend myself anxiously before any great man, only before the virtuous. Under this impression, I went timidly to meet Goethe. Every one has described him as cold to everything upon the earth. Madam von Kalb said, he no longer admires anything, not even himself. Every word is ice ! Curiosities, merely, warm the fibres of his heart. Therefore I asked Knebel to petrify or encrust me by some mineral spring, that I might present myself to him like a statue or a fossil. Madam von Kalb advised me, above all things, to be cold and self-possessed, and I went without warmth, merely from curiosity. His house, palace rather, pleased me ; it is the only one in Weimar in the Italian style with such steps ! A Pantheon full of pictures and * See the novel of Waldemar, by Jacob!. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 215 statues. Fresh anxiety oppressed my breast ! At last the god entered, cold, one-syllabled, without accent. ' The French are drawing towards Paris,' said Knebel. 'Hm!' said the god. His face is massive and animated, his eye a ball of light. But at last, the conversation led from the campaign, to art, publications, etc., and Goethe was him- self. His conversation is not so rich and flowing as Herder's, but sharp-toned, penetrating, and calm. At last, he read, that is, he played for us, an unpublished poem, in which his heart impelled the flame through the outer crust of ice, so that he pressed the hand of the enthusiastic Jean Paul. (It was my face, not my voice, for I said not a word.) He did it again when we took leave, and pressed me to call again. By heaven ! we will love each other ! He considers his poetic course as closed. His reading is like deep-toned thunder, blended with soft whispering rain- drops. There is nothing like it. " They contend here, whether Flaclisenfigen*, on account of its location, is a sketch of Vienna or Manheim. Wieland, who takes it all for sport, said, ' Flachsenfigen lies very much scattered about Germany.' I send you, without shame, these signs of canonization that they draw around my bald pate, that you may relate what you please to our friends in Hof. I tell you all, for you have esteemed me too much, but do not disgust with the long story in Hof, where they have so often done me injustice, that if you were not there, brother, I would remain here. " My good Caroline has taken care for all my needs. Ah, you do not yet know that I lodge with Oerthel in a more elegant apartment than I ever had in my life. On Wednesday I came to his house, near the trees of the heavenly park. I have two chambers, better furnished than any in the fashionable journal ; ready prepared letter covers ; the newspaper, of which I inclose one as a proof ; lights in both chambers. In short, every, even the small- est thing is cared for, and I and he live like brothers. * The location of Hespcnu. 216 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. We laugh ourselves dead at each other's peculiarities. I sat yesterday with his mother and sister, who created two heavens for my two ears, with their singing and playing ; and in the afternoon I was introduced for the first time to a circle of beautiful girls. There is not in Paris so much freedom from gene as here. You introduce no one ; there is no kissing of hands ; you merely make a silent bow ; you say nothing before or after dinner. This is the fashion of the world, that country people think as stiff and starched as their neckbands. What one might complain of here, is painted egotism, and unpainted scepticism ; for this reason, a soul that has neither is like a summer's day. " Unite the Fantasie and Hermitage* in one park, and it will give you no idea of the simple majesty of this. It is a Handel's Alexander's Feast, and Tieffurth is an adagio. The devil is in me, but I cannot get away. I count the days no longer. Ah, I am so happy, so happy ! as you alone deserve to be ! . . " I went yesterday to see the stony Schiller, from whom, as from a precipice, all strangers spring back. His form is worn, severely powerful, but angular. He is full of sharp-cutting power, but without love. His conversation is nearly as excellent as his writings. As I brought a letter from Goethe, he was unusually pleasant ; he would make me a fellow-contributor to the Horen (a periodical), and would give me a naturalization act in Jena." Notwithstanding this courtesy, Richter did not repeat his visit to Schiller, and his intimate union with Herder excluded all hope of his being drawn to the party of Goethe. The latter wrote to Schiller, " I am glad you have seen Richter. His love of truth and his wish for self-improvement have prepossessed me in his favour ; but the social man is a sort of theoretical man, and I doubt if Richter will ever approach us in a practical way, although in theory he seems to have some pretensions to belong to us." They were never friends. Richter could * The Fantasie and Hermitage were public walks and gardens in Hof. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 217 not conceal his disappointment at the character of Goethe's latter poetical works, and soon after his return to Hof he wrote to Knehel in relation to one of them, " that in such stormy times we needed a Tyrtseus rather than a Proper- tius." The remark reached Goethe's ears ; and Goethe, usually so indifferent to censure or criticism, showed him- self deeply susceptible and offended at this so-called " manifestation of arrogance in Herr Richter." CHAPTER XV. MADAM VON KALB LETTERS CLOSE OF RICHTER S INTIMACY WITH MADAM VON KALB. IT would, perhaps, have been excusable, if the humble author, who left his home with his pack on foot, and found himself in less than a week a courted guest at the table of princes, invited and caressed by the most accomplished men, and the most beautiful women, had been seized with a little giddiness. But his principal danger arose from his intimacy with Madam von Kalb. She was somewhat older than himself, and at that age when an accomplished woman can exercise the utmost power over the mind of an imaginative man. She was living in an unhappy union or rather disunion, for they were rarely together with a husband much her inferior, and at a time when revolutionary ideas in domestic manners had infected Germany, almost as much as Paris itself. A daily exchange of notes took place between Madam von Kalb and Richter. The morning after his arrival in Weimar, she wrote " Have you slept well ? Friendship has prepared a home for you, and I am indeed glad that you are no longer in a gasihof (inn). Ah ! are we not always in inns and pay-houses, where everything is done for us from interested motives, that kills all heart ? You have told me that you could not live where they did not sym- pathize with you as a human being. I understand you, among the good we are good, among the loving happy. Write me the very moment that you will come to me, that LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 219 I may not wait. All waiting destroys me ; I would rather suffer pain of body than of soul that of waiting. I have much to tell you of the Duchess ; '2nd, that I must read your last letter to Otto ; 3d, that I am jealous, &c. ; 4th, that Herr von Oerthel shall be my guest to-day if it is agreeable to him ; and pray him to say to his sister that she must come in the afternoon. I believe they will not allow you to leave them to-day ; but I will let you, and all is with me like the laws of nature life and death. Life, and your " CHARLOTTE." > Paul answered, with his longing desire to meet again. The next morning Madam von Kalb sent the following note : " I awoke this morning ; I awoke about dawn ; as soon as I could distinguish the colours around, I longed for your answer. But I could write before it came. Ah ! my God, there was your billet ! But, for God's sake do not show yourself to others as you do to me, or all who under- stand you, will die for you. . . . You are as if in an apartment of glass, from which you can overlook all with the power of your intellect ; but we we are no glass, so smooth and cold. None ! none ! The soul loves an ideal representation ; the heart an ideal man, and would appropriate him. ... " To-morrow you will go with Bottiger to the theatre, to Herder, to Einsiedel. All the world will have him all the world ? No ! all shall not have him or I shall die ! I shall be destroyed. Then can they have him ! How often I have been wounded ! how often! Ah, only the most refined refreshment for the soul, the purest, the warmest enjoyment, can again renew and freshen my existence !"* Richter and his devoted friend continued to write to each other every day during the three weeks he remained at Weimar. The notes that are preserved are upon the I give only extracts from these billets. L 3 320 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. passing events of the time, and could only be interesting to one intimately acquainted with the spirit of the age, and the eminent characters in Weimar. The influence of Madam von Kalb upon Richter was happier for his works than for himself. He was indebted to her for that knowledge of more powerful female charac- ters, which he has displayed in his Titan ; and he seems to have been impatient to hasten back to his solitude, that he might treasure his impressions in his book. The first letter, after he left Weimar, was from Madam von Kalb. " To-day are four weeks since you came to Weimar, and what I so long expected is finished. Finished ? Ah, no ! If I never see you again, yet I shall know where to find the being to whom I can impart my most secret thoughts and sentiments. That which, like the ephemera, existed only with the sun, and in the evening was gone, holds now a second and longer life ; and I can say to those who mis- understand and correct me, to me also the treasure of his mind is confidentially imparted. " On Monday evening we were, as I have already written to you, at Herr von Knebel's. I spoke little, and yet too much. There are very few men that, when I talk with them, elevate and improve my spiritual nature ; and with these it is better that I should not speak ; and by others I cannot make myself understood. Knebel talked much of annihilation. " I came to Jena in the middle of the week, to visit Schiller, who gave me his poem for you. I believe it has wounded him that you did not visit him again. I have yet received no letter from you, and to-day is Monday, the 1 1th. Say many beautiful things from me to Otto. Farewell ! How often have I thought of you how often ! for to you I can say all that I think, and even my anticipations will be like certainty. Farewell ! how will be the first letter I shall receive from you?" Paul had waited eight days. How teas his answer to this LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 2'41 letter : " Time has crept over the last eight days with cold, wet wings, without one swift feather. I cannot forget my friend, I cannot do without her ; I cannot bear that a heart I would hold as my own should be melted without individual form, into the whole transparent mass of the public heart " Nothing makes me so indulgent and mild as a fault. I am not accustomed to have my inmost soul wounded, therefore its bleeding imparts a new and more tender life. Distance consecrates the soul, and warms the heart anew. If my eye should again sink into thine, if I should again dare to shed tears in your presence, yet our hearts and souls shall remain unveiled to each other. " Upon your birth-day I will ascend a high mountain, and looking upon the sun that sinks down in the direction of your plain, I will think of your life. Look you at the same moment upon this glowing, sinking orb, and be cer- tain that I am thinking of you, that I count the clouds of your shadowed life, and weep anew for all your deep sor- rows. I will pray when I think of your heart, so crushed as if it had been thrown from rock to rock in the past. 0, good Destiny! will I pray, give this weary soul a tender, green repose ; rend not asunder again the hardly yet united parts of her wounded heart. G ive her calmness of. soul , and a gentle life's course, accompanied by congenial beings, and rest rest ! Oh, I shall be eloquent on your birth- day, and my tongue shall stream as my eyes, and overflow with wishes ; and when I am silent, and sink down with panting heart upon your beloved hand, my heart will be fuller, not lighter. " R" It appears from this letter, that Richter felt for this lady the most profound pity, as well as the more enthusiastic sentiment of admiration ; but he had the strength of mind to leave her and to resist what has been so often fatal to genius of the highest order the seducing fascinations of rank and wealth, in the midst of intellectual refinement 222 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and luxury. He returned to his poor home, and to his narrow-minded mother, but rich in new ideas and materials for his great work. He was followed by so many letters of admiration and interest, that the wish, expressed earlier, that all the world would correspond with him, seemed to be almost literally fulfilling. The individuality of character is so strong in the works of Jean Paul, that eveiy reader feels as if they were written expressly for him, and wishes to thank the author, as if for a personal favour. Among the letters that touched him most deeply, was one from a Madam Fisher, who told him she had sent her copy of Hesperus to the state prisoners in the fortress of Spandau ; and described, in lively colours, the consola- tion they had derived from it. The same lady, with her husband, visited his mother's house, with the hope of seeing him, while he was absent at Bayreuth ; and we need no longer blush for the American habit of pilfering relics, when we learn, that this enthusiastic pair secreted and carried away from Paul's writing-table his worn-out pens. Another letter is from the pastor of Anhalt-Zerbst, enclosing a letter, and a purse beautifully netted with gold thread, from a lady who wished to remain 'unknown. The unknown was afterwards discovered to be the Princess Anhalt-Zerbst. Paul's answer is too characteristic to be omitted. . ., . ,.. r " May some good genius open the cloud through which your hand only, although full of gifts, has been reached to me, and show me the concealed angel. Your sex and your worth predict to me the common fate of a tender exotic belonging to a warmer climate, whose root and stem are planted in the winter of reality, and whose beautiful flower only the forcing-house of Poetry can bring to blossom. Is it so ? Then only the wish remains, that all your blossoms may find their spring all your fruit its sun The inward nature finds all that it longs LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 223 for in hope and virtue ; and if it seeks more in the present, and in reality, it finds only wounds." .... Richter was aware that a strenuous industry was neces- sary to banish that longing for Weimar that was beating at the bottom of his heart, and that was kept intensely alive by his letters from Madam von Kalb. But there was a voice of warning, as well as of wooing, in these letters. She wrote to him in November of this year, 1796 : " It is well that you not only come in a short time, but that we should decide upon your residence here. The Herders' life is turned within themselves, and become altogether recluse.; but with what joy will they admit you ! Your residence will bring them new refreshment. Wieland will rejoice, and there are many others. I think of the spring like a bird that is then to be released from prison. Herder, Wieland, Knebel, Einsiedel, and my Littleness, will form your society. What need you more ? A dwelling ? That your friends will furnish you ; they can do it without trouble. Yes, you can have a house already furnished, either Knebel's dwelling in the market, or his garden-house. For your coffee, the waiter will furnish it ; and if you will dine at home, as the food from a restaurateur's, if long continued, would injure your health, you will permit me the pleasure of sending you your dinner. I have thought it all out ; and even if you pay for your house, I can pro- mise you that three months will not cost you more than ten rix-dollars. If at present you are without money, your friends here can lend you some hundreds of dollars. And what if it were for ever ! Of what use is our trumpery, if our friends cannot enjoy it with us? I despise those that are wooed by princes and pensions, but I despise those much more who have not the heart to take anything from a friend. " I pray you go to no Court, or the like. Hold yourself high, and avoid all situations of the kind. Man is oppressed there, and learns that all is empty, and at last repents. Princes esteem only those who can do without them. But 224 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I do not, therefore, esteem those who make satires upon Courts, for it is not possible that it can be otherwise. . . What have I yet to say? Ah, not much! Be wise as Minerva, and happy as Apollo ! Do not smile you smile too beautifully! The tones that your spirit yields are sweeter without words than the sounds of the har- monica." To this truly feminine letter, Richter answered : . . . "Your letter brought your sofa and our evening hours into my apartment May into December ! It is right, perhaps, that a poor friend should be as rich as his richer, while both have but one heart and one purse ; but the friend should divide his bread only, but not the ornaments of his table, with his poorer friend. I might indeed borrow money for my fast days, but not for my festival joys." . . . .. At the conclusion of the preface to the new edition of Quintus Fixlein, Richter inserted a species of myth, called the Mondftnsterness, which his biographer asserts had direct reference to Madam von Kalb. He expresses very fully his opinions and feelings upon female purity, and his abhorrence of all but the most legitimate unions ; and con- siders every marriage in which the purest love fails on either side, as no better than a work of seduction. Richter sent the preface in manuscript to Charlotte, and after waiting some weeks, she answered in a way to shock and displease him. Madam von Kalb appears to have been deeply tinged with the modern French, and perhaps German aesthetic doctrine, that as all purity is from within, the external relations of life are of little consequence in a moral point of view. This is so much the more dangerous, as it is an effort to conceal from oneself that want of elevation in which nature conspires to deceive one. She avowed the opinion, so humiliating to a woman, that nature should suffer no restraint. She says in her answer, " that religion upon the earth is nothing but the unfolding and elevation of all our powers, and the disposition that our nature has LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 225 received ; that the creature should suffer no restraint, and that love needs no laws." Richter was shocked, and henceforth an estrangement took place between him and his friend *. At the same time with the above letter, Madam von Kalb sent Richter the first number of the Musen Almanac, a periodical conducted by Schiller, which had served to in- crease the discord between the ruling spirits of the age ; Herder had wholly withdrawn into himself. This strength- ened Richter 's decision to remain at home with his mother, working with unexampled activity upon the new editions of his Hesperus and Quintus Fixlein, and the days that the great wash took place visiting his old friends at Arzburg, Schwarzenbach, &c., and returning only late at night, when he always found his poor watchful mother sitting, after her hard day's work, at the wheel, by the glimmering light of a poor fire. * See Appendix, No. III. L 3 PART THIRD. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. CHAPTER I. PRINCE HOHENLOHE MADAM VON KRUDENER LETTERS " JUBELSENIOH" " KAMPANER THAL." I HAVE omitted, for the purpose of concluding the ^ D 17i)6 account of Richter's intimate friendship with wt - 33 - Madam Von Kalb, two events that took place in the autumn, immediately after his return from Weimar. His wide-spread reputation brought him many proposals to become the instructor of young persons ; among others, the Princess of Hohenlohe came to Hof, and entreated him to take charge of her two sons. The eldest of these princes was afterwards the celebrated Jesuit priest, and icorher of miracles. The delusion lasted a long time, but ceased before the death of the prince. His fine exterior, gentle manners, and insinuating voice, no doubt made part of the miracle. This was an alluring offer, as it promised Richter independence, and a beautiful residence on the Rhine. He answered, " That he was henceforth determined to educate no children but his own (his books); and that he had so much to say, that if death should surprise him at his writing-table, in his eightieth year, it would be yet too early." 228 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The other event, that made a deeper impression upon the imaginative mind of Richter, was a visit from the celebrated enthusiast Julia von Krudener, the wife of the Russian Ambassador in Denmark. This singular woman had been to Leipsic, to visit her son, and came in the full bloom of her remarkable beauty, to his solitary residence, as she said, to seek a comet on its path. Upon Richter, whose soul was always thirsting for the spiritual and ideal in woman, she made an indelible impression, and excited an interest that led to a correspondence of many years' duration. They were only an hour together, but the interest was mutual. There must have been something in Richter's person and manners extremely fascinating to >romen ; for the impression his works had made on the imagination was always deepened by an interview ; and there was some reason why Madam von Kalb should tell him " not to smile, and that the tone that his mind gave without words was sweeter than the sounds of the harmonica," Paul said, in a letter to Otto, " That, unlike as Madam Krudener was to all other women, so was the impression she had made upon him different from that of all other women." He wrote to her " The hour in which I saw you floats like the evening glow still lower beneath the horizon. Your letter must again colour my atmosphere. You came like a dream, and fled like a dream, and I still live in a dream. . . . ; " A legend says, that the angels had created men like gods, but that they could not stand upright until God, by a spark, gave them souls, and raised them to the upright posture. Most of us are still such prostrate men ; but in your soul glows this sun-spark, and you stand among the cold reclining forms, with your glance still turned to heaven." Madam von Krudener answered : "Ineffaceable is the hour when your eye, the sound of your voice, the inde- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 220 scribable whole of your emotion in expression and accent, established the sweetest harmony of knowledge and feeling. I know not whether I make myself intelligible, as you know how imperfectly I possess your language. You will imagine what I think, for I feel with indescribable joy that you wholly understand me, and the little that you said to me was penetrating like your glance, and led directly to my inmost heart. Oh, how few men can understand me, and how sweet is the hope to see you here, and to open this heart to you, to show you, without pride and without fear, the virtue as well as the faults of my nature. This need of learning the truth, this living necessity in me to grow better, this thirst after knowledge, and this warm desire to promote the happiness of men ; this expanding love that glows in my heart and breathes in your works, are what makes them so dear to me, and convince me that through your friendship I shall be better and happier; and that to you also, the observation of a noble soul, that would fain impart blessings to mankind, will not be indifferent. " I say to you, that I am never deceived in men in whom I can kindle a spark of emotion ; by men of low dispositions I am often offended ; yet who remembers the sting when a gnat falls upon him ! Such stings take away the inju- rious blood, that inflames so easily at the smallest wound, and from which ill-humour and misanthropy are formed. I have climbed that mountain that little minds have not the power to ascend ; and the echo of their voices brings no disharmony to my ears. " Without pride, I may say this to you. Ah ! I cannot be proud too much remains yet to be improved before I can be satisfied. Gratefully I acknowledge the happiness, that God has given me a heart in which only the memory of the good and beautiful can live ; and that has so lived in the higher regions of virtue and friendship, that the possibility of breathing in a lower world cannot exist. The hand of genius seized my thoughts even in their cradle, 230 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and thus I know you can understand me even in my imperfect language * " I thank Providence that I have learnt to know you. He gives me, in you, a new and powerful assurance of my future happiness, and in your tears is a world for me. May you be as happy as I wish you, and may the precious emotions you have given me conduce to your own happiness. Remember, meanwhile, I can never forget you. "JULIA VON KRUDENER." Richter entreated the lady to visit him again in Hof, " that the little blessed island she had thrown into the humble stream of his life might not float away ;" but she did not return, and he met her not again until after his marriage, many years afterwards, in Berlin. Madam von Kriidener did not make a favourable im- pression upon Richter's friends. They accused her of vanity and ostentation. From the course of her life it could scarcely be otherwise ; Jean Paul was not blind to the faults of any one, but his true sympathy with all the weaknesses of humanity led him always to place the good and bad qualities in opposite scales : and he said of her, what might be said of many ostentatious women, " That it was not vanity that made her an artist, but the enjoy- ment of the representation." From the subsequent life of Madam von Kriidener, it will appear that Richter was not so penetrating as his friends in the estimation of her character f. Richter's spirits, after denying himself a return to the Weimar Eden, and further intimacy with Madam von Kalb, were too much depressed to allow him to proceed with his Titan. He occupied himself this winter w^th two of his minor works, Jubelsenior and the Kampaner Thai. During the progress of his work, upon which he rested his hopes of immortality, he kept himself constantly before the * French was the native tongue of Madam von Kriidener. f See the note at the end of the chapter. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 231 public, and procured the means of subsistence by a series of smaller works. Like a celebrated painter, he worked up the superabundance of colours upon his palette into smaller pictures, while his immortal work was yet on the easel. These works differ from his earlier in this, that they never contain a complete picture of character, neither is any elevated, philosophical, nor poetical idea in life or character completely carried out. They are merely seg- ments of life, and make no pretension to a full delineation of passion or event. In his earlier romances, almost all the characters had been left incomplete ; the reader is therefore rejoiced to find the author taking them up again, and introducing them anew to his acquaintance in these segments. Balzac, who in everything else differs more widely than the antipodes from Jean Paul, has in this respect the same peculiarity. The Jubelsenior is the most beautiful and simple repre- sentation of an aged minister, and his equally aged wife, celebrating the anniversary of their marriage-festival, at the same time with the consecration of the church*, and the introduction of a new young pastor, who is in love with the adopted child of the old people. " The aged pair, bowing under the gate of death that leads them to another world, will not withdraw their hands from each other, but keep them constantly clasped over the cold gravestone." They celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of their marriage festival, with the re-warmed fragments of their own young bride-cake." Jean Paul partook deeply of the religious nature of the Germans ; he delighted in all these humble, simple, religious ceremonies ; and he awoke the gratitude of many an old man and many an aged matron, with his intimate sympathy with their well-remembered feelings, and the * A church consecration is one of the principal country celebrations in Germany. 232 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. high esteem he ever paid to the silent men, that the loud young century had forgotten. The love of the young people is also mingled in the history, and makes a low and sweet under tone in the piece. The Kampaner Thai, or proofs of the immortality of the soul, is one of the most purely serious and poetically beau- tiful of all the author's minor works. It was suggested by his friend Charlotte von Kalb's saying, that she sometimes felt doubts overshadowing her mind when she thought of annihilation ; and as he had written the former letter on immortality for Helena's, he wrote this for her consolation. In his intercourse with educated women, Richter had found that, in proportion as they were refined and thought- ful, they were pained with doubt upon this great consola- tion of humanity a future existence of the soul. He somewhere says, "That he never heard a cultivated woman speak of meeting again with her lost friends, without detecting at the same time an almost imperceptible sigh of doubt."* He did not write to convert the infidel, but to establish the wavering faith of the doubtful. " As the plants that grow upon the margin of a stream are as much refreshed by a summer shower, as those whose roots are planted in the dusty highway of life." I feel that no justice could be done to this beautiful work by such an analysis as I could give, and that even my highest praise would be inadequate to express its merits f. This chapter cannot be more appropriately closed than with a letter from Caroline Herder, in which she has singularly anticipated the definition of the Romantic, which was afterwards given in the Foreign Quarterly Review. It is written after receiving the Kampaner Thai from the author : " I require indeed the pen of an angel to relate the thousand- fold obstacles that have prevented me, dear, * I quote from memory, not having the book at hand, f See Appendix, No. III. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 233 unforgotten friend, from writing to you. I dare not give you circumstantially the Litany of my own little miseries, that united make the great cause of my silence. My eyes suffer, and since some years my health also, so that I have to prescribe for myself a severe diet in writing. I rely so securely upon our union in the world of spirits, I am so certain that you think of us, and speak to us, as we to you, without visible signs ; yet visible signs of the sacrament of love are beautiful, as I felt deeply when I received your dear letter with the Kampaner Thai. " Ah, we owe you thanks for Hesperus also. If my hus- band were not so slavishly chained, you had heard from him before this, upon Hesperus. The whole building is, as it were, filled with choice sacred pictures, and we linger to strengthen, elevate, and delight the spirit. We might seize the whole at once, but we are unwilling under a thousand emotions not to dwell upon each, and the rich- ness of ornament distracts our attention. If you have ever seen the Minster at Strasburg*, you will understand me, and not misinterpret this comparison. Perhaps the soul of that great architect has returned, with you, to earth ; and as at this time pictures in stone are not so essential to us as spiritual representations, he builds with other materials than stone and marble, but in the taste of that time. " We look for Titan with the utmost impatience." * " He who casts one eye in thought on the Strasburg Minster, and another on the Temples at Pcestum, will understand the difference between the romantic and classical." Foreign Quarterly Review, July, 1847. 234 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. NOTE. The Baroness Kriidener was educated in Paris, where her father's house was the resort of men of talents, and her beauty and wit were much admired. In her fourteenth year she was married to Baron Kriidener, who was more than double her age, and accompanied him to Russia, where he was sent as Ambassador. Madam Kriidener, placed in the first circles, and remarkable for wit and beauty, was surrounded by admirers ; but she was not happy. Her liveliness of temperament led her into levities, which caused a divorce from her husband, and she returned to her father's house, in Riga. Riga did not satisfy her. She removed to Paris, and lived alternately at Paris and Petersburg. She was afterwards attached to the Court of the beautiful Queen of Prussia ; and, sharing her misfortunes, her mind turned from the pleasures of the world to the subject of religion. She was now. attracted by the prin- ciples of the Moravians, and again went to Paris, where she found many disciples a fact easily explained. The higher circles in Paris contain many persons accustomed, from early youth, to live on excitement ; who, when age, or any other cause, sickens them of those of fashionable life, fly to devotion, and kindle again for God the burnt-out coal of other passions. She was afterwards connected with the mystical Jung Stilling. In 1814, she was in Paris, much connected with the Allied Sovereigns, and is said to have had great influence upon the Emperor Alexander. At this time she had prayer-meetings, attended by all the distinguished persons in Paris, where she was seen in the back-ground, in the dress of a priestess, kneeling in prayer. She afterwards went to Geneva and Bale, everywhere followed by women, poor people, and vagabonds, sometimes preaching in the open air to three thousand persous. She distributed liberally to the poor, but excited so much sedition, that she was placed under the surveillance of the police, and at length sent to Russia, with orders not to pass the frontier. She was forbidden also to go to Moscow or Petersburg. She retired to the Crimea, and died there in 1824. Conversations Lexicon. CHAPTER II. EICHTER VISITS THE FKAUZENBATH IN EGEB DEATH OF HIS MOTHER EMILIE VON BERLESPSH REMOVAL FROM HOF TO LEIPSIC. IN the month of June, 1797, Richter found his ^D 1797> health, from uninterrupted labour, so much im- a*- 34 - paired, that, to avoid a fit of hypochondria, he fled to the baths of Eger, in Saxony, where were collected some of the most distinguished and brilliant persons of the country. Here he was destined to meet another of those enchan- tresses, who drew him more powerfully than either of the others from the quiet and regular flow of his studious hours. This was Emilie von Berlespsh, a young, beautiful, and rich widow of Switzerland. Paul's fancy was imme- diately kindled, and he was soon so much the more capti- vated, as the beautiful and spiritual woman professed to love him more with the fancy than the heart, and thus seemed to avoid the rock upon which poor Madam von Kalb had struck. The health of Richter's mother had been gradually declining, but he felt no immediate alarm, although her blessing, when he parted, was more fervent and tender than usual ; but the fascination he was under detained him at the Baths until he was shocked with the sudden intelligence that she was no more. With bleeding heart, in which remorse was mingled for his absence, he returned to Hof. It was to Paul a painfully sweet recollection, that he had not gone from her without her blessing, and that when he saw her again, she was resting peacefully. The hand of 236 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Death, unlike that of Providence, had effaced from her pale countenance all the lines of sorrow and of years, and in death she looked again young, calm, and happy. His mother had been so bowed down by her life-long sorrows, that even after Paul had become the child of fame, and she heard his praises on every side, she wore the same subdued and humble expression, and denied herself all demonstra- tion of joy at the success of her darling child. She fulfilled literally the injunction of the Apostle, " to rejoice with trembling."* To add to his sorrow, Paul now first discovered the book, already mentioned, iu which his poor mother had kept a record of her little gains in her midnight spinning He wrote to Otto, as he placed the faded paper next his heart " If all other manuscripts are destroyed, yet will I keep this, good mother ! where the misery of thy nights is recorded, and where, in weakness and pain, thy thread of life is drawn out." f For many weeks Paul was not able to write to his friend Otto, or to mention his loss to any one ; but at length he fled back to Eger, to find, in the sympathy of his new female friend, consolation for this his deepest sorrow. Notwithstanding the fascinating beauty and charming qualities of the young widow, Richter would not have been so completely enthralled, had she not also excited his sympathy. She had lost her young husband' after a very short period of happy married life, and was left childless. He wrote to Otto " I have found the first female soul that I can completely unite with, without weariness, with- out contrariety ; that can improve me while I improve her. She is too noble and too perfect to be eulogised with a * The character of Lenette, in SiebenJcas, has some of the traits of Paul's mother, and she is said to have furnished him with the original. f In a letter from the Duke of Mechlenbnrg, this circumstance is mentioned as a touching feature in the character of Richter. It shows the strong aifections of his heart, that he should have been so tenderly attached to a character like that of Lenette. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. drop of ink. She belongs to that class of women, who with firm steps go straight forward on their path, and do not turn, or observe the gazers on the right or left. She has more love in her heart than in her eyes, and therefore she is not understood, nor happy ; and her clear reason and brilliant fancy surpass the glow of her imagination." But although the lady began with the most Platonic affection for Richter, it soon appeared that she demanded a more exclusive devotion, a warmer expression than Paul, with all the claims of his imaginary heroines, could give to one, and those violent passions and stormy scenes began, that tormented the next twelve months of his life. After Paul had left the Frauzenbath, and returned to Hof, she wrote to him : . ; . " Follow your heart when it speaks for me, for notwithstanding all your goodness, all your sympathy with me, there is something in me that will always doubt. Do not look upon little hindrances and outward relations. What we lose at the present no eternity can give us back. There is for me only one real, pure joy, and in no future life can there be a higher than the intimate sympathy of soul with you. Ah, we have as yet said nothing to each other. " To-morrow I shall go to Weimar, and there I shall find a letter from you ! This tells me why I have such an inexpressible longing to be there, where no joy, except this and meeting with Herder, awaits me. Ah, I pray you not to love me ; that were silly ; but I pray you to view justly the heaven that you create in me ! and if you can estimate it, then you will never destroy it. Would that I could write to you something more of thought than feeling ! I know not how it happens that I, who am always nine parts understanding, and one miserable tenth part heart, forget, pen in hand with you, all logic and penetration, and like the most susceptible girl, could discourse of my feelings through whole pages, if the thought of your severe under- standing did not stand in warning opposition before me." 23S LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. A week later: "I have received your letter. The mauner in which I received it is a circumstance in the history of the letter. But of that another time, Breath- less with joy I seized the letter from the hand of the bearer. My nerves trembled ; for some moments I could not read it. At last it was read. But now I would I could use any other image but now the high-swelling waves of feeling were instantly checked, as if by a sudden frost. But wherefore ? That never ask me ! The heaven from which I wrote the first part of this letter is destroyed. " I have been some hours with Herder. We talked of the works of art in Dresden, and of you. Herder said, with the most generous expression, that there was not in Germany (that is, in the world) your equal in affluence of mind, and withal, so pure a heart. Could one say more ? And yet, when I talked of you, they called me an enthu- siast ! Further, social life in Weimar is as if a wicked enchantment had dissolved everything. Love, friendship, veneration, the enjoyment of art, even society is here only a sound, a shadow. A leaden night settles on all heads, all hearts, in apparently equal uniformity. " Farewell ! When you are a little good to me, if you would not make it utterly impossible for me to write to you with unreserve, write, but never again in such a manner, to your "EMILIE." Richter answered" How could I take from your view even the smallest blue spot in the cloud-heaven of life ? Nothing is so painful as an epistolary misunderstanding, when it must be effaced through the slow post, rather than with a glance of the eye. " I stand already at the door of my literary cabin, and look at the opening in the distant prospect. How few men have a life plan although many a week, year, youth or business plan. Men in their movements are without aim ; accident, necessity, desire, press one upon them that they take for their own. Gold pieces and medals of LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 239 honour draw them down in life, and the outward dies without the inward being thought of. The folly of human wishes, indifference to the integrity of the soul, the half- fragmentary, half-accidentally formed inward, ideal man, where one half is a giant, the other a dwarf, makes one not only melancholy, but desponding. Upon the church- yard of the whole earth should this universal epitaph be placed : ' Here lie the beings who in life knew not what they would have.' " My leave-taking with all my dear associates here, gives me many wounds to take with me to Leipsic. May I there in your precious heart find none. " K" Kichter had at length decided upon the removal from Hof that is indicated at the conclusion of this letter. By the death of his mother, the last thread was broken that held him there, and beside, the whole care of the education and maintenance of his youngest brother, Samuel, devolved also upon him. He was a youth full of talent ; Paul resolved that he should not suffer, as he had himself, for the want of a helping hand, and this determined him to remove to Leipsic, where his brother could at the same time enjoy the advantages of the university, and of his own guardian care. Richter's residence in Hof had never been favourable to his genius. He felt that he needed a wider and more brilliant birth-place for his Titan, to which, if it had not been for the demands of Emilie Berlespsh, he would now have been exclusively devoted. His wide-spread celebrity, and the homage he had received from all ranks, widened the distance between Paul and his Hofer friends ; and even Otto's jealousy could not be concealed at the marks of distinction which he did not share with his friend. Only a heart like Paul's could have resisted the flattery on one side and the reproaches on the other, and nothing places him in a more amiable light than his tenderness and forbearance under Otto's jealousy. He says, in answer 240 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. to a letter filled with fond reproaches : " I have within me a humility that no one has ever guessed ; it is not a victory over pride, but a necessity of my nature. The judgments of others deceive me more through immoderate censure than through immoderate praise." As soon as it was known that Richter was going to leave Hof, a voice of regret and lamentation broke out on all sides. The young women, to whom he had been an instructor and friend, now almost all of them married, would fain have kept him among them, to be the monitor to their children that he had been to them, Vogel, and the Saint Anna, Volkel, and his old instructor Werner, now infirm and aged, all poured in their letters expressing their warm love, their reverence for his noble qualities, and their deep grief at losing one who seems to have been regarded by those who enjoyed his intimacy with sentiments bordering upon idolatry. Richter visited all his near friends, and took leave of others by letter. To Vogel (when he returned his books) he wrote " Dearest friend, I go as an inhabitant, my brother as a student, to Leipsic, aud leave for ever the place of my youth. Exactly as at the first time, when I went a student myself to Leipsic, I write to you this second time; and with the same anxiety with which we see the successive pieces of the machinery of life's stage shoved and pressed through each other. To your printed treasures, dearest friend, I am indebted for the greater part of my Library of Extracts, and my gratitude for your love can never be lessened. May Heaven lead in en- chanting dreams the innocent world of your life before your eyes, and shelter you from the night air and the night frosts. May you and yours be happy, happy, happy !" Vogel answered "Infinitely, inexpressibly beloved friend, you give me my books again, and take from us that personal image in which you have come to us from heaven. I weep at it like a child. But why should I suffer you to LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 241 see my emotions reflected, as it were, in a glass, when you can read in the human heart as in a book ; and yet the less need I colour them, for you are holy Nature's first and dearest painter. Let your spirit still hover ahout us, and let now and then a drop of the old friendship fall into our cup. Thanks, thanks ! nothing but thanks for every enjoyment that from the sea of your love you have created for me. Eternal devotion, eternal reverence, eternal tenderness will be consecrated by my heart to yours. Fare you well, well, well ! thus calls with me my wife, thus call all my children after their friend. " P.S. If I should see the Kampaner Thai, the ninth or tenth commandment will not stand in my way. You have spoiled my whole reading for me, especially the so- called beautiful ! I would that you had not spoiled it, or that I had more money and fewer books. Send me often from Leipsic only the written words, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, and I will practise magic with them. Denuo vale carissime! Carissime vale!" We hear of the phlegmatic Germans ! This letter was from a country pastor, advanced in years. Let us recall the words of the former letter, written just sixteen years before, when Paul, as a poor student, was setting out on foot for Leipsic : " Excellent young German ! from whom in the future I promise the world so much. Fulfil this prophecy !" If they both remembered the letter, how well seemed the prophecy fulfilled ! Richter and Otto, although living in the same city, had written to each other every day. They would not trust themselves with a parting interview, and Richter's last letter to his friend is most touchingly tender. It closes thus : " My last word to you is, be courageous ! Strive with manly power against sickly fantasies, and enter, as I do, always more courageously into active life, that your talents may be more useful to others, and thus to yourself. With this wish, with these hopes, my infinitely dear friend, I close my youth's time, and we part silently from each 242 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. other. If man can bear an eternity in his heart, you will remain eternally in mine. Say this also to your dear brother and sister. I will not seek such a trio in the world, for I shall not find you." After many other farewell messages, Paul closes by recommending to Otto's peculiar kindness a poor girl, who had sometimes served his mother in her illness. CHAPTER III. RESIDENCE IN LEIPSIC LETTERS EMILIE VON BERLESPSH VISITS DRESDEN. THE residence in Leipsic was a great and decided A D 1798 change in the life of our Eichter. In the tumult ffit - 35 - and whirlpool of the collected literature of the great book fair of Germany, so distinguished and so original a writer must have become one of the central points. How different from his humble apartment in Hof, where the only sounds that broke upon the quiet of still life were the drowsy whirring of his mother's spinning wheel, and the unwearied scratching of his own pen. On his arrival in Leipsic, the bookseller Beyganr/ received him into his house. Bichter found there treasures of new books, periodicals, and conveniences, that held him fast with the enchantment of novelty. But he soon went to his old lodgings in the Peterstrass, where he found higher chambers, wider windows, a more ornamented stove in short, elegant furniture, where the " commode was better than anything he could put in it." Many families admitted him to their most intimate domestic circles, and the young attached themselves to him with irresistible impulse. Weisse, now an old man, who had closed his literary career by writing hymns and ABC books for children, and to whom every German child is indebted for his delightful " Child's Friend," took Richter into his family; and his table, his library, and country house were as open to him as if he had been his first-born M 2 244 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. son. Paul said of him, " In his seventy-second year his face is a thanksgiving for his former life, and a love-letter to all mankind. A Leipsiger sapper is always a guest repast. Weisse's daughter, a beautiful and accomplished young lady, presides at his ; but for some years I have been dead to external beauty, and only alive to what is living beneath it." But, as in Weimar, Richter must speak for himself. Leipsic was the residence of his friend Christian Oerthel, who had lately been married, and Riehter had not yet seen his young wife. He says, " Oerthel had already deposited a letter inviting me to a private interview. After half an hour he opened the door of the next room, and his wife, as tall and slender as Reneta, neither beautiful nor unpleasing, but with love-gushing * mild eyes, that steal the heart away as by enchantment, fell although her mother and two sisters were present upon my neck. I was not less confused than pleased. Her voice is like her eyes. When she sang the forget me not, and some Italian pieces, you may easily think where my ears led ray heart, and that the tones floating between the present and the past affected me too deeply. Wednesday I was at the concert hall ; there were above a hundred performers. Beating the kettle-drum to a parchment thunder organ female singers in short, I heard music for the first time in my life. As the animals to Adam, were the people presented to me, of whom I could name only Ernhardt and Dr. Michaelis, and their sons. About eight o'clock a man came to me without a hat, with tangled hair, and aphoristical voice, and conver- sation free and bold. It was Thieriot, a violinist and philologist, and apparently an oddity, as he took me for one. He begged me to leave my lodgings, and come and live with him. " Kotzebue has visited, and invited me to dine with his wife. She appears to be a good mother. Contrary to my * It is impossible to translate liebequellenden otherwise. LIFE OF JEAN PAUI;. . 245 expectation, his conversation is sleepy, spiritless, and, like his eye, without brilliancy. On the other hand, he appears to be less wicked, than timidly weak. Conscience finds in his panada heart no ground firm enough in which to fix her hook. " I have been with Plainer in his family, where I found a completely accomplished wife, and two extremely beautiful daughters, and many distinguished young people. It ex- ceeds the power of my pen to give you a reasonable sketch of my acquaintances. Rather would I describe for you the refined, not too full, but costly and delicious supper parties. Yet I save nothing by them, for I must give the servants drink-money, and the maid who lights you down, or up, even in clear daylight, demands the offering penny, " What I promised to tell you of Goethe is insignificant* It was merely that he judged favourably of the Hesperus, Further, he sees now that it is good earnest with me ; but it gives him cramps of the brain when I throw myself from one science into another. ' I show my knowledge too much.' He knows a Uttle also! but he delivers only the result. ' When I am elevated above the earthly, even to heaven, then comes suddenly a poor jest,' &c. In short, he rues this side of my works *, ' f I met a noble Scot, Macdonald (celebrated in histoiy and in Ossian), at a stranger's table, and at his own, and found in him the twin mind of Blair, whose sermons so delighted me, and whose personal friend he is. No, there is not in the three kingdoms a nobler or more manly breast, under which beats a tenderer, purer, more piously poetic and melancholy spirit. Thus thought a youth long since of the English, from books, and thus he finds it now. He reads and speaks as many languages as the freed American cantons thirteen 'I must tell you of your faults !' I have already once, but completely wrong, namely, hinted a little vanity. That cannot exist in a * It must be confessed there is much justice in this criticism of Goethe's. 246 - LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. mind that so readily performs anonymous work, and with- draws itself from praise. Every son of earth may dare to be somewhat vain ; it is only unpermitted when he conceals it, or displays it too much. Ah, dear Otto, I remark from your letter that you are going back into your old errors, and that, merely because I write to you chronologically. Written complaints and explanations are, on account of their longer and stronger false impressions, more difficult to efface than verbal. Ah, if we could be only one day together in Hof, not merely a full amnesty, but a deep Lethe would hide the little precipices where we have fallen.* .... Fate is spinning for me, for I hear the whizzing of her wheel, a net-work that will overspread my whole life. The Berlespsh is here.. I find in her a soul that has not onee fallen beneath my ideal, and I should be wholly happy in her friendship, if she would not be too happy with me." The last extract bids us return ta Erailie von Berlespsh. A remark has been made by one of his biographers, " that whoever writes the life of Jean Paul must not forget how much influence women exercised upon his destiny." The reader must have already remarked, that although this lady began with the purest Platonism, she soon complained of the coldness of Kichter's letters ; and that he. never appears to have felt other sentiments for her than those of admiration and esteem. Immediately after Richter's removal to Leipsic, she purchased a country house at Gholis, a short distance from that city. When Paul visited her, he found a quiet, retired apartment in the lower story fitted up expressly for him as a study, where he could retire, if he wished to be alone, or seek society with her and her friends in her apartments. Upon all occasions he met a glowing heart, and a warm, disinterested friendship. As a female author, Richter placed this lady above most * Otto had again expressed his distrust of Richter's affection. See Appendix, No. IV. LIFE OP JEAN PAUL. 247 of her sex ; but female authorship was more rare in Ger- many at this time than even in England, and this lady was distinguished for a lucidity of arrangement, and strength of expression, at all times rare among female authors. About this time she had published remarks upon the revolution in Switzerland, together with Mallet du Pans's history of the same. Pdchter himself must unfold her history in connexion with himself. He writes to Otto : " Harpocrates, lay thy finger upon thy lips, for the theme is of her, the purest, most spiritual female soul that I have ever known, but the firmest and most ideal, and possessed with an egotistical coldness of philanthropy that demands and loves nothing but perfection. She fulfils all the duties of benevolence, but without warmth of feeling. At the baths of Eger I treated her with extreme reserve, and took rarely her hand, only a sym- pathizing part in her hard fate. She introduced to me a beautiful, rich, highly moral young lady, her friend from Zurich, for whom no wooer had hitherto been pure and good enough, and wished that I should marry her. Her proposal, when she came now from Weimar, was that my little winnings and the young lady's property should be thrown together, to purchase a country house, and that she should live constantly with us. She yielded, when I represented the folly and impossibility of such an ar- rangement, but her soul hung on mine, with more warmth than mine on hers; and I have lived through fearful scenes, blood-spitting, and swoonings, such as no pen can describe. At length, as I sat one evening reflecting upon her severe destiny, my heart melted within me, and I went in the morning and told her I consented to the marriage with herself. She will do whatever I wish ; will purchase a country house wherever I like best ; on the Necker, the Rhine, in Switzerland, or Voigtland. None, perhaps, will ever love or esteem me more, and yet I am not satisfied ; my fate was not decided by myself. In so far as greatness 248 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and purity of soul and worldly riches can make me happy, I shall be so, perhaps. " Ah, Otto, I weary to write, when thou art so long silent. What have I done to thee? What mist has again drawn around thee ? Farewell, my brother ! I long more bitterly, every day, for you. Ah ! you have no excuse, if, in an unaltered situation, you alter ; while I, in an altered, remain the same to you." Although Otto was at a distance from the fascinations of the lady, his mind was so completely the echo of his friend's, that he had not the power to represent to him, that, by such a marriage, even if he gained all the fortunes of Germany, it would be no atonement to a heart like Richter's for the want of mutual confidence and love. He closes a letter which is only a reflection of the sentiments of Paul's, thus " But were your wishes not fulfilled, were the longing after love only charmed, not stilled, we know that our, that is, the poet's kingdom, is not of this world." Paul had therefore to achieve his freedom alone ; and it is another proof of his extraordinary power, and the elevating influence of his moral nature, that he not only reconciled the lady to the refusal of her passionate demands, but continued with her upon the most friendly and confidential terms, without further question of love or marriage. Richter's next letter informs his friend, that, even before he had received his last, his fate was decided. " I told Emilie that I felt no passion for her, and that it would be impossible for us to live happily together. I passed two inconceivably wretched days ; but now her wounded heart closes again gently, and bleeds less. I am free, free, free, and blest ! In Hof you will hear of it most extensively, but my justification will precede the censure. It depended on myself, after my confessions, to form with her a social and friendly bond. At the end of May we shall go together to Dresden, Seifersdorf, and on the Elbe. . . . I should be much happier in marriage than you imagine. If there were only the spring of love, I would ask little LIFE OP JEAN PAUL. 249 &t>m the summer of marriage. But do not believe that mine is like your sacrificing heart. Ah, in your situation I should be, through youth and beauty, and through great tenderness of soul, completely happy *. " Let me say no more of you, but only soon, to you I believe I should for joy and love, among you, die! Ah, the good Paulini, tell Iteneta she must ask me what T think of her silence." We have room but for one more extract from the Leipsic letters ; one that shows the childlike simplicity and open- ness with which the two friends wrote to each other. " I celebrated my birth-day on the 20th, on account of the birth of the spring; and on the 21st, on account of my own birth. From an unknown hand, I received brown cloth, that I already doubly wear, as a coat, and as an overcoat for the winter. Madam Feind gave me a cup, with hers and my initial letters interlaced; Madam Bruningt a neckcloth ; and the Berlespsh made a little festival with rose trees, crowns, etc. ; to which Weisst and some other friends were invited." Richter was now preparing the second volume of the Titan for the press, and was also employed upon the Palingenesien. But, in the midst of the business and pleasures of that whirlpool, the Leipsic Fair, he was seized with inexpressible longing for his late home. He fancied that this heimweh would be cured by the sight of the green spot near the Lorenzo Church, where his mother reposed, and his melancholy dissipated by a few days' residence with Otto, and quiet and confidential intercourse with his friend and his friend's betrothed, Amone. After fourteen days with Otto and his family, who resembled him in tenderness, and in attachment to Richter, he returned, strengthened as much by their love as by the repose and freedom from excitement he had found in the little city of Hof. * Otto had long been attached to Amone Herold, but through family opposition their marriage was delayed. M 8 2 50 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL; Shortly after his return, he journeyed with Emilie tp Dresden, partly to escape from the tumult of the fair, and partly to feel the full enjoyment of Nature, under the double charm of the opening spring, and the society of a female friend. It was Richter's first visit to Dresden, and he .was disappointed in the social tone of the accomplished Dresdeners. But , in Dresden a new, and hitherto un- iraagined, world was opened to him. He became acquainted with the Grecian plastic art. Anew sun arose over his own, and threw its living beams upon his mind. He wrote to Otto: t*Q : ". As yet, I can impart nothing to you but the Hall of Sculpture, that yesterday, like .a new, huge world, pressed into my mind and nearly crowded the other out. We entered a long, light, vaulted hall, through which extended two- rows of pillars. Between these pillars repose the old gods,:who have thrown off the world of-the grave, or the clouds of heaven, and reveal to us a holy, calm, and blessed world in their forms, and in our own breasts. He.re we h'nd the difference between the beauty of a man and that of ' a god. That excites, though gently, wishes .and timidity, but this exists firm and simple, like the blue of ether before the world and time were created. The repose of perfection, not of weariness, looks from their eyes and rest upon their lips. Whenever in future I write of great or beautiful objects, these gods will appear before me, and reveal to me the kws of beauty. Now I know the Grecians, and can never forget them." He did not forget them ; but the feeling they awoke in him was a reverend timidity towards them, and desponding reflections on himself: as the sight of a large library always made him melancholy he felt the impossibility of taking ia its treasures. He did not enter the hall again. Richter was now thirty-five years old, and the feeling may be easily understood of all that he had lost, while his mind was, ^forming, which he was now too old to repair. The sight of perfection in any form excites in susceptible LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 251 minds the longing after perfection. After his visit to the Hall of Sculpture, Richter wrote in a secret pocketrbook " Unknown, unseen ! here in the stillness of my empty chamber comes thy image! Ah, once, only once, thou All-loving, send to my thirsting heart that being, that as an eternal pole-star, rises above me, and that, alas! I never reach." This visit to the gallery of Sculpture in Dresden inspired him with a desire to renew his acquaintance with the ancients. He says, in a letter to Thieriot, afterwards, " During this northern winter, my spirit was refreshed in Attica and Ionia. I read, with a joy of which Herder can tell you, the Odyssey and Iliad, Sophocles, part of Euripides, and ^Eschylus. After the last hymns of the Iliad, and the (Edipus in Colonna, one can read nothing but Shak- speare or Goethe. They already affect my Titan, but &s the teacher, rather than the father." Richter had already found reason to rejoice that he had not formed a more permanent union with Emilie. He says to Otto, " In future I shall journey alone, and on foot. With Emilie I found upon our journey too much egotism, and too much aristocracy towards those beneath her in rank. I have again made peace with her, although she, not I, has often opened the old wounds. In the spring of 1799 (sub-rosa) she will go to England." The lady went to England, and resided in the Highlands of Scotland, but soon returned with heimweh to her native land. Her troubled life at length reposed happily in another union *. Upon Richter's return to Leipsic, from his Dresden * Emilie von Berlespsh was a distinguished female German author. I learn from Schindel's Biography, that at the time of her acquaintance with Jean Paul she was divorced from her first husband, although in his life she is called a widow. She visited Scotland in company with Sir James Me Donald, and on her return published a work, called " Summer Hours in Caledonia." In 1801, she married a second time the Rath Harms, and went with him to Berne, in Switzerland, where she owned estates. 252 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. journey, a deep sorrow awaited him. His brother Samuel, upon whose account, and to promote whose education, he had come to Leipsic, a youth of good talents, and originally of a noble disposition, had fallen into dissipated company, and become involved in a deep passion for gaming. He had taken advantage of Richter's absence to break open his desk, and abstract from it one hundred and fifty rix- dollars. With this sum he departed from his brother's lodgings, without leaving any clue by which he could be discovered. Paul suffered inexpressibly when he entered his deserted room, and discovered the rose-bush, that had been his brother's care, faded and dried as if it had been long neglected ; but he suffered infinitely more, when he found that guilt also was connected with his flight. He wrote to Otto, " That lost and deserted one, who knows me so little, and who will never guess that I should be more softened by his return than he would be himself, comes before me every night in my dreams. Ah, if he knew how easily his hard fate might be mitigated ! " He did not return, and his subsequent fortunes occupy a large part of Paul's future correspondence with Otto. Richter was more lenient towards his poor unhappy brother, because he reproached himself with too much indulgence, and too little scrutiny of his conduct while at the university. He never saw him again, but he settled on him a yearly sum, to be paid through Otto, who was the medium of commu- nication between them. The boy led a wandering life, probably filled with suffering, and died at a military hos- pital in Silesia. A strong character should never have the complete control of a weak one. The weak cannot sym- pathize with the strong, and to conceal his weakness enters into a series of deceptions, that often end fatally for the weak. In the course of his journey to discover his brother, Richter visited Halberstadt, the residence of Gleim *, now * The reader may recollect, that it was Gleim who sent Jean Paul the fifty dollars, under the assumed name of Septimus Fixlein. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 253 AII old man ; but the snow that had gathered upon his long locks had not extinguished the youthful fire of his eye, or shadowed the lines of his noble brow. Gleim stood at the door to receive him, and he was equally enchanted by the old man, and by the neighbourhood of the Hart/, mountains. Paul wrote to Otto : " Gleim has the fire and the blindness of a youth. To spare the old man, I made only some slight remark, when he compared the sorrows of Louis XVI. to those of Christ." He returned to Leipsic at the end of July, regretting " that he had found no man for his heart ; that he toad indeed found men whose pupil he could be, but none that he could take to his heart." CHAPTER IV. RICHTER RETURNS TO WEIMAR WIELAND GOETHE HERDER HIS ATTACHMENT TO JEAN PAUL PHILOSOPHY MADAM VON KALB. A.D. 1798, AFTER the loss of his brother, Leipsic, with all a*. 35. j tg no j se an( j tumult, appeared to Richter an empty and deserted city. Leipsic had, indeed, never fulfilled the expectations of his youth. All that he had so long dwelt upon in solitude, and that would have made him so infinitely happy as a youth in Leipsic, came too late. The theatre, concerts, the society of people of rank, to one who had been the intimate friend of Herder, appeared empty and idle pleasures, and his longing for the conversation of his friend returned, when there was no longer a reason for his remaining in Leipsic. An invisible hand drew him again to Weimar ; an inward voice whis- pered to liim that it was only by the side of Herder that the sun would rise which was to ripen his Titan. On a visit which he made there about this time, when all his former friends received him with the same delight as at first, Goethe, with more flattering demonstrations of friendship than before, the circle that gathered about him was so choice and so delightful, that he determined no longer to resist his secret wishes. Accordingly, at the end of October, just a year from the time he entered it, he left Leipsic, and on the 26th, at evening, entered the gate of Weimar, to him that of a New Jerusalem. The same evening he wrote the following note to Herder : " At length I have passed the Arabian Desert LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 255 of . two years, and have arrived with the same pilgrim's garment, like an Israelite to the promised land, where I wish to conquer nothing but yourself." Madam Von Kalb was at her country house, where she suffered with cheerful resignation the long night that the almost total loss of her sight had drawn around her. In so far as the comfort of a poet depends upon outward circumstances, a humble personage claims a page in his biography. This is the Frau Kuhnholdter, the wife of a saddler, at whose house Jean Paul hired his apartments. He writes as usual to his friend Otto : " My greatest refreshment here, except Herder, is my house Frau. Never was I so happily lodged. No step-genius provides for my comfort and waits upon me, but the lady of the house herself, who takes care of me as a mother would take care of her child. In my absence she had a second door cut in my apartment, and cares for all, and places all in order. At six o'clock she comes in, warms and lights .my room, and then brings the hot coffee. I give her a crown, with which she pays all, and keeps an exact account till she needs a new one, and I often have a glass of wine over. She provides my wood, my comforts takes care of the washing, and when I go a little foot journey, like my mother, she puts up everything, even the ink-glass. And when I return, all is ready, as in an expecting family. The Duchess-mother told me that the house Frau was a great reader. I inquired, and found that she had once taken the (Economical Lexicon from the library. They wondered at it, and it was purchased for her by the Duchess." These outward cares, for which the good house Frau so well provided, bore upon the whole tenor of Eichter's life in Weimar, which was indeed most happy. His reception was even more flattering than at first, as personal knowledge had confirmed the former admiration. All doors and all hearts, even the ducal, were opened to him. The noble and intellectual Duchess Amelia received him as a friend of 256 the house, and he was indebted to her descriptions for his knowledge of Isola Bella, Naples, Ischia, and the other parts of Italy, that he has painted with such living colours in his Titan. Richter's genius also was never more creative and sportful, and the little work that he produced at this time, Bevorstehenden Lebemlauf*, in fulness of thought, charm of expression, and a gentle play of wit and humour, between the serious and sportive, is not sur- passed by any of his longer works. But the reader must not be defrauded of Paul's own naive and simple account. He writes to Otto : " Yesterday I visited Schiller. He was indisposed, and I went, foolishly, to walk with his wife. She belongs to those agreeable coquettes in conversation, who do not throw the ball straight back, but keep it up through playful persiflage. She led the author of Hesperus, at twilight, to a beautiful eminence, to see another ; but he could only look at her beautiful face, and her still more charming Cleopatra eyes. I always tell her I cannot believe a word she says, unless she looks in my face. . . . At a learned supper I met Hufeland and Fichte, and others that I did not know. Fichte is small (I thought he had been tall), modest, and precise, but not particularly genial. I was lovingly treated by all, especially by Schiller. Ah ! I speak too openly with people, and shield myself too little. My table-talk at Dresden to Schlegel obliged his brother, when it was repeated to him, to the expression of his judgment about me f. . . " I write to you, wrapped in Wieland's wide mantle, which, on account of the cold, his wife lent me. I travelled here on foot, with only my summer coat, and a pocketful of shoes and clean shirts \. Wieland is slender, erect, with a * Approaching life's course, f In a severe review of Jean Paul's works. This was on Paul's first visit from Leipsic, before he had permanent)/ established himself in Weimar. LIKE OF JEAN PAUL. 257 red scarf, and a red handkerchief bound round his head talking much of himself, but not with pride a little Aris- tippish, and indulgent towards himself, as towards others full of parental and conjugal love, but so intoxicated by the Muses, that his wife once concealed from him, for ten whole days, the death of one of his children. He does not pene- trate the relation of things so deeply as Herder, and his judgment is better upon external social affairs than upon intimate human relations. He gave me the palm many inches higher than his own, particularly about my dreams and pages upon nature, and increased my outward pride (my inward, never) about many things. He depreciates himself too much, and was too anxious about my prase of his works. " On my second visit to Wieland, with my wide fluttering summer ornaments, the good patriarch, on account of the hateful cold weather, brought me his coat himself. To-day I carried it back. God send every poet such an active, firm, prudent, candid, tender, and kind wife. She had read in the newspapers of the danger of resting after being cold, and she brought and insisted upon my drawing on warm stockings. Wieland could not survive her, if she were to die, neither she him. He has told me her heart's history, and also his own*. Ah, how much I have to relate to your ear and heart. ... In his single and widowed daughters, beneath plain persons, are good and beautiful hearts ; but with such faces they will not be drawn out. Nevertheless, his wife proposed, and he men- tioned it to me the next morning, that I should take the opposite house, and eat always with them. He said I gave him new life, and that they all loved me ! Naturally, as I always make them laugh, and as / cannot help loving so good a family. But that would never do. Two poets can never live together. And I will wear no chain, even were it formed of perfume, and welded by moonbeams and I should be certain that in the solitude of only their society * Se Appendix, No. I. 258 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I should end by marrying one of their daughters which is not my plan. " I have just come from Herder. We sat many hours alone in his arbour. Oh, dear Otto, how shall I show you this noble spirit at its right elevation, before which my little soul bends with Spanish, even Turkish veneration this man, penetrated with the Divinity, whose foot is upon this world, his head and breast in the other ? How shall I paint his inspired eye, when poetry or music softens him ? How shall I represent him embracing all the branches of the tree of knowledge, although he seizes masses, not parts, and instead of the tree, shakes the ground upon which it stands ? I have often, after spending the evening with him, taken leave with tears. " Apropos, I have also been with Goethe, who received me with more obliging friendship than the first time. I was, in consequence, freer, bolder, less susceptible, and therefore more independent. He inquired after my manner of working, as it completely surpasses his method, and asked how I like Ficlite. Upon the last, Goethe said, ' He is the great new scholastic. Men are bom poets, but they can make themselves philosophers, if they can any- where fix a transcendental idea. The new (philosophers) make light an object, when it should only show objects.' He will complete the Faust at the end of six months. He said he could always promise himself his work six months beforehand, and he prepares himself by prudent diet. Schiller drinks coffee immoderately, and Malaga also. No one is as moderate in coffee as I am. " Goethe told us, he had not read a syllable of his Werter until ten years after it was written. ' Who would willingly surrender themselves to a past sensation, and recall anger or love,' etc. ? So also said Herder of his works. What can be said of the self-idolatry of the small literary men of the day, when such men are so humble ? I was ashamed not to be so before them, but I said, 'that my things, immediately after they were printed, pleased me extremely, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 250 and that I knew no better reading but, when I had for- gotten my own ideal, I knew none worse.' " Dear Otto, why do you write me so little of yourself? With what right or justice should I give you all my per- sonalities, if I did not expect yours in return ? Write me soon, what makes you so calm namely 'your newly discovered unsealed fountain.' Has no one guessed that it is a gift for distant, thirsting friends, when they are told how often you sneeze, gape, smile, or weep. You imagine me more altered in my views of human life and benevolence than I am. I am the same man as formerly, and have lost nothing but certain hopes and dreams." Otto, in his next letter, discovers the source of his newly- acquired contentment ; and as it condenses the philosophy of many tedious volumes, I give an extract from it : " The conviction lies deep and indelible in every human breast, that only those have a right to be happy more, only those can reproach Destiny, who possess the purest virtue ; that every one should be satisfied with his fate, if he has ever, in the course of his life, acted unjustly or un- wisely. I reflected upon my whole life. I have found nowhere what is in the world called happiness, but every- where gifts that I had not deserved. The more narrowly I looked at these, they shivered, and, like ignoble metals, evaporated in the melting. How small then was the result ! But I did not spare nor deceive myself, and hypocritically say, that my desert appeared much smaller, and the more this diminished, the more the gifts increased. I felt, with deep mortification, that there I should have been better, here wiser, or at least more reasonable. Then I was silent within myself, and said ' Tho.u hast received more than thou hast deserved, and if Destiny had given thee nothing but this living faith, and the still, cool air, and the solitude that thou lovest, still it is more, a thousand times more, than thou hast deserved.' .... "I celebrated Amone's birth-day, this year, with emo- tions wholly different from former ones. In future years, 260 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I thought, she will live by me, care for me, and as I have always known her sacrificing love, so I am certain that in every relation with me, be it ever so limited, she will be contented. I have lived, in my long connexion with her, days of sweet and intimate enjoyment for the mind and heart. How often do I admire in her, her sacrificing and forbearing spirit her tenderness of heart, together with the manly ambition of a philosophical spirit ; her silence and patience under the severity of her father, and the nar- rowness of her family ; all this makes the prospect of life with her, and only with her, when we have passed the hard circumstances that now divide us, dear to my heart. To whom could I say all this, with the prospect of sympathy, but to you, my Richter ? " To this letter Richter answered " Your excellent judg- ment, upon happiness and desert, was always mine. I have always myself laid the egg out of which the basilisks have crept. On account of my poor brother, I have also some guilt, but less of the heart than of the head. I contended with Goethe upon your assertion ' concerning the progress of the World.' 'Revolving, we must say,' he answered; ' a priori progress follows from the belief of a Providence, but not a posteriori is the progress always apparent, at least not in the French revolution. The hardly-found truth we must also earn for ourselves. The chambers of the brain are full of seed, for which the feelings and pas- sions are the flower soil and the forcing glasses.' " A young Haydn is music-director here ; and a female singer, that I visit sometimes, though without beauty, is a perfect gymnastic for wit. She laughs and sings, and, with justice, more than she speaks. She told me, that she asked Goethe how she should receive me; whether she should come trilling to meet me ? ' Child,' said he, ' do as with me, and be natural.' " Herder has one Alphabet of his Metakritic ready. He asked me to look through it, and make corrections. I told him I would, but only to read and restore what he had LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 261 scratched out In the great world I despise the men and their joyless joys ; but I esteem the women ; in them alone can one investigate the spirit of the times. Besides, I am freer and better known than in a small place. But, as I said to Herder yesterday, ' Once married, I shall creep into the smallest nest in the world, and stick nothing but my writing fingers out.' " Caroline Herder, in her reminiscences of his life, gives a beautiful account of Richter's relations at this time with her gifted husband. "In the last month of the year 1798, Jean Paul Richter came to Weimar, and with warm, full heart, to Herder. Herder immediately won his love, and his esteem for Richter's great and rich genius increased from day to day. The high moral power breathing in his works, fitting him to be a physician of the times, united both men in a friend- ship of the closest sympathy. He came, as though sent by a good Providence, exactly at the time when Herder, on account of his political and philosophical principles, was deserted, and nearly forgotten. The happy evening hours that Richter passed with us, his perpetually cheerful, youthful soul, his fire, his humour, the animation with which he talked over with Herder everything that hap- pened, always gave him new life. Much as they differed in their views upon one subject, yet were their principles and their emotions always the same. (Herder differed from Richter in his judgment of women ; he thought Paul made them too melancholy, too desponding, and perhaps too inactive.) Moreover, he valued Richter's genius, his rich, overflowing, poetic spirit, far above the soulless pro- ductions of the time, that contended for the poetic form only. Herder named them brooks without water, and often said, ' that Richter stood, as opposed to them, upon a high elevation, and that he would exchange all artistical forma for his living virtue, his feeling heart, his perennial creative genius; he brings new, fresh life, truth, virtue, 262 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. reality, into the declining and misunderstood vocation of the poet.' " Most intimately united, the two friends lived together, Our little evening table, with him, our children, and some- times Frederick Mayer, was a true sanctuary. Oh, how often has the good Bichter there, or walking, or in his little journeys to the Ettersburg, by his genial humour, robbed Herder of the bitterness of his emotions. He often said to me, in the last year of his life, ' Before I close the Adrastea, I will place there a memento of our Richter, I will show to the whole of Germany how we prize him.' " It was thus that our Richter was valued by those who best knew him ; and perhaps he now stood upon a higher elevation in the estimation of society, and in his own, than he had before attained. He had added independence and strength of soul to the consciousness of the value, and to the infinite reverence he felt for the holy aim of his life. His views were more extensive and richer, while his heart beat with a more glowing philanthropy. He felt that the calling of an author, at this time, when a spiritual revolu- tion was beating in the hearts of men, more important even than the political that was raging without, demanded all the highest qualities of the soul, as well as the devotion of the time and heart of him, " Who comprehends his trust, and to the same Keeps faithful, with a singleness of aim." The friendship which about this time he formed with Jacobi, threw him again on the path of philosophy, which in his nineteenth year he had abandoned for poetry. From the idealism of Fichte, which made egotism transcendental, he turned to what he thought the interests of humanity demanded. A personal God, the maker, preserver, and governor of the universe ; the immortality of man, as a self-conscious and unaccountable being and to love, as the spring, incitement, and impelling principle of the universe. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 263 In these opinions he found in Jacobi an immoveable rock, and for these Herder incessantly contended. They had united to publish a periodical under the title of " Aurora,'' but the advanced age of Herder (he was in his sixty-sixth year), and Jacobi's failing health, prevented the accom- plishment of their project. I cannot be guilty of the presumption and temerity of undertaking to define the different systems of the philoso- phical writers of the time, so as to be able to determine to which of them Richter adhered ; but I may venture to assert that he dreaded the influence of the Kantish philo- sophy upon religion and morals, that he made the idealism of Fichte (who asserts that all external things are the pro- duction of the imagination) the subject of severe ridicule in his Clavis Fichtiana, and has shown the practical conse- quences of his system in Schoppe, or Leibgeber, a character introduced into more than one of his books, who is crazed by the Ideal philosophy, and maddened by the fixed idea, that he has lost his individuality. Eichter's biographer asserts that, after the publication of Fi elite's book upon the destiny of man, he seized every opportunity to express his reverence for the author, and that in his Levana he inserted an eulogy of Fichte. Jean Paul adhered closely to Herder, and was a fellow believer with Jacobi, the "faith philosopher." Those who are acquainted with the elevated and religious sentiments " that echoed to the mighty heart of Herder," will under- stand the position he took in German philosophy. Richter possessed in an eminent degree what have been called the highest capacities of man, reverence for the holy, and love for the beautiful. Superstition, bigotry, and fanaticism, seem to have been equally abhorred by him in early life, although he said, after the French revolution, " I bless the concordat. The deepest superstition is better than Atheism and Theism." In this happy manner the autumn passed in Weimar. In January, Madam von Kalb returned from her country 64 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. residence, and immediately a storm arose in Richter's In- dian summer. She had brought her husband and her own family to consent to her divorce, and, as a consequence, insisted upon marrying our hero. But he must give his own account of the affair, in a letter to Otto : " After a supper at Herder's, with Madam von Kalb, Herder was sitting by her, for he esteems her highly, and immediately, in the presence of his wife, kissed her heartily ; and as the reflection of this ancient flame fell upon me, she said, ' In the spring, in the spring.' I said afterwards to her, decidedly, no! and after a glow of eloquence from her, it stands thus that she shall take no step for, and I no step against, the divorce. I have at last acquired firmness of heart. In this affair I am wholly guiltless. I can feel that hoJy, genial love, which I cannot, indeed, paint with this dark water but it passes not be- yond my dreams." These stormy passages in the life of Richter were of singular advantage in enabling him to complete his Titan, but they were unfavourable to his own happiness ; and, as he said, " the Berlespsh relation bound his hands, and shut his eyes, while some gentler heart, that might have been his, was lost to him. Shall I always thus play and hope, fail and end thus ? Such women as both these blind one to every quiet female Luna. Ah, what seeds for a paradise I bore in my heart, of which birds of prey have robbed me !" Richter remained firm through the winter against the se- ductions of Madam von Kalb. He happily knew that such stormy heroines as Madam Berlespsh and von Kalb were never formed as wives for him. He needed a mild and gentle spirit, not to dazzle and to be admired, but in whose unselfish love he could find a sanctuary for his heart. Noble and excellent as Richter was, he was yet a poet, and therefore a spiritual egotist, and his wife must minister to the domestic altar the sweet and pure incense of reve- rence and love. With a Berlespsh he could have found no LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 265 repose, with Madam von Kalb there could have been no security. No genius of either sex should marry a genius. The result of the poetic nature seems to be an intense per- sonality. I do not mean selfishness, or even egotism but the poet lives in his own creations ; they are his domain, his kingdom, and he cannot go out of them, to enter into the heart or interests of an individual, although he under- stands better than another the great heart of humanity, and lives in the soul of the universe. His wife should be willing to be only a ray, to be absorbed, and have no individual existence, except in him. How could this be, were both poets, both demanding supremacy, and the acknowledgment of individual superiority ? Far happier, far more graceful, is it for the woman to remain in the attitude of a priestess at the domestic altar, not of man, because he is a man, but because he is a poet, and to keep the flame pure by no slavish offering, but by the holy incense of admiration and reverence. The work that appeared this year from the pen of Richter, " Selections from the Papers of the Devil," re-cast and re-written, was entitled " Palingenesien," born again. Ten years before, Richter had met with great difficulty in finding an editor for these satires. Disputes were held upon the title the printer wishing them to appear as " Philoso2)hical and Cosmopolitan Remains of Faust;" or "Selections from the Writings of Sir Lucifer." Jean Paul adhered to his own title, but the book attracted little attention at the time. It was now wholly re-written, and only about ten of the original satires retained ; these being the only pages that could have a direct reference to the present time, and be combined with a dramatic action. A critic, speaking of this book, says " It is one of the works of the author that gives the most lucid explanation of the being and nature of the poet, and places poetical influences in the clearest light." CHAPTER V. RICHTER VISITS THE COURT OF HILDBURGHAUSEN MADE- MOISELLE VON F. THE FOUR SISTER PRINCESSES DEDICATION OF TITAN VISITS BERLIN. A.D. 1799, I N t* 16 spring of 1799, Madam von Kalb, having set. 3& invited Amone, the betrothed of Otto, to accompany her, retired to one of her country houses, and all question of the divorce was thenceforth dropped. Richter could not pass the genial season of spring with- out a longing desire to wander ; he therefore accepted an invitation to visit the Court of Hildburghausen, from whose Duke he had received the diploma of Legations rath. He was also drawn thither by the powerful attraction of a young lady, Caroline von F., whom he had met in Weimar the previous winter, and who was an attendant on the Duchess of Hildburghausen. This new attachment was so far happier for Richter, that the lady did not belong to the class of eccentric beings who had before entangled him ; but the storm that nipped and destroyed its fruit in the bud came from the opposition of her noble relations. His letters describe the delightful residence of a few weeks at this Court, and the flattering kindness of the Duchess. She was one of the four beautiful sisters to whom he afterwards dedicated his Titan. He must first describe his situation at the Court, and then the lady of his love. His letter is to Otto : "Paint to yourself the heavenly Duchess, with her childlike eyes, her whole face full of love and the charm of yOuth, her voice like the nightingale's, and her mother's LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 267 heart then the not less beautiful sister, the Princess von Solms ; and the third, the Princess of Thun and Taxis, and their lovely, healthy children, who all arrived on the same day that I did. We will pass the men, but with the Princess von Solms I could be happy in a mountain coal mine. All these women read me, and love me truly, and urge me to stay yet eight days longer, when the fourth, the yet more charming sister, the Queen of Prussia, is expected. I am invited to dinner every evening. The Duke is extremely good-natured, but could not at first be much au fait with me. He remarked that I took too little asparagus, and helped me, not only to this, but to the first young venison, which is not indeed wonderfully good. Yesterday Ifantasied upon the flute before the Court. You are shocked and frightened. But for more than half a year I have done it passably, before Gleim, Weisse, Herder, and the Duchess-mother. I have also here an established brother and sisterhood, and could be a Zinzen- dorf. No, it would be ungrateful if I did not receive the love of the Germans as the richest reward of my authorship. " My Caroline lives with her mother, sisters, and brother, and the time I am not at Court is passed with her. I know her now more intimately, and in no female soul have I found such serene, sedulous, religious morality; immoveable and incorruptible in its smallest branches. One feels, alas ! by her moral tenderness, that he has been long in Weimar. If I were united with her, my whole being, even the smallest stain, would be purified. She does not read, as young ladies usually do, merely to dissolve a sentimental manna upon her tongue, but to learn ; that is, she reads history and natural history. She has formed a complete herbarium, and a succession of ingenious flower paintings. She makes verses, as you will learn by the ac- companying inclosure, and therefore she cannot forget the satire upon female poetry in J. P.'s letters*. It was true, she aid, but too bitter. She drinks no wine at dinner, * See Jean Paul's " Conjectural Biography." N 2 268 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and passes great part of her time in the open air in the garden. 'Now that I am healthy,' she says, ' I will make myself hardy.' . . . Her delicate mother certainly guesses all, and by her silence gives consent. I dare tell you all. With three kind words you can give this dear being three heavens. . . . Her complexion is fair, and pale red ; her brow poetical and feminine ; her eyebrows strong indeed too much so and her eyes dark. The nose is the reverse of little and short, the lips naturally cut, and the chin a little too prominent. Of the beauty of her hair I inclose a proof. Pray return it immediately. I derive from her, God knows why, unless it is my five- and-thirty years, a sense of firmness and security that enables me to enjoy the present hour, without anxiety for future years ; and thus my life completes its circle, its enchanted circle." Richter was now more genuinely attached than he had ever been, and the lady appeared to have reciprocated his emotions ; but the course of their love was turbid and ruffled. Paul was tortured all through the summer by the caprices of Caroline's noble relatives. At one time she gained their consent to the betrothment, and Richter wrote full of joy to Otto, to postpone his marriage with Amone, that they might have the happiness of solemnizing both on the same day, and both retiring to the little city of Bay- reuth, there to realize the plans of their youth. All these changes are related most faithfully to his friend, and he closes one of his letters with these words " How can I tell you, Otto, how entirely I esteem her not merely love, for that is always so easy." The winter passed in frequent correspondence, and in May his friends, the Herders, went with him to Ilmaneau, where Caroline then was, to celebrate the festival of betrothment*. Certainly Richter had never loved appa- * The " Verlolung" is often, but not always, a solemn ceremony in German Society. It means that the lover is formally accepted by the lady and her family. If there be no reason for keeping the affair secret, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 269 rently so naturally and prudently, and the encouragement of the Herders was to him a guarantee of his future hap- piness. They found that his Caroline surpassed even the description of her lover. There was something about her fascinating to people not exactly of the world, and that took the Herders by surprise. What took place at this time is not exactly known ; the opposition of the relatives does not appear to have prevented the betrothment, but some little moral differences, that would have destroyed the whole happiness of the marriage. Richter returned to Weimar with a crushed heart he had no words to describe the agitation his disappointment occasioned ; for a moment the health of this strong and firm being sank under the blow, and the thought of returning again to the desert world. He thus closed a letter to Otto: "The blow is given that has cut me to the inmost heart I also am superstitious misfortune and happiness come twice, not three times. I long infinitely for the little corner of my birth, and the innocent and touching scenes about you *. You know not how my heart, even to sadness, dwells upon your day of ceremony f . We can never lose each other ; therefore everything, even the weather, will be important to me, as it concerns you, and our Amone." Otto, who appears to have felt a singularly warm interest in the Fraulein von F., insisted upon knowing more dis- tinctly the causes of the rupture. Richter says, in reply " Merely little moral differences, but such as would have destroyed the whole happiness of marriage." But there was also the opposition of the lady's noble family, who pro- bably looked with the eyes of worldly prudence, not merely the relations and friends on both sides are assembled, a little festival takes place, and the young people are presented as " Verlobt," affianced, or, as we say in this country, "engaged." The marriage ceremony, which takes place afterwards, is more private, and attended by fewer witnesses. * Otto and his sister Frederica were both married at this time ; and Otto immediately removed to Bayreuth. + Otto's Verlobung-day. 270 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. upon their sister's violation of all German conventionalism, in uniting herself with an author, but trembled for the straitened circumstances into which her disinterested inex- perience would lead her. In a letter, written to her at the breaking off the betrothment, Paul says " Only one fault have I, and only I, committed throughout, that after so many earlier lessons from experience, I did not immediately, as soon as we had once conversed with each other, write this letter to you, and impress it upon my own heart." Otto, to whom the correspondence was transmitted, draws, as he was accustomed to do, these wise, but alas ! too tardy reflections for the use of his friend : "It is a weak perverseness of our nature, and yet an antidote against egotism, that when we see a being worthy of our esteem, we turn from what we discover in them that is disagreeable, and believe that if we shut our eyes so as not to see them, the little spots are not there ; as if we could avert the divine and human sentence which de- crees, that inequalities and blemishes shall, in the course of time, become more instead of less apparent ; and that because we blind ourselves, they should vanish and be obliterated. That your separation is right, that it is the work of destiny, and that you have completed the decree of a higher Power, that you should not be happy together, is true, and that the good and unfortunate Caroline will be the most unhappy, is also true ; because she will never be in a situation to understand the disparity and inequality between you. Because the advantages of the separation are more apparent to you than the advantages of the union, you can justify the separation to yourself ; but it is the reverse with Caroline ; she can never understand the dis- advantages of the union, because her disinterested gene- rosity and affection would obliterate them all, while she feels the unhappiness of the separation." We see from these extracts that Richter was not alto- gether blameless with regard to the Fraulein von F. ; IJFE OF JEAN PAUL. 271 because his deeper penetration and experience of life had enabled him, from the beginning, to understand the dis- parities, whether of a moral or conventional nature, which would have rendered their union unhappy ; and yet he permitted himself to win the love of the lady. She seems to have been greatly attached to him, and for his sake would have sacrificed the privileges of rank, and accepted the inconveniences of poverty ; and it was no balm to a wounded heart, or to wounded pride, that he had had the sagacity to foresee the issue. As women, we may be permitted to protest against Eichter, in connexion with our sex. It is true that he has written beautifully and eloquently of women ; and has, perhaps, done much to elevate and spiritualize their views and affections ; but in actual life he was not wholly sincere with the beings he professed to reverence. After the fancy for the little blue-eyed peasant girl, till his marriage, he does not appear to have felt the truth and tenderness of an equal love. He was dreaming of an ideal, spiritual love, like a far-off luminous star, while he permitted him- self to write letters to his four or five Hofer friends, that, from any but a poet, would have been thought genuine declarations of love. In his connexion with Madam von Kalb and Emilie Berlespsh, he was more sinned against than sinning ; in the one case he retreated before dishonour, in the other before a marriage in which there could be no genuine and mutual affection; but even here he appropriated their unselfish affections, their disinterested devotion, to pur- poses of an artistic creation; he made them the models for the female characters in his works, and they lived to see the warm pulses of their hearts registered, and made a standard by which to count the feverish or healthful pulsation of other hearts. In the usual acceptation of the word, Eichter was not an enemy to women, but his devotion to them was not a 272 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. genuine devotion to them, as women ; he did not love them for themselves ; he loved them artistically ; and as tha. artist drapes his model in every graceful form to pro- duce effect, Jean Paul made use of the power his genius gave him over the minds of women, to draw out the sweet affections, the hidden depths of the heart, revealed only to love, to increase his psychological knowledge for the public. In spite of all the various causes of interruption, Richter was never more completely absorbed in work than through this winter. The first volume, and the comic appendix to Titan, were ready for the press, and he had printed his history of Charlotte Corday, and Clavis Fichtiana. Neither of these were works of the first importance, but they served to keep him before the public while his great work was in preparation. The Clavis Fichtiana was, at the time, one of his most celebrated works, and attracted much attention upon its publication. Fichte's popularity was so great, or the in- terest in metaphysical speculation so intense, that the booksellers paid him six louis-d'ors a sheet for his lectures, while Goethe received only five, at the same time, for his most admired works. It would not, perhaps, be interesting to inquire, at this distance of time, and in another country, why Jean Paul threw himself so entirely into the philoso- phical and metaphysical contests of the day. From all that can be gathered from his letters, it would seem to be his friendship for Herder and Jacobi ; but he gained nothing, even from them, and he widened the distance between himself and Goethe and Schiller. His letters at this time to his friend Otto, to whom he confided every intimate and every passionate emotion, betray discontent and restlessness ; a deep longing for quiet and retirement, yet an unwillingness to retire until he had formed a union that would satisfy his heart, if not his ideal although, at present, he certainly did not place LIFE OF 'JEAN PAUL. 273 his demands too high. He says : " I would fain find a gentle girl who could cook something for me ; and who would sometimes smile, and sometimes weep with me." During the whole of this winter, Richter was flattered and courted by the four beautiful princesses already men- tioned, and he obtained permission to dedicate his Titan to them. The dedication of Titan to the four distinguished sisters, the daughters of the Duke of Mecklenburg, is not to the sisters upon the throne, for he mentions only their baptismal names, and commends his Titan to their favour as exalted human, not princely beings ; and when his friends repre- sented that his Titan contained bitter satires against princes, he answered, " that his dedication was to them as women, not princesses, and that his satire touched princes only, not their wives." This pretty piece of flattery is thus presented : "The Queen of Love and her three attendant Graces look from their cold Olympus, through the atmosphere, and long to descend to our earth, where the soul loves more because it suffers more ; and, although it is darker, it is warmer than on Olympus. They hear the sacred hymns of Poly- hymnia, as she wanders invisibly through the earth, to elevate and console man, and they mourn that they are so distant from the sighs of the helpless. Then they resolved to clothe themselves in the veil of humanity, and descend to earth. As they touched the flowers of earth, and threw no shadow, the Queen of Heaven raised her sceptre and decreed that these immortals should be mortal, and take the form of the four sisters, Louisa, Charlotte, Theresa, and Frederica, and the loves were changed into their children, and flew into the arms of the mothers. Then their hearts beat with new love, and Polyhymnia, as she hovered invisibly near, gave them the voice and the heart to charm, and to console humanity." The rupture of his ties with the Fraulein von F. made N 3 274 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Richter very desirous to remove for a' short time from Weimar, where he was constantly meeting her family; fortunately, a singular circumstance drew him at this time to Berlin. The previous March he had received an anonymous letter from Belgard, Upper Pomerania, together with his Hesperus, translated into French. The writer promised to make herself known as soon as an answer to her letter gave her courage. Richter answered immediately, which was not his custom to anonymous letters ; and the lady made herself known as the lady Josephine von Sydon ; French by birth, but who had so far become mistress of the German language, as to read it with ease, and to translate it into her mother tongue. Her love of Richter's works had excited the highest admiration for their author, and an ardent desire to become personally acquainted with him. Richter now went to Berlin to meet her, with whom he had formed a friendship by means of a correspondence in different lan- guages, and with the partition wall of mountains also between them. It rarely happens, that a friendship formed without a personal interview, through the charm of correspondence, will not disappoint one of the parties when they meet. We have none of the letters of Josephine, but Richter's expectations were more than satisfied. He wrote to Otto : " My Josephine has increased my esteem and admiration. What southern naivete, simplicity and openness, carried to almost childish excess ; southern animation, firmness and tenderness, with a true German eye and heart." This year also, in the midst of his intimacy with the four princesses, he wrote his Evlogy of Charlotte Corday, the female Brutus of the French Revolution, in every line of which breathes the holiest love of freedom. Paul represents Corday as sacrificing, not the opposer of legi- timacy, but the tyrant of a republic ; and has the boldness LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 275 to make a governing German Count a fellow admirer of the heroine. He defended the deed, not from feeling, but from principle. She destroyed Marat, not as a citizen, but as an enemy of the state, in a civil war ; consequently, he regarded her act not as the offence of an individual against an individual, but as the act of a party, against a corrupt and apostate member. CHAPTER VI. EICHTER EEMOVES TO BERLIN INTRODUCTION TO CAROLINE MEYER THE MEYER FAMILY THE " VERLOBUNG." A.D. 1800, BERLIN was at this time to our Richter a newly- set. 37. discovered part of the world. The society was distinguished by a higher culture, a more refined tone, through the accomplishments of the women, to which the beautiful Queen Louisa, one of the four sisters, lent a splendour and a charm at that time unequalled elsewhere. But Richter must speak for himself : " I have been here two-thirds of a week, and must remain the following, as Offland, on my account, will per- form the Wallenstein. I have never been received in any city with such idolatry. After such an elevation, I can hence- forth only sit upon the steps of the throne, never again upon its summit. I avoid the merely learned, and there- fore I meet with no envy ; but only a too warm enthusiasm, that does not make me proud of myself, but of humanity. How it refreshes the heart to find the same sighs for the spiritual in a thousand hearts that arise in mine, and prove that we have within us a common heaven. " The splendid Queen invited me immediately to Sans Souci. Heavens ! what simplicity, frankness, accomplish- ment, and beauty ! I dined with her, and she showed me the kindest attention. The learned Zollner invited eighty persons to meet me at the York Lodge ; gentlemen, their wives and daughters, of the learned circles. I have a watch- chain of the hair of three sisters, and so much hair has been begged of me, that if I were to make it a traffic, I LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 277 could live as well from the outside of my cranium, as from what is under it. " I have been often with the highly-accomplished Minister, Von Alvensleben. The tone at the Court table was easy and good ; with Alvensleben one may speak as freely as upon this sheet. Only in Berlin is freedom and law ! " The reader will recollect, that when Jean Paul was name- less, and struggling with the waves of poverty, that nearly made shipwreck of his hopes, from Berlin was the first plank thrown that brought him to land.* Now he says, " they threw a couple of worlds upon his head." The impression that he made upon the Berliners, we learn from the journal of a lady at this time published. She says "Among the wonderful peculiarities of our time, and from which our country will receive a distin- guished radiance, is the appearance of Jean Paul. As yet, few among us know him, but those who have seen him look upon him as an apparition from another world, as a prophet who has come thence to perform miracles incomprehensible to the senses. No one had scented his approach ; of so rare a man, no one had received an idea. Like a beam of light he flashed among us, but cheering as the star of day is his lingering here. He cannot be more than forty, though he has a bald head. All the riches of language appear to have been created for him. Nature is his dwell- ing, customs his playthings, and men his machines. Like the sun, he shines through the curtains of art, and the labyrinth of the heart," etc. It was not only in the journals of ladies that Eichter was favoured ; the beautiful Queen, whose fate has thrown a touching interest over everything relating to her, con- tinued firm and steady in her friendship. She never spoke of him but with a deep feeling of his worth as a man and an author; and with the brother of the Queen, Prince * Moritz, in Berlin, from whom he received a hundred ducats for the manuscript of the Invisible Lodge. 278 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. George of Mecklenburg, he formed a friendship that was uninterrupted till his death. In Schleirmacher he found a congenial spirit, and formed many friendships with distin- guished women. Taking into view all these circumstances, it is not sur- prising that Richter should form the resolution to remove to Berlin, and fix there his permanent residence. A secret and unacknowledged inclination, as well as an unseen and Providential hand, guided him to the happiness he had so long been seeking. The separation from his friends the Herders cost him some painful and lingering hours, but a more powerful wish drew him onward, and before the end of the year he had accomplished his removal. It was in October, 1800, that Richter finally made in Berlin his permanent residence. On his first visit at the festival that Zollner made for him at the York Lodge, he met the Privy Counsellor, Meyer, and his two unmarried daughters. A little accident, his being too late to take the place assigned him at the right hand of the President, brought him to an unoccupied seat at the side of Caroline, the second daughter of the Counsellor. It was the only vacant place at the table, and the young lady's heart began to beat when she saw the wonderful man, the " observed of all observers," approach it, and with timid humility she shrank from supporting a conversation with him ; but as Richter had come from dining at Sans Souci, the con- versation about the Queen and the Court immediately be- came interesting. The mildness and friendliness of Paul's manner wrought a sudden change from timidity to the most ingenuous confidence in the soul of Caroline Meyer. Richter, in his personal appearance and manners, exerted a magical influence over all minds, and nothing interested him so deeply as the unveiling of an innocent female heart. He was touched ; and at rising from the table gave Caroline the flower from his breast, and asked her to present him to her father. It happened that her sister Ernestine, who sat opposite at the table, and, like a true woman, had ob- LITE OF JEAN PAUL. 279 served the impression that had been made on Caroline, now met them with her father. They had seen in his eyes an expression of high esteem for Jean Paul, and, secretly happy, about midnight they left the party. Eichter led the sisters through the long avenues of the garden to their carriage, without either expressing the wish to meet again, and bade them silently good-night. One day only was per- mitted to pass before he called at the house of the Eath, with the excuse that he could not leave Berlin without expressing his gratitude for the agreeable evening he had passed at the York Lodge. But, before we proceed with the wooing, we must learn something of the family of the Geheimei'-Rath Meyer. He was himself one of the most accomplished and distin- guished officers of the Prussian Government, and had married early in life a daughter of the family of Ger- mershause, who had been educated in country simplicity, but in all the severity of the orthodox faith, and even after her marriage hung with passionate love on the parental house. Herr Meyer was a man who cherished a high ideal of life and its duties ; and uniting the most agreeable accom- plishments with the most enlightened views, he moved in the distinguished circles of Berlin, one of the most in- teresting men of the period. By the intolerance of his mother-in-law, and the blind subjection in which she held the will of her daughter, he was either deprived of the enjoyment of his refined tastes, or obliged to live in con- tinual discord with his relations. The numerous sacrifices that he made to his mother-in-law only increased her asperity ; and, his wife always taking the side of her mother, at last a coldness and estrangement arose, that, after seven years of married life, resulted in a mutual agree- ment of separation. But as Providence had denied him a son, and Herr Meyer desired for his daughters the most liberal culture, and the modern accomplishments, which he could not 280 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. depend on the mother to sanction, they formed the singular agreement, that the weeks should be passed alternately with either parent; and actually, every eight days, the children were sent backwards and forwards between father and mother. This strange arrangement, which remained a mystery to their young hearts, was a perpetual occasion of self-denial and self-government. They dared not speak of either parent in the presence of the other; and the constant exchange, now from severe religious simplicity to all that was refined and intellectual in social life, and now from the latter to an almost Moravian solitude, must have promoted in the minds of the daughters an early develop- ment, and given them a strong and entire dependence on each other, as well as on themselves. In their earliest years the children hung fondly on the mother, whose tears they vainly tried to wipe away when they left her, and whose sacrificing mother's love knew no limits ; but as they grew older they found opening to them under the father's roof a rich school for the cultivation of their higher faculties, to the value of which they soon became sensible. The most zealous desire for a refined culture, especially in philosophy, poetry, and the arts, filled the soul of their father. Every moment that he could win from his duties as a servant of the State, he devoted to the cultivation of his own and his daughters' tastes, in the beautiful arts of poetry, music, and painting. Above all in importance, was the cultivation of the moral purity of his children, whom he anxiously protected from the influence of everything low and trivial. He provided them with the best teachers, and filled his house with paintings and other of the choicest works of art. Thus was linked in their opening minds, in company with artists, learned men, and poets, a susceptibility to every thing great and good, which in this family was innate and true, but which an unsympa- thizing world calls transcendentalism, when affected for purposes of vanity or display. Upon minds so prepared by education, the acquaintance LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. of Jean Paul must have made a deep impression ; it had already, in that evening at the York Lodge, woven a sweet enchantment about the heart of Caroline ; and when, after the interval of a day, in which her imagination had dwelt exclusively upon him, he made the unhoped-for visit, he stood near her as a being that she must regard with almost religious veneration. A report had been spread in Berlin, that Caroline was about being betrothed to her cousin ; and Jean Paul, to leave her entirely free, returned to Weimar without any express manifestation of his wishes. His image, however, was interwoven in all the social enjoyments of the family; but Caroline's father, with a quick and nice sense of the honour of his daughter, had coldly and severely commanded that there should be no reference to him. The gossips of Berlin spread a report, that Caroline had kissed the hand of Jean Paul in public ; and the father, jealous of the slightest shade on the delicacy of his daughter, forbade her to speak of him, until he should himself make some more decided demonstration of his wishes. This command was the occasion of the following letter from Caroline to her father : " It is a great pity that we cannot receive the noblest and best among men with interest and warmth. I feel, indeed, dear father, that I have lost your esteem. It pains me much, but the consciousness alone that I am free from all enthusiasm and all extravagance in esteeming and admiring such excellence, raises me in a certain degree above all mortification. Your dissatisfaction with me arises from the suspicion that something different from reverence has taken possession of my heart. Did you know how pure, how inexpressibly pure, my interest in Jean Paul is, a man like you could not on that account esteem me less. With Leonora in Tasso, I can say, ' I love in him only what is most excellent and most exalted.' Ask your own judgment, whether this is extravagance. Truly, a more exalted man we can never meet. 282 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " Perhaps you still misunderstand me. I must bear it, and I should be too proud to justify what I think and feel, to any other than my father. Of his writings, permit me to say, that the influence they exert upon me is exactly that which you demand from a good book namely, to be made wiser and better. Is what he gives me unsound ? Its effect then must be as wonderful as if poison in a medicine were changed into a healing blessing. I have indeed become better, and feel within myself the power to improve. This meeting has been the most momentous cir- cumstance of my life ; and I know nothing, except this emotion in my heart, that can ever make me happy or unhappy. Nothing outward, by my God, nothing that men reckon fortune or happiness, can charm or interest me again ;. and if Providence should prepare trials for me, I shall not be unhappy. " One, a sore trial, I feel it deeply, dear father, is the doubt of your love. It may be that I have deserved to lose it ; and on this point my tears of regret, but not of repent- ance, must flow ! " Never was I less excited or extravagant than now. Yes, I will cherish this sentiment. It does not injure me ; 1 will conceal, but not part with it. I see indeed that it will be my first struggle to suffer silently, if the sanctuary of my emotions is violated. The warmth with which I have written will be with you, dear father, my apology for writing." In reading this letter, in which Caroline avows such faith in Eichter, and such confidence in the truth of her own feelings, we must recollect that they had never spoken of love their eyes had met, and her destiny was decided ; and if Providence had so decreed, that they had never met again, Caroline would have mourned him in widowhood of heart. In the same happy confidence she wrote to her married sister : " I believed I should have been unhappy when we were separated ; that the painful reality of parting would drive LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 283 me from the ideal height to which his presence had elevated me. But I feel a courage and power to bear life, such as I never felt before. I could be happy without ever again seeing him in this life." The elevation of a pure -and ideal love is here truly expressed. Caroline felt herself raised above the accidents of life, and happy in the ideal presence of the being she reverenced above all others. But Bichter had not left her without some slight inti- mation of his wishes. When he returned to Berlin, in October, Caroline was the first person informed, by a few lines, in which he asked permission to visit her family that evening. Their hearts had spoken too truly for them to be longer silent ; and that very evening, as he conducted Caroline to visit her mother, his tongue was loosed, and their destiny for ever united. Early the next morning, kneeling at the bed-side of her father, and whispering in his ear that Richter had spoken, Caroline asked his blessing on their love, and received this consoling assurance : " My child, if the satisfaction of your father can add anything to your happiness, believe me, no union could give me so much joy. I feel it a reward for all my care of your education." Truly, the father must have been as unworldly and as unselfish as the daughter, for Richter had not the prospect of a dollar, except those he could coin, as Sir Walter Scott said in another case, " from the rich mine of his intellect, and stamp with the mark of his genius." It must be acknowledged, in a worldly point of view, this connexion appears romantic, if not im- prudent. Caroline had been educated in all the luxury of refinement, at least in her father's house ; and his for- tune depending on his office, he could give his daughters no dowry *. * Caroline, although educated in the luxury of refinement, was pro- bably accustomed to great frugality of expense, as the salary of a Berlin Oeheimer-Rath is, in some instances, only two thousand florins. Richter says, in one of his letters, " She is cold towards all ornament in dress, but 284 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Although Jean Paul had dedicated his Titan to princesses, they had given him nothing but empty praise in return. In the correspondence with the Rath Meyer, not a word is said of property. Richter says, when he asks the father for his daughter : ..." In this moment of my great request, all other things appear too little to he touched upon by either of us. I approach the man, for whom my esteem and love, even without the relation I desire, would be almost filial ; as his feminine tenderness and manly philosophy have together nourished the root of this beau- tiful flower of the sun, and made it so firm, yet so tender. To this good father of this good daughter, I present my short, but weighty prayer. Let her be mine ! she will be happy, as I shall be ! " Herr Meyer answered, " That it had been the aim of all his plans, in the education of his daughters, to prepare them to unite themselves to such men as himself and that he gave his unconditional consent." The mother, also in German phrase, sent her ja-wort, and the betrothing of two noble hearts took place immediately. Paul had, at last, in his thirty-eighth year, found the ideal of female perfection and loveliness that had always haunted his imagination. He says : " Caroline has exactly that inexpressible love for all beings that I have, till now, failed to find, even in those who in everything else possess the splendour and purity of the diamond. She preserves, in the full harmony of her love to me, the middle and lower tones of sympathy for every joy and sorrow of others." In describing her to Otto, he says "She has the beauty, rare among Germans, of a dark, soft eye, and Madonna not to the necessity of maiden neatness, and on my account she puts on her splendid new blue dress, to which I have added a white satin, at four louis-d'ors, together with a hat for one louis-d'or. I wish I could hang ray heart, as a golden ornament, over hers ; I would draw it out of my breast" Richter seems to have had a passionate admiration for a white hat and a black veil, for a lady. Clotilda's hat occupies a large space in ffesperut. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 285 brow" "self-sacrificing love, without equal; modesty, openness ; and in the midst of the purest love for me, her heart trembles at every sound of sorrow. She has the warmest friends among women and young girls, and the innumerable visits of congratulation that she received at the news of our Verlobung, shows how much she is beloved by the Berliners." We have no means of forming a judgment of Caroline Meyer, except from her letters to Richter, which have all the simplicity and tenderness of Klopstock's Meta. But they are only the beautiful expression of a submissive ten- derness and boundless reverence. The letter to her son, which will appear hereafter, discloses independent thought, and is altogether of a higher order. Mrs. Austin says, "It is the habit of Paul's countrymen to require from women the virtues of attached and industrious servants, rather than of equal, intelligent, and sympathizing friends;" and although Jean Paul in so many places in his works protests against this tendency of his countrymen, and pleads most eloquently for the emancipation of women from their state of servitude, his minute directions to Caroline about household affairs, whenever he leaves home, looks as if he had readily assumed the manly superiority of his countrymen. Paul, while he describes in Seibenkds, with exquisite penetration, the miseries of an ill-assorted union, asserts that he shall be " happy if one falls to his lot, upon whose opened eyes and heart the flowery earth and beaming hea vens strike, not in infinitesimals, but in large and towering masses ; for whom the great whole is something more than a nursery, or a ball-room ; one who, with a feeling at once tender and discriminating, with a heart at once pious and large, for ever improves the man whom she has wedded." * * I fear Paul's Caroline will be despised by the fashion of our age, if I should translate a letter where he tells Otto, that she ripped a dress apart, dyed it herself, put it together again, and wore it the next evening, 286 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The coldest of Bichter's biographers speaks thus of Caroline : " Purity of mind, unlimited love to her parents and sisters, and benevolence to all mankind, were native to her. She added inexpressible reverence for Richter, and unconditional submission to his wishes. With a love for all that was beautiful in art, she had very moderate views of the value of the outward in life ; great enthusiasm of feeling, and through trial and experience a penetrating knowledge of the world ; but with an accomplished educa- tion, and almost unlimited resources within herself, her outward life and appearance was modest, and without pre- tension. With their peculiar education, Caroline and her sisters possessed qualities singularly adapted to form the happiness of domestic life, but to Caroline only Providence granted this satisfaction."* She was marked out indeed for distinguished happiness ; and the biographer goes on to say, " that no female nature could have resisted Paul. The enchantment of his smile, and the power, the magnetic influence of his eye the inspiration and elevation that was enthroned upon his brow; the musical, but touchingly tender intonations of his voice, together with the mystery that involved the author of Hesperus, who was thought to have lived upon a solitary in a large party. And yet her father's house was filled with the most valuable works of art, and Caroline could herself read Plato in Greek. * The eldest sister of Caroline had been already three years married to Carl Spazier, who was at this time the editor of a belles-lettres news- paper (Eleganten Zeitung), in Leipsic. After a marriage of many out- ward difficulties, he left her a destitute widow, with four young children. She entered upon the thorny path of female authorship, and continued their literary journal. Jean Paul contributed many of his ephemeral pieces to its pages, and Caroline also assisted her with her elegant and graceful pen. The author to whom I have been indebted in this biography, F. Otto Spazier, is her son. The youngest sister, Ernestine, married about the same time with Caroline, to August Mahlman, died, after a few years of married life, of a broken heart ; occasioned, as her nephew says, by an unfaithful husband and a childless marriage. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 287 island ; all this would have given every woman, without exception, to his hand, and Caroline had the felicity to be chosen from all." She had, besides the happiness of being chosen by him, the guarantee of that happiness, from the fact that, in spite of the seductions that had surrounded him at a time when the bonds of domestic society were everywhere falling loose, he had passed through all, with a singular purity of life. Among all the women who, as his biographer says, " would have left at his call, lover or husband," not one had suffered in reputation on his account. CHAPTER VII. BICHTER'S PETITION TO THE KINO OF PRUSSIA MARRIAGE CAROLINE'S LETTERS FROM WEIMAE. AD 1801 O UR Richter had never been so happy as the zt. as. ew mon ths after his betrothment to Caroline. The learned and social circles of Berlin had many charms for him. They were composed, as he says, of Jews, minis- ters, officers, learned men and women. Tieck, Fichte, and the Schlegels showed themselves so friendly, that he believed, in his simplicity, he should win that school to himself. The merely learned only, displeased him. To use his own figurative language : " The roots of their dry deism were planted in sand, and bore only withered leaves and no flowers ; and no breath of perfume came from them." But he conceived the warmest esteem for Schleirmacher, whose " Reden liber Religion" he calls "an inspired and inspiring work, a simple and beautiful temple, whose contents are a true God's service." At this time, spite of their philosophical differences, the exalted character of Fichte attached Jean Paul intimately to him. He also renewed his acquaintance with Madam von Kriidener. - From the exciting tumult of the society of the great, where he was courted and admired, he turned with a sense of domestic tranquillity to the quiet circle in which his betrothed moved. This, from the circumstance of the separation of her parents, was necessarily limited, although they were not excluded from any. The Queen had presented them, through the medium of LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 289 her brother George, upon hearing of the betrothment of Richter and Caroline Meyer, a costly service of silver but nothing more useful or enduring appeared in prospect. In the mean time, the spring returned; but without some pecuniary provision Richter could not afford to re- main in Berlin. " Is there none," said old Gleim, " is there none who can say to the King, we must keep J. P. F. R. in Berlin ? He does you honour, and will bring money into the city. Is there none who will be a Colbert ? no Scholenburg ? no Hardenberg ? no Voss ? not even the Queen ? " Richter at last, though reluctantly, addressed the fol- lowing letter to the King : " May your Royal Majesty be graciously moved to listen to the prayer of a man, that not only from dwelling under your government, but from birth and disposition, rejoices in the happiness of your reign. The loss of my father was never to me, but through me, supplied to my family. I was already a writer at the age when men begin to read. Through years of poverty and labour I at last won a hear- ing from the public, and lately a more extensive audience. My aim has been to elevate the sinking faith in God, virtue, and immortality, and in an age of egotism and revolutions to warm again the cold humanity of men's hearts. As this object has been dearer to me than any other reward, I have sacrificed every other time, health, and the richer winnings of other pursuits. " But now, when I am entering upon the cares of mar- riage, where my own sacrifices should not extend to another, I feel excused by my conscience if I petition tbe throne (that has so many to listen to, and to make happy), that I also may be excused, if respectfully I submit my prayer. My gratitude, and joyful sympathy in the happiness of my country, will be the same, however justice and goodness may decide." The King, in answer, gave Richter to understand, through one of his courtiers, " how much it had rejoiced him to 290 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. observe, that by bis talent and industry alone, exercised in the face of such unfavourable outward circumstances, he had placed himself at the head of the literature of his country. He was not indifferent to literary merit, and would be glad to have Richter remain his subject ; and if any vacant prebend should offer, he would remember him." It seems to us almost a degradation of genius like Rich- ter 's, that he should have petitioned in vain for a small ecclesiastical benefice, for (although some humorous letters passed between him and Otto on the subject Richter saying, " that he should place watchmen on the church towers to strike the last hours of the old prebends," and Otto answering, " that they were always long-lived, few dying under a hundred years,") he received no prebend. He would have been fettered also under the obligation to remain in Prussia. Accordingly, on the 27th of May, after a private solemnization of their marriage, Richter and his young bride left the dust and noise of the city to enjoy, in quiet and without witnesses, their long-dreamed- of happiness. They travelled in the month of bloom and flowers over the beautiful parts of Dessau, visited the Herders in Weimar, and then went to Meiningen, where Jean Paul anticipated for a time to establish his " Portative Par- nassus." Here is the letter of Caroline to her father, a week after her marriage : "Weimar, June3, 1801. " I write to you, my beloved father, for the first time, from the most charming resting-place. We arrived last evening, about eight o'clock, after the most delightful journey that was ever taken, except the pain of the separa- tion from you, that often made me insensible to many lovely spots. But the care that my good Richter took of me, and of everything that could touch my heart, softened my emotions, gently and happily ! Indeed, there are few LIFK OF JEAN PAUL. 291 such men so sympathizing and attentive to the smallest little things, and to all the actual of life. "As we approached Weimar, my heart began to beat. The place, beautifully surrounded with hills, lies low, and we look from above all over the city. It is larger and gayer than I expected, and there is much life and joy everywhere. In the morning the market was held before our door, where there was more tumult than in the Berlin market, and the music at the Stadthause imparts a cheer- ful gaiety that is read on all faces. " But now, the most delightful thing that could have happened. As soon as we arrived on Wednesday evening, we went to Herder's. It was already dark. With a beat- ing heart I stepped into the sacred house. The aged mother sat in the parlour alone, knitting. Eichter opened the door quietly, and we stood before her. Her surprise is not to be described. She looked at me with astonish- ment ran to call all the house together turned back and knew not what to do for joy. Now, while we debated whether Richter alone, or whether we should both go up to the Herders at once, the venerable man stood in the door. I discovered him first. ' There he is,' I said, with emotion. He stepped calmly near, and turned me with penetrating eyes towards the light, and as he looked fixedly at me, 'God be praised,' he said, 'I am now satisfied.' He was surprised ; he had formed no image of me, and he doubted whether Richter would be happy. He loves me now equally with him, and he was as much moved as a father who has found his lost children. He went in great emotion up and down the apartment then he came again to me, and said, with touching tenderness, ' Yes, you are what he must have you need not speak, we see already all ! ' I was so much affected, that I could say nothing, and the evening passed like a quiet festival. " I tell you all, my dear father, for Richter wishes it, just as it happened, for it will make you happy to know your daughter so beloved ; and principally, that we both o 2 292 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. know from this sympathy how much Eichter deserves to be loved. " This is infinite here is his home. Father and mother dwell with the deepest warmth upon what he mutually feels for them, and he appears more splendid to me than ever. Indeed, I might from this moment date a new era in my love. "I cannot describe Herder to you; through Richter, you know enough of him. He goes quietly in and out, so reflective, so serious, so harmonious, so gentle and musical his voice, his dress so patriarchal. He does not affect me as other poetical men, as notwithstanding he has an iron firmness and decision that makes weakness blush before him, he manifests the refined politeness of a man of the world, without being insincere. He has so much dignity as not to pardon the slightest insult, because he esteems the dignity of human nature, not on account of his indivi- dual worth, for he is so modest that he veils his eyes like a young girl who is praised for the first time, if his own merit is spoken of. " His wife has far exceeded my expectations. She has not the masculine form, but only the manly soul that I anticipated. She has risen with her husband, but she stands firm by herself. She is equally acquainted with ancient and modern literature, speaks decidedly upon all the sciences, but inclines herself in a loving, motherly manner to me. In her house she is very active and busy, but without littleness. A certain well-to-do-ness rules, without luxury. The apartments are simply, but cheer- fully furnished. At the table everything goes on quietly, without anxiety in the hostess ; the old servants are well trained, moving reverently about, observing attentively the master's wishes. They will hardly let me part from them, but we are so inexpressibly happy in the little quiet apart- ment with Richter's old hostess, that we would always rather remain alone. So happy as I am, dearest father, I never believed I should be. Every minute binds our LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. '403 souls closer to each other. It will sound extravagant to you, if I say, the high enthusiasm which Richter excited in me, has continually risen as we have entered into real life together. Never can a misunderstanding arise between us. My mind, through love and the highest goodness, is so tenderly tune"d, and my sense of obligation so elevated, that I never, as formerly, despond. How could I place my will in opposition to this splendid humanity that works - only through love and humility ? Thank God, I have a husband with whom love in married life can only take the path of honour and morality ; one that I must obey, as we obey virtue itself. And this man so loves me ! that I have nothing to wish but that we may die together. I press myself to your heart." It is but just, although at the risk of satiety, that the reader should also learn, from Eichter himself, the perfect happiness, that he imparts to Otto, thus unreservedly : " That the brightest and purest fountain of love to man- kind takes nothing from love to the individual, I learn from my Caroline. Every day it becomes more expansive. Rare as beautiful is her adoration of the spiritual of poetry and nature ; wonderful her disinterestedness and complete abnegation of self. There is nothing that she would not do for me, or others. World-long cares are to her nothing, as her industry and love of duty are infinite. As she loves me, she loves all my clothes, and would make them all herself. " As yet we have had nothing, or only very little, to irritate. I cannot say that I am satisfied, but I am cer- tainly blest. Ah, see her ! What are words ! Marriage has made me love her more romantically, deeper, infinitely more than before." CHAPTER VIII. RESIDENCE IN MEININGEN LETTERS BIRTH OF RICHTER's FIRST CHILD DO&'s PETITION. A.D. 1802, -^ S soon as our Richter and his bride had accom- "* * plished what, in modern phrase, is called the bridal tour, they hastened to the enjoyment of what had always been his ideal dream, complete social independence, in immediate union with nature. His inclinations drew him to Bayreuth, to be near his friend Otto ; but he felt almost a maiden diffidence to expose the intoxication of his love, in the first year of his married life, to his old female friends. He wished, also, until the Titan was com- pleted, to be near the accessories of princely life, which the little Court of Meiningen, retired as it was, could furnish. They established themselves in Meiningen, therefore, and here Jean Paul began that domestic still life, that remained uninterrupted till the day of his death. A letter from Caroline to Otto, a few days after their entrance into their new abode, shows the delicacy and tact of the woman, who felt that she had almost taken the place of her husband's friend in his heart. " ' When you have taken your seat at Meiningen, I shall step from mine and go to you.' So you write to us. Rich- ter has already established himself, and waits for the be- loved Otto to make the promise true, and come and fall upon his heart. My husband leaves the invitation to me, and the information that we are ready, and that you can now, without any hindrance, accept it. LIFE. OF JEAN PAUL. 295 " Our young furnishing, now five days old, has a thou- sand wants; yet you will find Richter's chamber ordered after the old fashion, as he has altered nothing, and you will feel at home. Mine is also domestic and friendly yours alone is wholly poor, that you may not remain there long, but be always ready to come to us. I am a docile being, and will always exactly obey your wishes. You shall arrange all after your own domestic order. We will be melancholy or gay, and we will celebrate our second marriage-day, when our union through the presence of our friend is first truly consecrated. " Rest is inexpressibly welcome to my husband after a three weeks' journey. We suffered ourselves to be detained fourteen days in Weimar, for the sake of the charming little dwelling of the good hostess, and through the love of the Herders. In Gotha we received Schlichtgeroll's hearty greeting, and the following evening we selected a little dwelling in Meiningen, where we could unpack. Now we only wait for the rising of the sun, and the appearance dare I say it of our friend." A letter from Paul, of a later date, to the same friend, completes the picture of domestic life. " My Caroline, who wins the love of all of the men by her beauty, and of the women through her enchanting truth and goodness constrains me, by happiness, to be contented here. We have the whole place for friends. Her, indeed, too great indifference to outward life, her absorption in quiet em- ployment, her heavenly, faithful, virgin love, her uncondi- tional compliance with my lightest wish, makes our love yet younger and fresher than in the beginning, when it was merely young. That you will fall in love with her, is only too certain. I feel that marriage is something holy and heavenly. " As yet I find no trouble. If I have a guest, I seem to sit here as a guest myself, so elegantly and com- pletely my Caroline knows how to order everything. You cannot know the whole value of a married union, as you 296 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. have always lived with sisters, and never, like myself, alone. " The whole of the next month will be beautiful. God send me you or Emanuel, or I shall go to you in the autumn with Caroline." A letter from Caroline to her father follows : " my best father, how do I thank you that you have at length written ! I was on the point of writing again. My hus- band, as we sat together, was speaking of the incompre- hensibility of your silence ' Could there be a letter mis- laid?' when the maid brought in yours, and that of Gretchen's. With how many tears have I read the dear words ! I live so simply calm, that I hold fast everything that was ever dear to me and your image ! how it takes hold of me ! How often, in spirit, do I lean upon your shoulder ! But that it renders me too melancholy for the happiness of my beloved husband, nature often makes me so tender, that in very longing after you and my mother, I should sometimes weep. " I came here with uncertain, timid expectations. The Duchess of Meiningen received us with extreme joy, and showed us many houses ; but this made me really melan- choly, and the first night I slept not at all, for all my fine dreams of domestic economy were destroyed. This little city is not so ideal as I had imagined ; few of the houses have gardens, and only very small courts. The rooms are large, with many windows, and very high. " In the morning we went in pursuit of cheaper and more simple dwellings, and were so happy as to find one, isolated, but with very respectable domestic conveniences. As quickly as possible we were in it. My helpful, never-fail- ing, good-humoured husband arranged his own chamber, I mine, and thus we were, at the end of the first day, ap- parently in order. The rest I could complete with all leisure, and now the clock-work of our little domestic life goes on without stopping. Our maid is active, and, I hope, good. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 297 *' My husband is perpetually satisfied with all as it is, and I form myself so willingly after his wishes, that in my heart I feel the intimate and sweet conviction that I can be to him all that he needs. Let me repeat, that I am every day happier there is nothing without or within to disturb us. Now, when the moments of enthusiasm are over, you will believe that my judgment is sound. Eichter is the purest, the holiest, the most godlike man that lives. Could others be admitted, as I am, to his inmost emotions, how much more would they esteem him. There are moments when my soul lies kneeling before him, and I fear only death. Every one finds him stronger and fresher. He is also calmer than he was in Berlin, and his life is more regular. We rise about six, and dine at twelve o'clock. At the latest, Eichter goes to bed at ten. From principle and economy he has left off wine, and drinks only beer. He is in everything at the same time so kind and so firm." . . . The reader will, perhaps, think there is too much of these domestic letters but how beautifully are they the unstudied expression of that chaste, meek, and enduring love that belongs almost exclusively to domestic life, in which Caroline's heart was nourished, as the flowers are fed from the light and the dew of heaven. Only one more letter of this period shall find a place here. It is a little note that Caroline wrote to her hus- band, when he had taken a short journey to Leibenstein. It was their first separation, and in answer to a line from him : " Ah ! could I fall on thy heart, and thank thee that thou hast thought of me ! I stood exactly in the same place on the floor, covering the little Spinde with gauze, when your letter came. As you left me yesterday in the carriage, it seemed to my childish fancy that the stranger, Jean Paul, that did not belong to me, sat there ; and how deserted I felt all was so empty and void. I stifled my regret, and went into your chamber, and put everything in order. Your handkerchief, just left, had yet some warmth o 3 298 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. in it, and I took it with me. Then I had nothing more to care for, and I felt a great loneliness. I took up the unbound part of Titan, and have, indeed, read it wholly through. How often did I sink at your feet as I read, and I looked opposite to your sofa, as if my voice would reach you. Ah, I do not deserve you, and am in myself nothing. " To-day I wrote letters. It is wonderfully still in our quiet dwelling. No one has been here, and only the news- paper yesterday. In the cellar all stands in military order. It gives me joy to obey you when you are distant. How heavenly will our meeting be. " God take thee into his holy protection. May the sun- beams kiss thee, and I be worthy to deserve thy heart. Farewell ! my soul, my heaven !" The eighteen months Richter had passed at Meiningen, flowed with that quiet uniformity that Caroline loved no less than her husband. Jean Paul was so much sought after by the Duke, that Caroline mourns over his too frequent absences from her ; and Paul writes to Otto, " I never believed that a Prince would be my friend but the Duke is nearly that, although I refuse his frequent even- ing invitations, sometimes as many as six in a week. He comes to us often, and lately he dined with us. He would build me a house here, which God forbid, as I seek no eternity in Meiningen." In the winter of this year Paul went with the Duke to Oberland in a sledge. In Newhouse, he says, they gave us, in an amateur theatre, a comedy by four peasants. " It was performed three times in the day, as the place was too small to admit many, and the old company went out, as fresh came in. From time to time, as the Duke and the Prince of Hesse Philipsthal sat among the peasants, a jug of good beer was passed backwards and forwards, from which all drank in turn." One letter more from Meiningen, of September, 1802, and we close this chapter : LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 299 " Dear old Friend, Your expressions over my wife touched me deeply. You should have had, as of a princess, the diarium of her double life but indeed it lasts no longer. This very night she had, with her still continued blooming health, pains that prevented sleep. In the morning, the midwife (an accomplished one, from Jena) declared that in two hours the birth would take place. About eleven o'clock it was followed by a godlike little daughter. Heavens ! you will be as transported as I was, when the nurse brought me, as out of a cloud, my second love, with the blue eyes wide open, a beautiful high brow, kiss-lipped, heart-touching, and with the little nose of my Caroline. " God is near at the birth of every child. Whoever does not find him in this incomprehensible mechanism of pain, in this sublimity of his exquisite machinery, in this prostration of our own independence, will never find him. I concealed, to spare my wife, as well as I could, my weep- ing admiration ; but she perceived, and returned much of it. In my solitary apartment I had (ah, how I wished for you or Emanuel !) only my own rapture, and God, and my hound. " It is a large child, splendidly formed, wholly like my- self, which rejoices my Caroline, but I hold modestly back from the little nose. Only on her account did I wish for a boy but I tell her a girl will be dearer to me, as our parental education would not wholly answer for a boy, but for a girl it will be everything ; and with this pure, firm, and enlightened mother, she can be nothing less than a second diamond. " Now is all again well with me and the world and heaven are open, and I have my wife again. In the midst of her pain she yet brought me my breakfast this morning. Ah, how do I again learn to esteem and pity the poor women. I have the best people about me the pastor's daughter, without equal the honest waiting-woman, &c. 300 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Let me prattle, good old friend, to you and Amone you are the first listeners. " To-day I went to the Duke, and asked him to give a title to the fairest work I should ever give to the public. He answered 'Georgine.'* Truly he sympathizes kindly with human feelings." Caroline added to this letter, with the child on her left arm : " Beloved Otto ! who is so blest as I ? with two, so dear, to love ! C." One other little incident belongs to the Meiningen resi- dence. On account of the hunting season, all the dogs of citizens were put under arrest. Eichter, in his attach- ment to these faithful friends of man, if not in some other characteristics, resembled Scott, and was always accom- panied in his rambles by one or more dogs. Upon the decree of arrest being published, he sent his hound to the Duke with the following petition : " That I may accompany my master, when he goes to Welkershausen or to Grimmathal. " I can bring attestation from my master that I under- stand as little of hunting as he does, and that I keep close behind his stick in all his rambles. And the only game that I permit myself, is what the Government advertiser recommends, sometimes a poor field-mouse. " That I shall lose my bread if my master dare not place me outside his door, where is, indeed, my only station. I constitute his animal establishment; his poul- try, his pheasantry, and his body-guard. You love him half as much as he does you, and often, when you have been with him, you have had the grace to stroke me, poor hound, and to say, ' Come, Spitz ! ' Thus will I confide in my fortunate dogstar, that it will permit, before I am cut into shoes, and worn on the feet of others, that I may appear before your gracious presence upon my own." * George was the Prince's own name. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 301 The petition was granted, and Paul was permitted to keep his dog. At the same time with the poet's first child, the last volume of Titan was given to the world. It had been ten years in progress, and during that time the author had printed several minor works. CHAPTER IX. TITAN. 1 APPROACH this great work with diffidence, with real humility, and feel that I am entirely incompetent to give the English reader a just idea of a work so thoroughly German, so difficult for him to appreciate, and yet by which Jean Paul, if he is read at all, is usually appreciated in this country. In speaking of it, I shall be somewhat indebted to the author from whom I have already quoted. In the ten years during which Titan had been in pro- gress, Jean Paul had published several works, all of which had been in subordination to this. His commentator says, " That of this, the Invisible Lodge was the cradle, and the others, as they followed, only the educators." And, as I have said before, it was like the great picture to which all the serious and sacred hours of the painter are devoted, while others of less note take up his casual moments, and are the nurses of the inspiration that is lavished upon this. The great idea of Titan, is that which so many poets and romance writers have endeavoured to represent, and which Goethe has so nobly evolved in Faust the limita- tions and compensations of life that all-power, as soon as it aims to exceed its just bounds, breaks down; that all who would violate the laws of eternal justice, necessarily fail. Hence the title of the book, taken from the contest of the ancient Titans against the gods. " Eveiy heaven- stormer finds his hell, as surely as every mountain its valley." In Albano, the hero of the novel, Richter has LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 303 accomplished the object twice attempted before, without success (in the Invisible Lodge, and in Hesperus), through birth, education, trial and experience, to form a perfectly harmonious character. "He is not, like Victor, a man seeming and feeling only, but a man of deeds, and unites with the highest love the highest sphere of action. He is not merely an (esthetic example, but a real character, in which life and action are identified with poetic represent- ation." And yet he does not, I think, enlist so much the sympathies of the reader as Victor in Hesperus ; his treat- ment of Linda is perhaps too harsh and stern. The great dissonance in Titan has probably prevented many from going beyond the first volume. During the composition of the first half of the first volume, the author intended to give it the tragi- comic character of some of his other works, and that the comic should enter largely into its composition. But his visit to Weimar, and, in conse- quence, his enlarged range of characters, especially his connexion with Madam von Kalb, induced him to change his plan ; to make it a serious romance, and reserve the satirical and comic elements for an appendix. Through the last half of the first volume, he is apparently contending with the witty and antithetic manner of his early works. The outline of the story is this. Two German princi- palities, Hohenflies and Haarhaar, are in contention for the succession each has a supporter. Haarhaar, the German gentleman, Von Bouverot, as he is called, a gambler, a voluptuary, but connoisseur in art, follows Luigi, the pretended only son of the Hohenflies Prince, to Italy, and there, by every kind of excess, subjects him to a lingering dissolution. The supporter of the Hohenflies dynasty is the Knight Don Gaspard de Cesara, who, in addition to his devotion to the old Prince, the father of Luigi, is influenced by personal revenge for having been refused the hand of a Haarhaar Princess. To preserve Albano, the second son of the old Prince of Hohenflies, 304 LIFE OP JEAN PAUL. from the arts that had administered a slow and consuming poison to the life of Luigi, his birth is concealed, and he is educated as the son of Don Gaspard ; his parents having entered into a bond that, at the death of Luigi, the claims of his birth shall be established, and that he shall marry Linda, the daughter of Don Gaspard. To keep up the deception, that Albano is his son, Gaspard gives himself out as the guardian of his daughter Linda. She is called the Countess de Romero, and is left in Spain with her mother, where everything conspires to nurse and increase the eccentricity and romantic enthusiasm of her character. Her mother soon dies : Linda is left without female influ- ence, and at liberty to travel wherever her love of inde- pendence leads her. She accordingly goes to Switzerland, and there, in the solitude of the mountains, endeavours to establish a school of industry and innocence. Not suc- ceeding, she removes to Italy, and nourishes her passion for the beautiful, by living in the midst of the monuments of art, in that exquisite climate. Albano, whose parents were travelling at the time, was born, together with a twin sister, at Isola Bella, where he remains until the death of his mother, in his third year. He is then taken to Germany as the son of Don Gaspard, and placed in the family of Wehrfritz, the provincial director, as their foster-son. He remains secluded in the country, until his eighteenth year, and, on account of his resemblance to his father, the old Prince, is not permitted to visit Pestitz, the capital of Hohenflies. He grows up a powerful, pure, innocent, well-instructed youth, endowed with the most brilliant and attractive qualities, and with a beauty of person that charms every beholder. While a country recluse, he has that longing for love and friend- ship, the intense thirst for intercourse with great spirits, that Richter makes a characteristic of all his heroes ; and forms in imagination an attachment both of love and friend- ship with the son and daughter of the Court minister LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 305 Fraulay, through the medium of their instructors, who give lessons at the same time to all the young people. Don Gaspard, with his knowledge of the romantic cha- racter of Linda, and by the help of his brother, an alche- mist, ventriloquist, juggler, and liar, makes use of magical means, deceptive glasses, and voices issuing apparently from the clouds, to accomplish his object, .the union of Albano with his daughter ; and although, from conscious- ness and pride (for the same means are practised on Albano), they avoid each other, yet, when they accidentally meet, a mysterious influence draws them irresistibly together. Before this takes place, however, the death of the old Prince and the elevation of Luigi, although dying slowly, allows Albano to go to Pestitz. With his fresh, beautiful, ingenuous character, he cements his secretly-formed friend- ship with Roquairol, the son of the minister, and his love for Liana is confirmed by her beautiful feminine nature. The first love of these young people is one of the most touching episodes in all Richter's works. It is a Romeo and Juliet, written and performed in heaven. Liana is one of those spiritual beings, with angelic souls, and almost transparent bodies, that Richter loved to draw : disinter- ested, religious, humble, sacrificing all to duty, and suffer- ing without a murmur. She lives one fleeting spring of happiness, in which her love, hidden like the perfume of the violet in the heart of the flower, is breathed only in whispers ; and when opposed by her fiend-hearted father and her icy mother, though sensitive as the wind-flower, she remains true to Albano, and will only renounce her love when informed of his royal birth. But with her love she renounces life ; and the death of the young, usually so sad, is here beguiled of melancholy by the beautiful mys- ticism that surrounds it with spiritual existences, and clothes Liana with the robes of angels, before she leaves her mortal investment. 306 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Albano is taken from the death-bed of Liana to Italy, where he meets Linda. Through various influences, she has grown up a dazzling and enchanting being. Albano, rich in fancy and full of love for all that is beautiful, is instantly captivated. The character of Linda is said to have been modelled from that of Madam von Kalb. She is bold, proud fc free, with an infinite generosity and nobility of soul. Her glowing Spanish heart and Italian imagina- tion have never been restrained by the conventionalisms of courtly society. Like Madam von Kalb, she gives way to fits of passionate jealousy ; like her, she avows the peculiar aesthetic philosophy upon love " that love needs not the bond of marriage, that like an iron ring upon a delicate flower, checks and destroys its tender bloom." She has also Madam von Kalb's doubts upon the immortality of the soul, and even her occasional blindness, which in poor Linda led to such fatal consequences. Albano's powerful character subdued Linda s pride ; with the most childlike love she yielded her independence, and her haughty nature seemed to melt away under the sun of love. In their various journeys in Italy, to Ischia. Isola Bella, and the palace and gardens of Borromeo, Richter has almost surpassed Madam de Stae'l. These glowing descriptions are more unique from the circum- stance of his never having visited the places : he was wholly indebted to the Duchess Amelia for the perfumed Italian breath of the whole, which cold reality would have chilled. We come now reluctantly to the evil genius of the romance, Roquairol, the son of Froulay and brother of Liana. He is a child of the times, a victim of the vicious institutions of society, and of an unsuitable education. Richter in this character has furnished us with almost a prophetic example of those artistic paintings, of which we have seen so many since his death ; in France, even in the times in which we live. An example, where the cul- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 307 ture of the mind, without the attendant culture of the heart, is carried so far as to excite and mislead the judg- ment of the wisest. An association of intelligence and crime, of artistic power of the imagination, united with perversity of heart to mar and destroy all the beauty of the painting. But Jean Paul has not, as other authors of such characters, painted his hero half angel, half devil ; he has made him wholly hateful : he has not, like Love- lace, the charm of graceful manners; nor, like Byron's heroes, the attraction of personal beauty : he excites no sentiment but that of aversion, and when he falls, pity even cannot regret his fate. At the age of twelve, he con- ceived a violent passion for Linda, and attempted even then to shoot himself, because the little girl turned her back upon him and expressed her aversion. Upon her return from Italy, and when Albano's claims to her hand were acknowledged, he determined to add revenge upon Albano to the fatal resentment of his murderous love. A slight contest arose between the lovers, occasioned by Linda's quickness of resentment, and Albano absented himself for a few days. According to a psychological law of love, Linda is now more tender than ever, and her cold independence melts under the thought of estrangement. Roquairol forges Albano's hand-writing, and asks for an interview. Deceived by his counterfeiting the voice and dress of Albano, and by her evening blindness ; seduced also by her own views of love, that it should yield all with- out the bond of marriage, the superb and proud Linda surrenders all to the madness of Roquairol ! With the boldness of despair, he has the whole history of his 1 love, and its catastrophe, performed in a tragedy he had already written, and at the end of the fourth act shoots himself. Linda, crushed in body and soul, retires for ever to her living tomb ! and Don Gaspard, who had thought to make use of men as the instruments to accomplish his ambitious purposes, disappears from the scene. 308 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. But the romance does not end thus tragically and hope- lessly. Albano, failing twice in love and twice subdued by the physical death of Liana, and the moral death of the noble Linda rises again above his fate, The death of his brother, Luigi, takes place at this moment. Educated as one of the people, and prepared to regenerate the corrupt dynasty to which he belongs, and to pour healing streams into the impure society of the time, he ascends the throne, and becomes a benefactor and reformer. Idoine, a Princess of Haarhaar, who had made a volun- tary vow never to marry beneath her rank and in a little province of her own had created a paradise, where pure morals, religion, industry, and happiness prevailed with a strong, rational, yet tender and beautiful nature, bears also a striking personal resemblance to Liana and the romance ends with her union with Albano. This is a rough outline of the plan and action of Titan. Within it revolves much that is great and beautiful and touching in life; almost all the errors, and sorrows, and pains of humanity ; love, in all its forms, from its delicate fragrance, like that of the lily of the valley, to the volcanic flame that burns and destroys ; nature, in the idyllic sim- plicity of German village life, in ornamented parks and gardens, in Alpine mountains, and in the intoxication of spring in the Italian climate; art, from the breathing tones of the flute to the noble beauty of Grecian sculp- ture; poetry, delicate irony, hidden satire, and broad humour. Throughout the whole work an elevated poetic justice is preserved; not the common conventional justice that demands vice to be punished and virtue rewarded in this world, but a deeper philosophy, in which the mind itself, and the affections, though crushed and disappointed, are their own reward. Thus Albano, twice broken-hearted, stands at last, great in himself and in his own integrity, with the bride he had chosen from her resemblance to his LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 309 first love, upon the elevation his experience and trials and his own great qualities fitted him to adorn. Liana, the humble, pure, gentle being, the victim of an unsuitable education, too tender for the winter of this rough life, is happy in death, because she feels that Albano will be thus restored to his birthright, and by a beautiful spiritual mysticism she will still be the protecting guardian of her earthly love. It is only against the fate of the romantic and proud Linda that every reader rebels. Richter received many letters entreating him to alter or avert it. Jacobi even threatened him with the loss of his friendship if he left her under the sentence of this moral death. But Richter adhered to his purpose, which was, to give a lesson of humility to those who, strong in self-reliance, throw aside the guards of custom, the sanction of laws, as unnecessary to their more refined and spiritual natures But Linda, even in the moment of her humiliating grief, is consoled by the momentary belief that Albano may be her brother, and that she may have been saved from a deeper and more terrible fate. Many other characters revolve around these, the prin- cipal in the drama. Schoppe, the former Leibgeiber, appears again, crazed by the philosophy of Fichte, ever accompanied, and trying in vain to escape from his 7c/i(me) ; Dian, a Greek artist, and his simple and affectionate Greek wife, existing in an atmosphere of beauty ; the Minister's lady, cold and ascetic; the Princess-bride of Luigi, a malicious and heartless coquette ; Spener, the Court Chaplain, proud of his sanctity, and of his spiritual power, etc. The four volumes of the Titan were printed in three successive years. Great, indeed, was the disappointment of the reading public, when, after ten years of expectation, the first volume made its appearance. The discrepancy between its first and last portions displeased both parties 310 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. of Richter's admirers. Those who loved Jean Paul's earlier manner, were disappointed to lose it, and the admirers of his serious romances were displeased at the intrusion of the comic into this. The second volume, con- taining the episode of Liana, appeared at the end of a year, and was violently condemned as sentimental, mystical, too much in the style of the fashionable weeping school of fiction. When at length the last two volumes came out, disclosing the moral annihilation of a being so charming to the imagination of every reader as Linda, indignation was added to disappointment. Just then the battle of Jena occurred, and more important concerns took its place with the reading public. Like all really great works, Titan has survived the popular disapprobation ; and the more it is read, the more it will be acknowledged a work of exalted genius, pure morality, and perennial beauty. Spazier, whom I have so often quoted, tells us, that in the last weeks of the poet's life, when he was engaged with him in a revision of his whole works for a new edition, Richter had determined by an earlier developement, and more psychological analysis of the character of Linda, to show that, with her previously formed opinions and educa- tion, the catastrophe was unavoidable ; and to illustrate more fully the axiom, that " character and destiny are the same thing." How much it is to be regretted that he did not live to fulfil his intention; that an author, who touches the sick heart so tenderly, that if for purposes of art he must lay bare the inmost recesses of weakness and frailty, covers them again from the cutting air of scorn, with the downy, warm breast of pity and love, should have left a passage that cannot be read without deep mortification and pain. The coincidence between this work and the Clarissa of Richardson, is remarkable the catastrophe similar. One, indeed, induced by the lethargy of the mind, the other by that of the physical powers, each leaving the soul un- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 311 stained. In both instances the authors were assailed with reproaches and letters, entreating them to alter or conceal the fate of their heroines ; but each, for purposes of higher than conventional morality, adhered inflexibly to his ori- ginal plan *. * The machinery of ventriloquism and jugglery introduced into Titan impairs its beauty, confuses the attention of the reader, does not help the developement of character, and most readers would prefer to have it wholly omitted. CHAPTER X. RICHTER LEAVES MFJNINGEN REMOVES TO COBURG BIRTH OF HIS SON DEATH OF HERDER " FLEGELJAHRE " BATREUTH. A.D. 1803. THE work that succeeded the Titan, the " Fle- * lg 40- geljahre," is perhaps the most personal of all the works of the poet. While writing it, his desire to return to the place of his birth, the land of his youthful hopes and dreams, became irrepressible. He would not let the Duke of Meiningen become ac- quainted with his wish from any other lips than his own ; he wrote to him, therefore, " that, like wandering rats in the spring, he felt an irresistible instinct to move, and that with wife, and child, and hound, he should depart in May, and draw nearer to Fichtelgebirge." The Duke answered, "that he was not enough of a naturalist to understand the species of wandering rats called geniuses, though he believed he knew one genius sufficiently to call him his friend." He gave his consent with extreme reluctance, and Paul found it difficult to resist his earnest entreaties, and his princely offer to build him a convenient dwelling, to let him import his favourite Bayreuth beer, free from impost, and to add every new book to his library. The solitude of Meiniugen oppressed him ; but his first removal was only to Coburg, a short distance from the Prince, and a stage nearer to the attraction of the mountain magnet, and the friend Otto. The year that Richter dwelt in Coburg has been passed over in silence by his biographers. No reason has been LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 313 given why he selected this small city, and there appears to have been no person there who could lend attraction to such a residence. But it was marked by two events that affected him deeply, the birth of his son, and the death of his friend Herder. This last, the death of Herder, cast a deep shadow, that reached him and his domestic joys. He had loved and reverenced none like Herder, and no author had had so much influence over him. Not that they resembled each other as authors, but the same deeply religious spirit inspired them both, and the aim of both was to build up the wavering faith of the age, in God, virtue, and immortality. " I would willingly," he wrote to the son of his dead friend, " I would willingly journey to his holy sepulchre to renew my joyful and my sad recollections of him. But with \vhat could I still my grief when I found him no longer there ? Weimar, or rather his deserted house, has made me a Jew, who can remain no longer in the city, but must, as soon as he inscribed in the church-record the birth of a child, depart, and journey onward."* The residence in Coburg was also marked by the publi- cation of the Flegeljahre. Carlyle says the word may be translated "irild oats," but it seems to mean the same as " Wanderjahre," or apprenticeship, as Goethe uses it in " Meister." Like most of the romances of Jean Paul, especially to the English reader, the beginning of this work will be strange, puzzling, and apparently absurd, and he will be tempted a hundred times to throw down the book in despair or contempt ; but he will be well rewarded for persevering till he finds his -way through the intricate labyrinth of the introduction. Paul wrote to Otto while he was writing it, " I work now with inexpressible pleasure and care upon the history of my brothers of J. P. In * See Appendix, No. II. P 314 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. this I can make the highest satirical leaps, and its ob- jectivity gains by them." It is said to be the most personal of all the author's works. In it he has represented his own (already so often mentioned) double nature, in the personal relations of Walt and Vidt, twin brothers, nourished by the same mother's bosom, and " united in such a manner that they cannot live apart, and yet cannot look into each other's eyes, or embrace each other. They are opposite magnets that are continually drawn to each other, but meeting, are thrust asunder as by positive and negative electricity." Walt the earnest, sentimental, ideal enthusiast, is repre- sented as anticipating a paradise in e very-day life, sur- rounding the simplest scenes in nature, and the most common people, with a halo of poetic glory ; from his simple and absent nature, knowing nothing, and believing nothing of craft, or cunning, or vice ; extracting delight from every flower, even from every weed in his path is twin-brother to Vult, an eccentric humorist, a musician, ventriloquist, an exquisite mimic, who can take all forms, and in the inequalities of life looks with penetrating eyes only on the meanest side : knowing too well, and despising the vices of hypocrisy, he dissects and tears to shreds every tender emotion, delighting only in the wildest sport, and allaying the thirsting emptiness of the heart with satire, wit, and humour. Each seeks to gain an ascendancy over the other Walt by the seducing and vanquishing power of pure, disinterested love ; Vult by the imposing ascendancy of knowledge of society, and extensive worldly experience. The interest of the book consists, first, in the psycholo- gical relation of the twins to each other ; second, in the severe experience of life, to which the angelic and poetic nature of Walt is subjected; and, third, the resemblance of the two united brothers to the double nature of the author. Both born in humble life, the good-for-nothing Vult is soon enlisted as a soldier Walt, whose disposition leads him to LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 315 the clerical life, is deterred from entering the church by the tears of his mother, who dreads for her son the poverty in which her own life has been passed. His father, who answers to our justice of the peace, educates him for a notary. A rich and childless man, the Croesus of the village, has become interested in Walt, by reading a poem of his, in which he describes the happiness of a Swedish Pastor's life, and determines to put it in his power to follow his in- clinations, by making him his heir. Yet he hedges around his legacy with such conditions, and places the heir in such intricate relations with avaricious and cunning executors, that the reader foresees that the noble-minded and unsus- picious Walt, through the dreaming and unworldly nature of the poet, will surrender the whole gift into their hands. By the conditions of the will he is placed in various relations with the persons, into whose hands, for every fault he commits, he forfeits a part of the inheritance. His experienced and worldly-wise twin-brother, Vult, fol- lows him as his shadow, and endeavours to protect him by his better knowledge, and cold experience of the world, from the blunders of his unsuspicious nature ; but by a kind of poetic optimism, Walt converts every loss into a lesson of wisdom, or into an occasion for disclosing his own unselfish and beautiful nature. Unknown to each other, and without disclosing it, they both love the same excellence in the beautifully feminine but high-born Wina. Although the helpless Walt, through his earnest nature and poetical character, touches her heart, yet without the knowledge of life, and sagacity of his brother, he could never have breathed his reverential love into her ear. Wina is for Walt a distant star, which he may love and worship, but never reach. It would have been as improbable as that Jean Paul should himself marry a princess. And the reason that the book breaks off so abruptly is, no doubt, that it would have violated all probability, and all German conventionalism, to have P 2 316 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. brought Walt's love for Wina to a happy termination ; and yet a poet could be permitted to love nothing inferior. This was the first work that Jean Paul began and finished immediately after his marriage, when he had obtained the object of his lifelong desires ; and over the whole work is thrown the charm of a serene and heavenly twilight, a soothing repose, like the disposition in which it was written. The Flegeljahre is the truest expression of the inmost nature of the poet the picture of his hopes, his longings, his griefs, his disappointments ; and it contains his views upon the value of his own attainments, and shows their discrepancy with the actual world in which he moved and lived. By a German critic, it is said, " it leaves upon the mind of the reader the impression, that it is the most artistically faultless, the gentlest and most beautiful of the peculiar romances of Jean Paul." For many long years Paul che- rished the illusion, that he should continue and complete this the most faultless of his works. This seems to be the proper place to introduce a little sketch of the social group, in the midst of which Richter passed his life after his removal to the little city of Bay- reuth, " little city of my habitation, which I belong to on this side the grave ! " at the foot of the Fichtelgebirge, on the south, which took place this year. The reader will recollect, perhaps, the introductory sketch of the sim- plicity of manners in this secluded region. Modern im- provement and refinement must have been increased by Emanuel the Jew, who was cultivated and beneficent, a patron of the arts, and who lived there in a style of the most generous hospitality. In the Otto family, originally from Hof, marriage had made many changes. Frederica, Richter's pupil and friend, had married Wernleiu, the pastor of Wunsiedel. Frederica seems to have been one of those women without fascinating qualities, but to whom every one turns and relies upon in times of difficulty and sorrow. After her marriage, Otto IJFE OF JEAN PAUL. 317 wrote to Bichter thus : " Frederica writes that she is very much satisfied, and lives very happily with Wernlein. She has taken the reins of housekeeping completely into her own hands. All is furnished and ordered after her views, and she does not let the remarks of others make her waver. I rejoice that she has begun in this way, because the disagreeables of her situation will be softened thus, if not destroyed, and this firmness of hers is the only way." Of Otto's own marriage, he gives Richter the following simple and naive account. He had long been betrothed, which in Germany is the more public marriage, to Amone Herold, whose home is often mentioned as un comfortable and uncongenial, and to whom Kichter, in a delicate manner, had frequently conveyed advice and con- solation : " The last day of June was my marriage-day ; no one had been informed that it was to take place. At five o'clock in the morning we went alone, as we wished, into the church. We were, believe me, through our own reflections, more elevated than by the mechanical exhortations of old R. I took in imagination thee with us, even into the sacristy, where I and my Amone were wed, and thou, my Richter, stood by, and gave us thy blessing. Then I led Amone back to her father for the last time, and the next morning took her away for ever. We departed from Hof. I left my brother sleeping. We came to Bayreuth, where I intended to hire a dwelling. But Emanuel had cared for all that, and had furnished it with a completeness that extended from the greatest to the smallest things. In addition to what Amone had sent here, he had provided everything necessary or agreeable. " Represent to yourself our surprise, when we stepped into the apartment, and found all, even to the ink-glass and strewing-sand ; candles lighted upon my desk, and a barometer near them. All from the window-curtains to the electrical machine, for lighting the fire from the 318 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. smallest milk pitcher to the largest kettle, all arranged, everything in its place, or hanging on its nail." Albrecht, Otto's brother, a noble and generous character, who is called the old bachelor, and whom they regret leaving alone when Otto marries, saves them all anxiety on his account by becoming suddenly attached to a young lady, and marrying in a hurry, as old bachelors are too apt to do. It was to this little circle of attached friends, living in great outward simplicity, that Richter brought his Caroline, rich in every inward and outward quality that could add to it grace or happiness. To show the beautiful simplicity of their life, I give an extract from Otto, describing his own birth-day. He says : " It is the first in domestic life with my Amone, and therefore doubly dear. Truly, it is something beautiful to observe the anxious care and contrivance of a Hausfrau to create some new pleasure, to see how in secret all is directed to one object, to create a happy surprise for her husband. " As I arose on the ninth, and went into my own room, Amone came to meet me with the most tender love, em- braced me, and led me into the common apartment to see what she had prepared for me. There, under wreaths of flowers and kindled lights, were a large cake that she had herself made the day before, pastry and wine that her sister had sent me from Hof. All were symmetrically placed and beautiful ; and on each side there lay shirts of fine holland, that she had been months before secretly em- ployed in making, to surprise me. The love of this good, devoted being, touched me even to tears. " The pleasure and emotion of the day were much heightened by the good Enaanuel, who always gives me proofs of his esteem and love. In the afternoon, we took a long walk, and then we all assembled around his cheerful LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 319 tea-table. I thought of you the whole day, my Richter, and painted to myself your future birth-days that you would, perhaps, pass with us, when we should all live together in domestic intimacy." * I close this Part with a letter from Richter to his wife, on her first birth-day after her marriage : " Even now, as I would begin, tones from the ^Eolian harp come to my ear, as though they would say what I should write to thee, my beloved! New-born, for that veiled year, which no winter, but spring clouds only conceal, thy birth-day is also mine, and with wishes for thee, my own will be fulfilled. Led by quiet joys among flowers, and sunbeams, and pure loving hearts, shalt thou pass, dear one, into thy new year. O nothing shall fail thee therein ! But should all else fail, I will remain to thee fast and true ; and when thy future years are past, thou shalt say to me : ' You have kept the vows of love ! You have warmly loved me ! We have been happy ! ' I will be to thee father and mother ! Thou shalt be the happiest of human beings, that I also may be happy ! And thus may it be for ever ; and may the Infinite hand behind the clouds that led us together, lay its blessing upon our union, and give us only the sorrows that we can bear ! " * Amone Herold was one of Paul's earliest pupils, and most constant correspondents. As her marriage was childless, she gave much of her time to literary pursuits. Her first publication was a translation of Ossian. She afterwards published some novels, that her friend Paul revised. Otto often speaks of her philosophical mind ; and her writings could not have been without value, as Gotta gave her two louis-d'ors a sheet for her stories. Schindel says : " She excels in descriptions of scenes of domestic tenderness, and is distinguished for penetration and power of acute observation." Amone was yet living at the time of the publication of Jean Paul's Life. PART FOURTH. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. CHAPTER I. BICHTEB REMOVES TO BAYBEUTH SOCIAL POSITION PEB- SONAL APPEABANCE AND HABITS FAMILY LETTEB FBOM HIS ELDEST DAUGHTEB. To return : the Poet's life in Coburg, as we have A D 1804f already said, is a complete blank leaf in his bio- zt> 4I> graphy. It was easy, therefore, although he says to Otto, " It is stupid to wander about with wife and children, and cook ;" yet it was natural to turn his eyes to the place that had always been the Mecca of his wishes. On the first of August, 1805, the day, Paul said, "on which, according to the old Saga, the Devil fell from heaven, he should return to his upon earth." He soon found a quiet little place in Bayreuth, where the green meadows, and the sheltered valleys, and the misty mountains of his fancy, became fixed and permanent objects in his view. In close neighbourhood with Otto and Amone, and his old friend Emanuel, he hired a convenient and pretty house, consisting of four rooms and three cabinets, on the beautiful margin of the Maine, and commanding an exten- sive prospect of the region he loved so well. Here he lived in the most endearing social intercourse with these friends, which was uninterrupted until the day of his death. But to Jean Paul a place under the free and open p3 ,322 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. heaven to study and muse, was almost as necessary as a shelter for his wife and children ; and he was often seen, in a fine morning, with a sack of books upon his back, a knotted staff in hand, followed by his faithful Spite, passing through the lime-tree avenue that led to a hermitage, far out of the city, where there was an extensive view over the valley to the Fichtelgebirge. Here was a small peasant's house, in whose upper chamber Richter had furnished a study for inclement weather. And the good Frau still shows the room where Richter came till the last year of his life, and endeared himself to her by good-humour and kindness. On fine days the poet might be seen sitting not far from the house, under the overhanging linden, sunk in his own, or regarding the outward world, until the darkening twilight, or his children, sent by the watchful Caroline, re- minded him that it was time to call his friend Otto, who was within the sound of his voice, and return home. With his settlement in Bayreuth, the completion of Titan, and the publication of the Flegeljahre, began a new existence in the literary, the ideal, and the actual life of Richter. He now stood, in the full ripeness of his age, with an entire knowledge and complete consciousness of his relations to society ; and with a rich treasure of expe- rience both hi life and in literature. But, on the other hand, all his upward strivings, both in poetry and life, lay behind him. He had obtained, both in domestic life and in fame, all that he had aspired to. The ideal in these paths no longer beckoned him onwards. He had found in his Caroline, if not all a poet could imagine, enough to make a poet's fireside happy ; and, as a father and a mem- ber of society, he had acquired an easy and honourable position, that would ever bind him in silken fetters to his home, and to the beloved soil of his native district. The calm satisfaction and contentment, the harmonious quiet, the repose and order of his life, also appear in all the works composed after the Titan. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 323 Those who have followed us thus far will dwell with sa- tisfaction on this period of Eichter's life, " when with a heart at once of the most sportful and the most earnest feelings ; affectionate, and encompassed with the objects of his affections ; diligent in the highest of all earthly tasks, the acquisition and diffusion of truth ; and witnessing from his sequestered home the workings of his own mind on thousands of fellow minds, he was happy and at peace." In his own immediate circle, also, the influence of so original a mind, and a heart the truest and tenderest that ever beat, upon his children and neighbourhood, must have been deep and permanent. He was an enthusiast, but no visionary; neither were his singularities the result of affec- tation, as writers in this country, and in England, have asserted; for affectation is founded in falsehood, and Bichter was the truest of human beings. The poetry of his genius had always been reflected in his life ; peace and happiness from within now showed itself in his external appearance. One of his biographers says : " He had hitherto been pale and lean he now became stout and robust ; and, had it not been that the delicately-formed nose, the lovely mouth, the intellectual brow and lightning eye, remained unchanged, he would have been taken for a fanner rather than a poet." But I must .not give the reader the impression that Eichter was absolutely without faults. He had persevered from the earliest time in the habit of writing down rules for conduct, and strictly regulating his whole manner of life; from this we learn his inclinations, his secret dis- gusts, and the faults he was most conscious of. Every line shows him full of love and generosity in all the relations of life ; but, with his glowing fancy and temperament of fire, he was sometimes harsh and violent, especially after long-continued writing, that brought him into an excited state of mind, differing from intoxication only in its cause. Against this he contended strongly; and his most troubled and penitent hours appear to have been caused by the 324 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. transgression of his resolutions on those occasions when he forgot the habitual mildness of his character. He mourned also over his violence in argument; and there are many little billets apologizing to his friends the next day, for the warmth of his opinions the previous evening. Paul loved argument, and was noted for maintaining his opinions with great warmth; he was also extremely unguarded and im- prudent. The breach between him and the Schlegel school was often widened by unguarded speeches, that were caught up and repeated by curious or malicious lis- teners. In reference to this, Paul says in his via recta " If one effort at reconciliation does not succeed, the second or third will be certain to." His biographer, a nephew, who lived much in his family, writes thus of it. After saying that he had been educated with the utmost reverence and even fear of Blchter ; that reports had reached him of his oddity and severity, so that he remained a whole day in Bayreuth, and passed his house several times before he could get courage to knock at the door : " As soon as I entered, all my timidity vanished. Richter, indeed, appeared but for a moment, to welcome me, and returned to his study. But the mild splendour of his whole godlike, spiritual, and moral being appeared, as shown in his wife and children, and everything about them, and threw suddenly a warm, rose-coloured glow upon my spirits. " I found in them all the most benevolent and heartiest love united with the simplicity and openness of the truest innocence ; extraordinary culture, with indeed a too humble unpretendingness ; the most earnest interest for all that was elevated, with the most cheerful good-humour and love of pleasantry and wit ; a simple manner of living, and ignorance of fashionable luxuries, but the happiest contentment, with the truest hospitality. A deep penetra- tion and knowledge of life, united with the most childlike purity of heart, that had no eye for the low or the impure ; LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 325 but unsuspicious, they confided in the best, and received as they gave, without distrust. All this intellect and love was clothed in the unstudied exterior of a graceful form. To add to this charming picture of his family, there was the deepest reverence for the husband and father, with the freest and most independent intercourse with him. In proof of this, there is a letter from the eldest daughter, Emilia: . ..." I love to represent the dear friendly man, with brown study coat and socks hanging down, as he en- tered our mother's chamber the first thing in the morning to greet her. The hound springs on before him, and the children hang about him, and seek, when he leaves the room, to thrust their little feet into the slippers behind, when he raises his feet a little, so as to hang on him more securely. One springs before, (at that time my blessed brother lived,) the other two hang on his coat-skirts until he reaches his own chamber-door ; where all leave him, for only the dog must enter there. " When we were very small, we lived in a two-story house ; my father worked above, in the attic. We crept on our hands and feet over the stairs, and hammered on the door till the father himself arose and opened it, and after our noisy .ingress, closed it again then he took from an old chest a trumpet and a fife, with which we made noisy music while he continued writing. We ventured in again many times in the day to play with a squirrel that he had at that time, and that in the evening he took out with him in his pocket, and always made one of the family circle. " He had, usually, animals that he tamed, about him. Sometimes a mouse ; then a great, white, cross spider, that he kept in a paper box, with a glass top. There was a little door beneath, by which he could feed his prisoner with dead flies. In the autumn he collected the winter food for his little tree frog and his tame spider. "The father was good to everything: he could not bear to witness the least pain, not even in the lowest animal. 326 LIFE OF JEAN Thus, he never went out without opening the cage of his canary birds, to indemnify the poor animals, who would be melancholy in his absence. He took at one time the most sedulous care of a dog, who came in one evening after the loss of the poor dead Alert, as he knew that in the morn- ing he should exchange him for another, and he would have no opportunity to feed him again. You will smile at the connexion, but he did the same for a departing servant- maid: providing everything for her convenience the day before, and delighting the poor girl in the most unusual degree. "The children were permitted all sorts of practical jokes towards him. 'Father, dance once;' then he would make some leaps ; or he must speak French, in which he placed wonderful value on the nasal sound, which no one made as well as he. It sounded, indeed, curiously, and made my mother laugh. " In the twflight he told us stories ; or spake of God, and other worlds ; or he would tell us of our grandfather, and other splendid things. We ran to gain the wager, which of us should get nearest to him on the sofa. The old money-box, hooped with iron, with a hole in the cover, that two mice might conveniently pass through, was the step- ping-stone by which we jumped over the back of the sofa ; for in front it was difficult to press between the table and the repertory for papers. We all three crowded between the back of the sofa and the father's outstretched legs ; above, at his head, lay the sleeping dog. At last, when we had pressed our limbs into the most inconvenient postures, the story began. " The father knew how to create for himself many little pleasures. Thus, he made all the boxes for his tame animals, after his half hour's nap in the afternoon. It was a special satisfaction to him to prepare ink, which he did much oftener than was necessary, for Otto wrote long years after with the rejected part. He could never wait to per- fect it ; but tried it an hour after it was made. If it was LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 327 already black, he would come joyfully to us, and say ' Now if it be black already, what will it be to-morrow, or after fourteen days? 1 .... " The mere thought of destruction was painful to him, especially the loss of the work of man's mind. He never burnt a letter ; yes, he treasured even the most insignifi- cant. ' All loss of life,' he said, ' may be restored again, but the creations of these heads, these hearts, never! The name should be erased, but the soul that speaks its most intimate sentiments in letters, should live.' He had also thick books written full of the remarks, and the habits and peculiarities of his children. " At meals he was very cheerful, and listened to every- thing we told him with the greatest sympathy, and always made something out of the smallest relation ; so that the narrator was always wiser for what he had said. " In eating and drinking he was extremely moderate. He never gave us direct instruction, and yet he taught us always. Our evening table he called a French Table d'hote, that he furnished with twelve dishes taken from the arts and sciences. We tasted of all without being satiated with any, and we all ventured to utter any joke to the father about himself or his entertainment. " His punishments for us girls were rather passive than active ; they consisted in refusing some request, or in a severe word ; but my brother sometimes received corporal punishment. My father would say ' Max, this afternoon, at three o'clock, come to me to receive your whipping.' He went punctually, and suffered it without a sound. " Our principal festival was Christmas, and our father began early to look after the sacred appearance of the present-giving Christkindlein. Fourteen days before, he would suffer some little light to creep through. If we had been very good during the day, when he came home in the evening from the Harmony, he would bring us some little present, and say ' To-day, good children, I 328 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. went into the garden of the Harmony, and as I looked toward heaven, there came a rose-red cloud before me, and there sat the CJiristkindlein * ; and as you have been good to-day he sent you this.' Christmas-week he went himself to the fair, and when we saw him coming back, and the angles and protuberances of his cloak be- traying what he wished to conceal in its folds, we ran down the steps and would try to hang on him. Then he would cry out, artfully feigning anger ' Touch me at your peril ! ' " When the evening came, as soon as it was twilight, we must all withdraw, my mother and all. He arranged everything himself; and when the tree was lighted we were recalled, and then we could not be gay enough to satisfy him. He wished to educate us with the frugality with which fate reconciled him in his childhood. Thus he never gave us pocket-money ; but on the three do- mestic fair days in Bayreuth he gave each of us three kreuzers f ; later it rose to six, and, a short time before rny first communion, I received a four-and-twenty kreuzer piece. " Last year I and my sister received a dollar; but it might as well have been thrown away. I learnt with great difficulty the use of money ; and if, as I know not who asserts, a thousand angels can sit on the point of a needle, so we founded a thousand plans upon our dollar. But they, with it, vanished in the air. " I will relate only two little things more. First, how my father assisted the poor gardeners, who belonged to the garden of the Harmony, where he wrote. He always gave them five gulden at once, from which the Frau must bring one back at the end of the month to show him ; to * The reader will recollect how dear this illusion of German children was to Jean Paul, in his own childhood. Strange, he could preserve it in his own children, when the schoolmaster had been so long abroad. TB. t A kreuzer is about the third of a penny. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 329 this he would add a sechzer (six kreuzers) interest, as he called it. " Once more will it weary you if I relate, that he kept an empty toilet-box, in which there were little holes for penny and twopenny pieces, and that, like Swift, when he went to walk, he carried these small pieces in the left waistcoat pocket, to give to the poor people." CHAPTER II. " INTRODUCTION TO AESTHETICS " " FREEDOM PAMPHLET" " LEVANA" RICHTER'S VIEW OF NAPOLEON COMIC WORKS LETTER TO GENERAL BERNADOTTE. A.D. 1805, THE Introduction to ^Esthetics was the first book set. 42. published after the Flegeljahre. This is appa- rently a scientifically critical work, but is not free from the personality that characterizes all the productions of Jean Paul. It is only fragmentary. It makes no preten- sion to a complete theory of the beautiful in art, and can therefore lead to no serious errors ; but it resembles all the other works of this author, which receive their worth and significance from one another, and can be thoroughly understood only through each other and through a know- ledge of their author ; thus this work can only be fully understood through the peculiarities of the others, and they through this. It is remarkable as closing with an eloquent eulogy of Herder, who died while it was in pre- paration. As it would exceed the limits of this work to attempt an analysis of it, I mention it only as the cause of the loss of the Canonicate, formerly promised to Paul by the King of Prussia. It was dedicated, by permission, to the Duke Aemel von Gotha, a prince who had always shown a singu- lar friendship for Richter, and delighted in his society. This prince had raised himself much above the conven- UFE OF JEAX PAUL. 331 tionalisms of his own rank, and in his letters to Paul laughed at the pedantry of Court ceremonies*. In his Dedication, Paul mentioned and praised the hitherto unknown poetical productions of the Duke, and the Dedication is accidentally so worded, as if the Duke had, although he had not, previously seen it. All this appeared to the dean of the philosophical faculty at Jena indiscreet, and he refused his imprimatur to the publica- tion. Kichter was deeply offended at this pretended guardian- ship of himself and his princely friend. He experienced, for the first time, the despotism of the censure of the press ; he was frightened at the desolation it threatened to cany into the kingdom of the mind, and he determined to make a bold appeal against this instrument of tyranny. He obtained permission of the Duke to print the whole history of the affair, together with all their previous cor- respondence ; the Prince refusing to soften or repress any of the cynical or satirical remarks in the letters, relative to his own caste. At the end of three weeks this protest against the cen- sure of the press, together with the Duke of Gotha's letters, was published, under the protection of the noble Prince Dalberg, and under the name of the. Freyheitsbuchlein (Freedom's pamphlet}. A step like this, that no other literary character would have ventured upon, could not fail to excite the utmost attention in Germany. But the increasing political storms of the period, and the darkening atmosphere, tumed all minds to the critical situation of affairs, and Pdchter lost all the gratitude and reward of his courageous patriotism, except that which he always car- * This is probably the same " Duke of Gotha, with long legs and red hair," of whom Bettine gives so pleasant an impression in her letters to Gunderode. He was one of the most genial and witty princes of the time, who raised himself with wonderful boldness above the prejudices of his rank. 332 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. ried in his own breast, an ardent love and devotion to freedom. Soon after there was a festival in Wunsiedel, to cele- brate a visit from the King and Queen of Prussia, and Kichter, at the request of Hardenburg, prepared a musical entertainment, for which he wrote his first verses. There were also present at this festival one or two of the sister Graces to whom he had dedicated his Titan, and Richter took this opportunity to remind their Majesties of the pro- mised prebend, and learnt, with astonishment, that since the publication of the Freyheitsbiichlein, the King did not intend to recollect his promise. The admirers of Jean Paul must rejoice, that he was not bound to the suppression of any opinion, by holding office under any Prince. He was completely independent of everything but his conscience. It is impossible for us in this country to understand the conventionalisms of society in the old aristocratic countries, or the wide differences of rank, that place a gulf between a literary man and a Prince : to us, the republican or democratic pride of wealth, that enables a vulgar soul to assume the attitude of patronage to a man of genius, would be far more intolerable, than the generous pride of ancestry in a man, or of nobility in a woman ; a woman, who might also receive the homage of a man of genius, for her accomplished manners, or her re- fined and feminine dignity. We learn from the literature of the old countries, that nobility has always stooped to cherish genius ; and has sometimes, as in the instances of Leonora and Tasso, be- trayed it ; and that in the middle ranks of life there is an indifference to talent without wealth, that does not admit it to such distinction as it receives with us. The poet seems to be "the aristocrat of the world," looking always to the shining summits of life ; but, to use Paul's comparison, " needing to be cherished, like the canary bird, with soft warm hands, before he can be made to sing." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 333 Paul's nephew, speaking of this subject, says, " There was no German poet so favoured by the highest nobility, and so coldly treated by the citizens, as Jean Paul ; while the latter, for his contests for them in literature and poli- tics, not only gave him not the smallest thanks, but con- sidered themselves injured by his independence and out- ward contempt of forms ; and slandered him as an original, or laughed at him as an oddity. The nobility, especially Princes, treated him with tenderness and attention ; they were pleased that he never bowed low to them *, and per- mitted him all sorts of freedom in dress, and peculiar openness and unreserve in his conversation with them. As he was infinitely surprised at this partiality for so democratic a poet, and sometimes imagined that through his representations he had converted Legitimacy to liberal opinions, he therefore talked openly, not from social vanity, but to do them honour, of his intimate relations with exalted men and women. This often brought him into a false position with people of his own rank, and im- paired the influence of his generous and liberal opinions." Many anecdotes are told in his biography, of Paul's in- dependence in his intercourse with the nobility such as his presenting himself at a particular door of the Weimar theatre, where none were entitled to enter who were not also entitled to wear a sword. Paul answered, " that he should feel himself as much degraded by putting on a sword as others were by having it taken off;" and he was permitted to pass, etc. To return from this digression. Richter, through his literary labours, had hitherto been completely independ- ent. He had obtained for the Flegeljahre, that generous publisher, Cotta, who had paid him seven louis-d'ors a * " Paul never bent his back, but had a wholly peculiar way of bow- ing. He nodded only the head ; and this to the highest as to the lowest, in a manner so noble and amiable, while he at the same time made a greeting gesture with the right hand, that expressed as much respect as good-humour and friendliness." 334 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. sheet ; and the popularity which he had lost by the Titan was completely regained by this work. But at this time, when he possessed more than ever the favour of the public, the whole commerce of Germany, and especially the book-trade, was, through the wars of Napoleon, thrown into trouble and confusion ; this, added to the diminished resources of all classes, which disinclined them to the pur- chase of large works, diminished also the resources of our Richter, at the same moment that his family was increased by the birth of another daughter. His limited income was to be regretted, because he was obliged, for the sake of providing immediate small sums for the support of his family, to divide and weaken his powers, in the production of short essays, tales, and other contributions to the ephe- meral literature, the fashionable annuals, and ladies' alma- nacs of the period. To the widowed sister of his wife, Minna Spazier, who sup- ported her young family by editing an almanac for ladies, and to whom he sent many contributions, he wrote, " that it was easier for him to write a volume than a sheet, and that he could bear any limitation better than an intellectual one." In this same letter, he says, in answer to the request of the sister, that Caroline would write something for her Almanac, " Caroline is a poet in her life, and by that very life, rather than upon paper, and for the public." Paul's third child, a daughter, was named after his dearest friend, softening Otto into the pretty feminine name of Odilia. The unfolding and culture of all that was good and beau- tiful in his children, was one of the most delightful em- ployments of Richter. He knew that a better future was only to be acquired by a better youth, and he employed himself in writing Levana, his work upon education. A critic says, that " in no other of his works is the whole man, in his inward and outward being, and in his relations with and reciprocal dependencies on the outward world, so unfolded as in this. As is the case with all his other LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 335 works, they reflect light upon this, and they also are better understood if read by the light derived from this." Perhaps it will be an objection to this work, especially in so practical an age and country as this, that the tendency of Richter's system of education is, to make all men and women, if not actually writers and poets, yet supremely thinking and spiritual beings. The tendency is to with- draw too much talent from actual and practical life, and direct it to speculative and intellectual pursuits. One of the marked peculiarities of Eichter was, that in actual life he was the most practical of men, suffering none of the minuti, that could influence the conveniences of others, to escape him ; but in his instructions, all was spiritual and transcendental. No writer on education has thrown so much light upon the holy and hidden impulses of the child's soul ; no one has written with such reverence of the child's nature, and the necessity, in a teacher, of respecting the individuality of the child ; and not, as has been too much the practice, measuring all upon the same Procrustes' bed. It is in fact a commentary upon those words of the Saviour, " Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;" and no less of the other verse, " In my father's house are many mansions;" some prepared for angelic minds, and others for those of an humbler order, but all are filled. That which had distinguished all his works was even more apparent in this a singular knowledge of the female heart in its deepest and most delicate folds. This he had gained in his Hofer solitude, where he lived almost exclu- sively with women, and in his subsequent correspondence with his female friends. Perhaps there never was a writer to whom women so completely surrendered their confidence. He understood the false position in which women are placed in some parts of the civilized world, and he had, on that account, more leniency for their vices and weaknesses than for those of the other sex. 336 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Richter strove in this work to return to a simplicity of expression, and plain lucid style of writing, which he had long since abandoned, but which he thought better adapted to the persons he wished now to benefit ; and also, in order to explain all scientific and too learned illustrations, he published at the same time a Lexicon fur Frauen. (Lexicon for Ladies.) Although the passages are innumerable in Jean Paul's works, where he speaks of women with tenderness and respect, and, for the above-mentioned reason, treats them with leniency, yet it is impossible to surpass the bitter con- tempt, the concentrated scorn, with which he speaks of those women who have thrown off the restraints of their sex, or of those cold and selfish coquettes, " whose hearts have become as hard within their breasts as the stones that glitter on the outside." This book, the Levana, was more favourably received than any book he had ever published. The sympathy was so universal, that the whole of the edition was sold during the disastrous year of 1807. Even Goethe forgot his hos- tility to the author, and seeing an extract from the work, wrote to a friend, " I know not how to say good enough of this extract from Levana, and desire, with impatience, the whole work." About two weeks after the publication of Levana occurred the battle of Jena, and the last hopes for Germany (of those who placed their hopes upon the resistance of Prussia) failed; and that remarkable time began, when the greater part of the nation suffered a complete prostra- tion before the preponderance of the genius of Napoleon. It is difficult to gather from Richter's biographers the precise view he took, at this time, of the aims of Napoleon. We find this passage in his journal: " Did I certainly know," he wrote in 1805, " that Napoleon was in the wrong, and as certainly all just means of resistance against him, ah ! it were easy to venture even life against him with the pen. But this uncertainty fearfully cripples the courage LIFE OF JEAK PAUL. 337 of the cosmopolitan, who must discern his aims through their consequences.. This it is that perplexes and obstructs, and is the reason that, among so many thousand intricacies and involvements of human affairs, no sacrificing soul finds it easy to give his life to discover the right. The moral principle, that the intention, the will, is everything, helps not here, for we need the discernment to discover the will." That Richter believed at first in the sincerity of Napoleon, appears from his writing to Otto upon being in- formed of his assuming the diadem. "Who has not gnashed his teeth, upon hearing of his Imperial Majesty in France ? Yet I do not hate Buonaparte as much as I des- pise the French ; and Goethe was more far-sighted than half the world ; for in the beginning of the Revolution he despised them as much as at the end." But even at the confederation of the Rhine, Richter did not share the complete prostration that involved the rest of the nation. " His prophetic feeling told him at that time, what better experience has taught the nations of Europe, that all must unite in the common cause of freedom ; and that one without the rest could not advance in the road to civilization and better government." He perhaps thought that Napoleon, by destroying some of the old and rotting institutions, and clearing away the rubbish, was preparing the way for the advancement of light and freedom ; and that Austria, who would imprison her subjects for ever in spiritual darkness, deserved no support from his pen. He held the depression of the hopes and spirits of the people as one of the greatest evils of the time ; and he sought to enliven and keep up their courage by writings purely comic, that had no other aim than to contribute to their cheerfulness. These were the " Circular Letter of Attila Schmelzle," and the " Bathjoumey of Dr. Katzenburger," both infinitely rich in purely comic scenes. They were re- ceived with inexpressible delight by the whole nation, and contributed to raise the spirits of the people. Richter also contributed his share to the revival, at this time, of the old 338 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. German or Volks-liberature. It is well known that appre- hensions were felt of the too great preponderance of the French in the literature of the time. The exertions of Brentano, Arnim, and Von der Hogen, with whom Tieck and the Schlegels joined, arose from this cause. They published anew the Niebelungenlied, the Knabens Wunder- Jiorn, and went even to the cringing out of Fouque's extravagances, and the complete caricature in his later works. The war had yet no other immediately disastrous conse- quences for Richter than that of withdrawing his friend Otto from his family and neighbourhood. He had been appointed quartermaster to Prince William of Prussia, and accompanied the army, so that the correspondence of the friends was renewed, although with the difficulty of transmitting letters through a country occupied with troops. But in the autumn of 1806 the French troops were stationed in Bayreuth, and Richter must have suf- fered a very inconvenient interruption of his peaceful labours, had two or three officers, as was usual in such cir- cumstances, been quartered in his quiet and orderly dwelling. He picked up, therefore, his former knowledge of French, and wrote the following letter to General Bernadotte : Quatre Verites, deux Esperances, et une Demande. Verites. Premiere : Vous, Monseigneur, n'avez du triste dieu Mai's, que la valeur ; et vous aimez les hommes et les lettres, autant que la gloire. Seconde : Moi, je suis auteur je vis pour ecrire et j'ecris pour vivre ma plume nourrit ma femme, trois enfans, un chien, un oiseau, et moi-meme. C'est pourquoi que ce seroit appauvrir le pauvre que d y ajouter un etre vivant et mangeant de plus. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 339 Troisieme : La Muse veut de la solitude, et la guerre ou la victoire veut (votre Altesse le salt) toute 1'Europe. Quatrieme: La nation Franchise a toujours honore les lettres, qui 1'ont honore a leur tour sa gloire s'achevant par la valeur s'est commencee par les lettres 1'Empereur Napoleon a laisse Gottingen et Heidelberg aux Muses. Esperances. I. J'espere que la piece ci-jointe, quoiqu'elle flatte plus qu'elle ne peint, prouvera a votre Altesse, que j'ai obtenu quelques suffrages de ma nation pour mes ceuvres roman- tiques, philosophiques et morales. II. J'espere, qu'en cas de guerre ma maison, ou plutot mon etude, sera exemte de la charge d 'avoir des troupes en quartier, et qu'elle demeurera 1'asyle de ma Muse. Demande. J'irnplore Thumanite de votre Altesse a realiser ces esperances, apres les avoir pardonnees. Qu'une ligne de votre main veuille m'assurer la paix, que meritent la poesie et la philosophic, parce qu'elles la propagent. La main vaillante verse le sang ; la main bienfaisante tarit les larmes mais vous avez les deux mains. Je suis, Monseigneur, avec le respect le plus profond, Votre Altesse, tres-humble serviteur, JEAN PAUL FR. RICHTER. Richter thus disarmed his enemies ; he was permitted to pursue his labours without interruption, and soon pro- duced the comic works already mentioned. By his wit he escaped, also, another unjust imposition. He had been taxed, together with the capitalists of Bayreuth, to sup- port the war. He wrote to the Minister, and asked " If one who had only money enough for his daily wants, and who was indebted to Bayreuth for nothing but beer Q 2 340 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and ennui, could be reckoned a capitalist that he would pay a just, although he would deny an unjust demand, if it were only four groschen, for all was indifferent to him except justice." The Minister answered " That, as the exact tariff could not be fixed, thought was free from con- tribution," and invited Richter to dine with him. We have seen that Richter did not, in the darkest times, share the universal depression of his country ; a prophetic insight into the future enabled him to penetrate the cloud, and to see that an eclipse was not the end of all things. In all his political writings, an unwavering hope, like the voice and guarantee of Providence, leads him through that dark time. But when roused, as by the voice of a trumpet, all Germany arose against the power of Napoleon, no one entered with word and deed more warmly into the holy cause than Jean Paul. In his " Dawning of Germany," he did not limit himself to prophesying, from the whole course of history, a better future for Germany, or to re- minding the nation of its power and advantages ; he strove to destroy that oppressive feeling of the preponderance of the French, which had extended to all ranks ; that eye and spirit-blinding belief in the star of Napoleon, that weighed with almost Turkish fatality upon the people. With a courage that bordered on rashness, he endeavoured to confine the admiration of Napoleon within its just limits. He often asked the question " What, then, does a great conqueror deserve ?" He placed his merits beneath the science of a Newton, the courage of a Socrates or a Cato, and the admirable wisdom of the true republicans of all time, etc. And this he ventured to write and publish, while he owed his freedom in his own house to the French Marshal Davoust. How gloriously is he contrasted with another great poet of the time, who was living joyously in retirement, drinking Cape wine, busy with his optics, and studying osteology, for which "there could not be a better opportu- LIFE OP JEAN PAUL. 341 nity, for every battle-field of his country was sown with preparations."* * Knebel wrote to Richter, after the battle of Jena : " Goethe sent me, in my necessity, a couple of flasks of Cape wine, that came at the exact time to a man that the French had wholly drunk dry. He was the whole time busy with his optics. We study here, under his instruction, osteology, for which it is an excellent time, as every field is sown with preparations." CHAPTER III. PECUNIARY EMBARRASSMENTS PRINCE DALBERG PAUL RE- CEIVES A SMALL PENSION EXTRACT FROM VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS. A.D. i8o& RICHTER at this time suffered some anxiety on a*. . account of his diminished pecuniary resources. The book concerns of the time were becoming every day more unfavourable, and pressed heavily upon authors. A great work required from him concentrated attention, leisure, and quiet thought; neither of which could he com- mand, feeling, as he did, deep sympathy with the troubles of his country ; neither would the booksellers venture upon any large work ; he was obliged, therefore, to break down and divide his powers in the production of many of the ephemeral essays of the day. At this time and talent- consuming employment, he worked so incessantly, that at last his firm health was shaken*, and immediate rest or recreation became absolutely requisite. He was attacked with a tertian fever, that obliged him to give up writing every third day. " On that day," he says, " he read philosophy, and was able to forget the ague fit when the shaking would permit him to hold the book." * Jean Paul's contributions to the periodical literature of the day fill several volumes of his collected works. The titles of some of these con- tributions are, " Upon the Advantages of being Deaf in one Ear ;" " June Night Thoughts;" "The Dream of a Madman;" "Marriage Looking- glasses ; " " The Pleasure we feel in the Joys of Children ;" " Fragments from ray Art of always being Cheerful ; " " Upon the Evergreen of our Feelings," and many reviews of modern works. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 343 Richter had dedicated his " Peace Sermons " to Carl von Dalberg*, Prince Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine. In this Dedication he hinted so delicately at his poverty, that the Prince, in an extremely gracious answer, was obliged to ask him to declare his wishes. Richter answered : " An author of more than forty volumes, an orphan, who has lived more /or, than by the sciences, ventures now, after three years' war, the birth of three children, and the failure of three of his booksellers, to wish for a winter pension to enable him to recover his health through more reading, and less writing." It was not in the Prince's power to do more at the moment, than to send Jean Paul a considerable present, with a most kind and courteous letter. But, early in the following year, he surprised him with a pension of a thou- sand guldens (eighty-five pounds), which he paid out of his private purse until 1811, when the payment of the same sum was placed on the common pension fund of Bavaria. Richter was now in comparatively happy circumstances. With their simple habits, and his Caroline's good economy and watchfulness, eighty-five pounds, in addition to his daily earnings, made them rich. A letter to Otto, who was separated from him by the war, is characteristic of this period : . " How often this winter have I wished that you could have met me in the street, or in the Harmony, then you would have seen my little squirrel upon my shoulder, * This Prince is mentioned so often, that it should be known that he was one of the most generous noblemen of the time, and a munificent patron of literature. He was Archbishop of Ratisbon and Bishop of Worms, and is the same Prince Bishop that Bettine Brentano mentions so playfully and so pleasantly in Goethe's Correspondence vnth a Child. "In 1813 he voluntarily resigned all his possessions as a sovereign Prince, retaining only his ecclesiastical dignity, and retired to private life. He afterwards devoted himself to letters, and published many moral and legal treatises." It was a brother of this Prince who was Schiller's first patron. Convmations L*x. 344 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. who bites no longer. I ventured to carry him in my pocket when I held Dobineck's son before the baptismal font; but I was obliged to grasp him several times, and wind him in my handkerchief; for if, while I held the blessed little godson in my arms, the rogue had crept upon my shoulder, there would have been a universal disturbance of the baptism, and everything serious. At this moment the little fellow sleeps upon my sofa. " Had it not been for the war, my Levana would have come to a second edition wonderful ! For none of my books have I so much feared the judgment of the public, and of fate; as much as I hoped, by the Titan but the public always surprises one so, at least unpleasantly. My inmost being remains strong, dry, cold ! The spring, with all its starry heaven, has not melted me. I would remain strong and cold, even till the great world's game of Europe is won. Opposition only spurs me on, to work, to work with the best, and with the utmost of my powers, for the improvement of all. . . . What time destroys, these exertions will restore. If the devils are a majority, yet the angels are a larger yes, I say a larger ; for in human nature ten angels are worth an hundred devils : were it not so, the excess of weak, foolish, and bad, would long since have sunk humanity, instead of saving it. ... . . " I rejoice even now at your future joy over my three unlike, but unspoilt rose-buds of children and it is difficult to say which will be your favourite. Ah, were you here ! and yet I cannot desire it, as you are now building your future fortune. You have, on account of your know- ledge and desert, the greater claims. This war should give you full confidence in the friendly genius that goes with you through life. Your rare fortune has rejoiced, but not surprised me ; and had you anything of my bold grasp into life, you would have had it before. I am curious whether you will appear to me like a man of the world when I see you again. I should think all these grand persons would make you a little bold. My wife greets you LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 345 heartily, and we both wish you the balsam and nourish- ment of joy." At this period, 1808, Richter received a visit from Herr Varnhagen von Ense. He has left in his Memoirs such a pleasant account of him and his family, that the reader will pardon me for introducing it here : " This forenoon (it was the 23rd of October) I went to Jean Paul's. A pleasant, kindly, inquisitive woman, who had opened the door to me, I at once recognised for Jean Paul's wife, by her likeness to her sister. A child was sent off to call its father. He came directly ; he had been forewarned of my visit by letters from Berlin and Leipsic, and received me with great kindness. " First of all, I had to tell him what I was charged with in the shape of messages ; then whatsoever I could tell in any way, about his Berlin friends. He willingly re- membered the time he had lived in Berlin, as Marcus Harz's neighbour, in Leder's house, where I, seven years before, had first seen him in the garden by the Spree, with papers in his hand, which it was privately whispered were leaves of Hesperus. This talk about persons, and then still more about literature growing out of that, set him fairly under weigh, and soon he had more to impart than to inquire. His conversation was throughout amiable and good-natured, always full of meaning, but in quite simple tone and expression. Though I knew beforehand that his wit and humour belonged only to his pen, that he could hardly write the shortest note without these introducing themselves, while on the contrary his oral utterance seldom showed the like yet it struck me much that, in this con- tinual movement and vivacity of mood to which he yielded himself, I observed no trace of these qualities. His de- meanour otherwise was like his speaking ; nothing forced, nothing studied, nothing that went beyond the burgher tone. His courtesy was the free expression of a kind heart ; his way and bearing were patriarchal, considerate of the stranger, yet, for himself, too altogether unconstrained. Q 3 346 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Neither in the animation to which some word or topic would excite him, was this fundamental temper ever altered ; nowhere did severity appear, nowhere any ex- hibiting of himself, any watching or spying of his hearer ; everywhere kind-heartedness, free movement of his some- what loose-flowing nature, open course for him, with a hundred transitions from one course to the other, howso- ever or whithersoever it seemed good to him to go. At first he praised everything that was named of our new appearances in literature ; and then, when we came a little closer to the matter, there was blame enough and to spare. So of Adam Muller's Lectures, of Friedrich Schlegel, of Tieck, and others. He said, German writers ought to hold by the people, not by the upper classes, among whom all was already dead and gone ; and yet he had just been praising Adam Miiller, that he had the gift of speaking a deep word to cultivated people of the world. He is con- vinced that from the opening of the old Indian world nothing is to be got for us, except the adding of one other mode of poetry to the many modes we have already, but no increase of ideas ; and yet he had just been celebrating Friedrich Schlegel's labours with the Sanscrit, as if a new salvation were to issue out of that. He was free to confess that a right Christian in these days, if not a Protestant one, was inconceivable to him ; that changing from Pro- testantism to Catholicism seemed a monstrous perversion ; and with this opinion great hope had been expressed, a few minutes before, that the Catholic spirit in Friedrich Schlegel, combined with the Indian, would produce much good ! Of Schleiermacher he spoke with respect ; signi- fied, however, that he did not relish his ' Plato ' greatly ; that in Jacobi's, in Herder's soaring flight of soul, he traced far more of those divine old sages than in the learned acumen of Schleiermacher; a deliverance which I could not let pass without protest. Fichte, of whose ' Addresses to the German Nation,' held in Berlin under the sound of French drums, I had much to say, was not a favourite of LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 347 his ; the decisiveness of that energy gave him uneasiness ; he said he could only read Fichte as an exercise, ' gym- nastically,' and that with the purport of his philosophy he had now nothing more to do. " Jean Paul was called out, and I stayed awhile alone with his wife. I had now to answer many new questions about Berlin ; her interest in persons and things of her native town was by no means sated with what she had already heard. The lady pleased me exceedingly; soft, refined, acute, she united with the loveliest expression of household goodness an air of higher breeding and freer management than Jean Paul seemed to manifest. Yet, in this respect, too, she willingly held herself inferior, and looked up to her gifted husband. It was apparent every way that their life together was a right happy one. Their three children, a boy and two girls, are beautiful, healthy, well-conditioned creatures. I had a hearty pleasure in them ; they recalled other dear children to my thoughts, whom I had lately been beside ! . . . . " With continual copiousness, and in the best humour, Jean Paul (we were now at table) expatiated on all manner of objects. Among the rest, I had been charged with a salutation from Kahel Levin to him, and the modest ques- tion ' Whether he remembered her still ? ' His face beamed with joyful satisfaction. ' How could one forget such a person ?' cried he impressively. ' That is a woman alone of her kind ; I liked her heartily well, and more now than ever, as I gain in sense an apprehension to do it ; she is the only woman in whom I have found genuine humour, the one woman of this world who had humour !' He called me a lucky fellow to have such a friend, and asked, as if proving me and measuring my value, ' How I had deserved that ? ' " Monday, October 24th. " Being invited, I went a second time to dine. Jean Paul had just returned from a walk ; his wife, with one of the children, was still out. We came upon his writings ; 348 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. that questionable string with most authors, which the one will not have you touch, which another will have you keep jingling continually. He was here what I expected him to be free, unconstrained, good-natured, and sincere with his whole heart. His ' Dream of a Madman,' just pub- lished by Cotta, was what had led us upon this. He said he could write such things at any time ; the mood for it, when he was in health, lay in his own power ; he did but seat himself at the harpsichord, and fantasying for a while on it, in the wildest way, deliver himself over to the feel- ing of the moment, and then write his imaginings accord- ing to a certain predetermined course, indeed, which how- ever he would often alter as he went on. In this kind he had once undertaken to write a ' Hell,' such as mortal never heard of; and a great deal of it is actually done, but not fit for print. Speaking of descriptive composition, he also started as in fright when I ventured to say that Goethe was less complete in this province ; he reminded me of two passages in ' Werter,' which are indeed among the finest description. He said, that to describe any scene well the poet must make the bosom of a man his camera obscura, and look at it through this; then he would see it poetically " The conversation turned on public occurrences, on the condition of Germany, and the oppressive rule of the French. To me discussions of that sort are usually dis- agreeable ; but it was delightful to hear Jean Paul express, on such occasion, his noble patriotic sentiments ; and for the sake of this rock-island I willingly swam through the empty tide of uncertain news and wavering suppositions which environed it. What he said was deep, considerate, hearty, valiant, German to the marrow of the bone. I had to tell him much; of Napoleon, whom he knew only by portraits ; of Johannes von Miiller ; of Fichte, whom he now as a patriot admired cordially ; of the Marquez de la Romana and his Spaniards, whom I had seen in Ham- burgh. Jean Paul said he at no moment doubted, but the LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 349 Germans, like the Spaniards, would one day rise, and Prussia would avenge its disgrace, and free the country ; he hoped his son would live to see it, and did not deny that he was bringing him up for a soldier " October 25th. " I stayed to supper, contrary to my purpose, having to set out next morning early. The lady was so kind, and Jean Paul himself so trustful and blithe, I could not with- stand their entreaties. At the neat and well-furnished table (reminding you that South Germany was now near) the best humour reigned. Among other tilings we had a good laugh at this, that Jean Paul offered me an introduc- tion to one of, what he called, his dearest friends in Stutt- gart and then was obliged to give it up, having irre- vocably forgotten his name ! Of a more serious sort again was our conversation about Tieck, Friedrich and Wilhelm Schlegel, and others of the romantic school. He seemed in ill-humour with Tieck at the moment. Of Goethe he said ' Goethe is a consecrated head ; he has a place of his own, high above us all.' We spoke of Goethe after- wards for some time : Jean Paul, with more and more admiration, nay, with a sort of fear and awe-struck reve- rence. " Some beautiful fruit was brought in for dessert. On a sudden, Jean Paul started up, gave me his hand, and said ' Forgive me, I must go to bed ! Stay you here in God's name, for it is still early, and chat with my wife ; there is much to say between you, which my talking has kept back. I am a Spiessburger (of the club of Odd Fellows), and my hour is come for sleep.' He took a can- dle, and said good night. We parted with great cordiality, and the wish expressed on both sides, that I might stay at Bayreuth another time." CHAPTER IV. DOMESTIC LETTERS - JOURNEY. TO ERLANGEN - JOURNEY TO NURNBEHG - JACOBI. AD 1811 ^ E P ass over ^ree quiet years, in which no set. 4a event of importance occurred. Through his pen- sion, Paul's circumstances were easier, and a little journey to Erlangen affords an opportunity for inserting a letter to Caroline, which proves that, after eleven years of married life, no flower had faded from their wreath of love and happiness : "June, 1811. " My dear, good Caroline. Like this beautiful morning has your long wished-for letter come to me. Every word of it was welcome. Fortunately, I did not receive it till the evening, when I long heartbreakingly for you and the children. " Max was on the way so tender, pleasant, and apparently so contented, loving all, obeying all (he certainly forgets nothing on a journey), and so good, that I began to per- ceive that I could gather the fruit of the education of my children, and how much better they really are than they sometimes appear. He slept at night without undressing, and without a bedcover, like one dead ; and in the morning he was lively, spirited, and gay. The thought that I must leave him, would not, the whole day, go from my soul. " The middle-aged Madam S. comes when I ring, and is respectful and ready, and makes my coffee and bed as I like them. Toussaint fulfils every wish; so does the LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 351 obliging Professor Mehmel. In the morning, heaven dwells in my solitary apartment, full only of books, and I am as homelike, but more alone, than at Bayreuth. I went into the Italian garden, that stands open without key, and without kreuzers, on the day of the great pentecost church consecration, which Otto can paint for you without ink. This garden terrace is the only throne of nature in the beggarly environs of Erlangen. This alone would frighten me from a residence here, which they all wish to persuade me to. I am unusually well, and joke frequently in society " I put by the pen, to sup better than usual. First a morsel of cheese, then a morsel of dessert cake ah ! sliced potatoes, where are ye? For in a whole week, none. "June 12. " Since Sunday, for eight days, not a line ! This one cloud, which is indeed broad enough, draws itself through my blue heaven. Had I not, two months since, certain grounds of consolation, or to-day, not a wonderful con- fidence in my anticipations that my present cheerfulness does not indicate future misfortunes, I should become fearful through your silence ? Heavens : how much you have to tell me, and formerly you were so industrious a letter-writer ! Be joyful, good Caroline. "June 14. " At last I am happy, without alloy. Take, for every heart's word, and heart's deed, in my absence, heart's thanks ! Last Sunday I was properly frightened that I forgot your birth-day, and I found it in the calendar under the name of Lucretia. After my return we will celebrate it on a fixed day. If you gave attention, you will have seen that the last week in May I wore your ring on the little finger of my left hand. The heart should also have its festivals *. I could be borne on the waves of society here, * The last week in May was the annniversary of Richter's marriage. His finding his wife's birth-day under the name of Lucretia is thus ex- plained. The German custom was to celebrate, not only the birth-day, 352 LIFE OP JEAN PAUL. for every one comes lovingly to me ; but I have so many books before me, that I keep myself solitary in the even- ing, reading, and eating with my dog only. Either the old, true, French wine, of which I drink daily a quarter of a bottle, or the air, or very rarely a draught of rosaliera, or the less work, or all together, make me more healthy than I have been for years. No thirst, no dry heat, no trem- blings ; pardon these little bodily trifles but you, dear wife, take in these as much part as I should in the smallest of your ailments. " Next day. " Yesterday I was in Niirnberg with the Hofmeister, young Rottenheim, and the bookseller T was pleased with the southern, joyful, hearty tone of the people. M. will return with me on Friday. How new and beautiful all will appear to me ! If you have experienced anything that will not be pleasant to me, write it, that I may forget it on the way, and the heavenly evening of our meeting again pass without a cloud. Ah ! the post draws near, and I have so much to say to my faithful friend, who has done so much for me, and loves me so fervently. Heavens ! how often have I thought of you with overpowering ecstasy, when, at night, your face, with its indescribable love's eyes, and love's glance, has suddenly appeared to me, as a form out of the empty air. But that ecstasy remains a reality for me yet for you live, and I return. Ah, it goes to your soul as to mine." The following year Richter went to Nurnberg to meet Jacobi. The reader will recollect that they had cor- responded for some years, but had never met. After mentioning the discomforts of their inn in a letter to Otto, he goes on to describe his friend. " I played the but the day in the almanac that bore the person's Christian name. The old almanacs contained a name for every day in the year, the name of a saint, or some other remarkable person ; when Jean Paul, then, proposed fixing a day to celebrate Caroline's birth-day, he would probably choose the day that bore the name of Caroline. I am indebted for this explana- tion to the notes upon Mr. Tracey's charming translation of Undine. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 353 lamb with accustomed moderation, and remained sedate, only saying to my ever-hasty companion, ' In the morning we shall have time enough.' I can now bear witness to my second remark, that there is no better sign of a pleasant future than when the first hour in an inn is miserable and uncomfortable " At eleven I held to my heart a brother and friend of old longings *. He is not a man of the world, but in the most precious sense a quiet, noble ancient. It seems to me that I only meet him again after long separation, we sym- pathize so entirely ; his sisters also please me. In the evening they usually go early to bed, and I sit alone with Jacobi. They bid me not to suffer him to speak much of his childhood ; but, often as we have been together, we have scarcely begun to talk, and the eternal conversation upon philosophy, more rarely disputing than agreeing, will leave scarcely room for question about his early life and former connexions. He seeks earnestly, and with pure, warm zeal, unestablished truth In the first quarter of an hour he observed my wavering play- fulness between jest and earnest, and, as I excused myself, his sisters said, * he did the same himself; ' but he does not appear to me to have the true disposition for humour, arid he said himself that he could not read through the Katzenburger and the Fibel. He is always calm, not cold, * Jacobi was the herald of the new faith. He discovered the weak- ness and insufficiency of the Kantian system, and showed the emptiness and lameness of a system, the religious conceptions of which do not ex- tend beyond a narrow and cold morality ; which sees nothing in Chris- tianity but a code of duties ; and represents the Creator of the universe as a mere Supreme Being apart from his creation and from man. But he fell into the opposite extreme ; he denounced philosophy generally, and declared revealed religion to be the sole and exclusive source of truth. In his work, directed against Schelling's book, Of Divine Things, and their Revelation, he declares it as his opinion, "that philosophy is impotent to clear up the eternal mystery, and that we receive light through divine grace alone, not through human reason." Richter did not assent to these opinions, and expresses to Otto his displeasure at this one-sided view of the question. 354 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and it is as easy to him to speak to, to listen to, and to satisfy his enemies, as it is difficult for me to do so. " He remained till midnight alone with me, and with the shadow of the lamp-screen resting upon his face, speaking softly, and yet listening to the mightiest themes. And yet, listen ! He will give my earthly planet a new impulse around his higher sun, and be as much to me as Herder was. Yes, more than Herder. Both, he cannot he ; and yet, alas, my religious desires for myself can be fulfilled by no man from without but only from within, by myself alone. ' Could I but see him,' I have hitherto thought, ' I should become a new man, and desire nothing more ! ' Ah! .... " He can be from morning to midnight in society, en- joying visiting, amusements, and driving, while I remain, much to his astonishment, true to my old rules, and, in the midst of the most animated society, escape to my cool solitude to approach myself after exciting amusements. As I asked Jacobi whether I did not carry my freedom too far, he half assented, and yet in such a way that I had no satisfaction from his answer. Besides, he considers too much, and is too anxious about appearances, and his consi- deration with others, and indeed ventures nothing. Thus he earlier negatived my question, whether I should say in my dedication of the Clavis to him, ' that he had read it before its publication,' although he had. All the reviews of his and Schelling's books, as well as the notice of them in the Hamburgh newspaper, he carries, neatly folded in paper, about with him ; in all he is praised. The other day, in Erlangen, the professors, and we all, had drunk his health, he stood up, and, to the amazement of all, went round with his glass and touched that of every one at the table. Something of this belongs to his age, and to the four female hands that support and rock him *. * These are the same aunts Lehna and Lotta, whose excessive care of Jacobi, Bettine describes so graphically, in " The Correspondence of a Child." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 355 " He wears beautiful, new-fashioned, smooth white- topped boots, and hosen of good nankin ; and a gray Russian hat, probably on account of his eyes. " That he loves me, I know from the way in which he takes leave of me, and from his sisters, and from his gentle reproaches if I do not go to him in the intervals of his being at home ; but how much he blames me, either justly, or unjustly, I know not. He speaks often of his own works ; upon my personalities, social or literary relations, he asked no questions. The excess of our materials for con- versation was my fault, and yet there was nothing said of worldly affairs, and not enough of Haman, Goethe, and Klopstock ; and the little that was said was in answer to my questions. In politics he is probably liberal. The rest when we meet." There is another letter of the same date to his old friend Emanuel. The reader will recollect that he, as well as Otto, were Eichter's neighbours in Bayreuth. "Nurnberg, 1812. " You gave me only one token of remembrance, namely, the packed coffer. As I unfolded paper after paper, it seemed as if you spake a word of love to me upon each. It is a half melancholy feeling to have the well-wishing love of an absent friend before one in solitude. For me a solitary apartment is a spiritual Brunnen hall, full of medicinal water, Solitude shows itself in new relations ; not in your own solitary apartment are you alone, but in a melancholy palace. I have, ridiculously as it sounds, every day a little perverseness, a little contrariety in thinking and acting. I write every morning that for which in practice I require further medicining. " The first maxim is : ' Do everything in its time, put off nothing ! ' and then I have the night equipage carried out of the room, but I leave the coffee equipage upon the other table. " The second day I write : ' Rise above little incon- veniences' that is, do not croak and cry alas! when in 356 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the morning you have to draw your shirt on or off, or even your narrow Sunday pantaloons and the rest, before you can sit calmly with your book upon the sofa. " The third morning : ' After having been in society, have nothing to repent, but be rather too fearful than too bold.' For, my good friend, when with benevolent inten- tion you think you have spoken only boldly, then you have already spoken too boldly, and the previous improvement is to be every day recapitulated. " ' Arm yourself as powerfully against evil in others as in yourself.' That I do not obey this rule shows itself in my continuing, through fancy, to blacken myself, in com- parison with good men. In short, there are no other means in heaven or upon earth to heal and content the inward soul, but by strengthening that inmost soul itself ; and it is foolish to think small helps from without can be lasting means of improvement. , . . " Solitude, on one's birthday, is the only worthy per- sonal celebration that a man, thinking calmly and tenderly on the path behind him, and measuring seriously that before him, can permit himself. I hate also all business or pleasurable activity on the first day of the year. Frail and feeble man should look upon such elevations in time, like the spider for props to which he fastens the thread of a new web. All weighty things are done in solitude, that is, without society. The means of improvement consist not in projects, or in any violent designs, for these cool, and cool very soon; but in patient practising for whole long days, by which I make the thing dear to my highest reason. Reason works longer than feeling, and enlightens more, for it remains after the other has departed. We must first overcome the little faults, and be easy in this exercise of self-conquest, before we drive away the greater ; and yet, after all this, a man is only in the outer court of the Most Holy, and preparing to whip out of himself the whole of the old Adam ! " R." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 357 The peace, so ardently desired and so acceptable to Germany, was at first disastrous to Richter. The abolish- ing, by the Congress of Vienna, of the Grand Duchy of Frankfort, and taking away the immense revenue of the Prince Primate Dalberg, interrupted the payment of his pension, and threatened to suspend it entirely. It re- mained undecided for two years, and Jean Paul found himself constrained to send a multitude of petitions to persons of both sexes connected with the Congress of Vienna ; among others, to the Emperor Alexander, which both his biographers have given at large, although it seems to us less important than many other of Paul's productions. After waiting two years without any result, he presented a petition to his own King and Queen of Bavaria, and the payment henceforth was placed on the pension-fund of the kingdom, and regularly received by Richter. That it was not immediately necessary to meet his every-day expenses, appears from a note written to Otto, on the Christmas-day after he was secure of the first quarter's payment. All his readers must rejoice that a poet had money to lend. " December 25, 1815. " A joyful festival, my Otto. Inform me, when my pension-money comes, whether Emanuel offers to take a part of it for half a year. Shall I not give him too much trouble, or can he even use it? 1 remark, that when men lend money, they value only the interest, and thereby become cursedly avaricious so I will lend little, and spend more. " I bring you a long-cherished prayer. My purse is open to you at all times, and for any sum within it. Five hundred florins * lie wholly useless there ; so that I deserve nothing by the change to yours, except indeed the pleasure. Enjoy it also, old heart's friend. " R." This is the place to give a few extracts from the private journal called Via recti, which was begun this year, and is * The half of his pension. 358 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the glass in which we see the man and the author reflected. He says in the beginning " I am a libertine only from within; I enjoy neither beer nor wine; later, I have enjoyed neither company nor punch ; but my inward fan- tasies, conceptions and representations, have reduced and consumed my life. I say here, and before God, that in all my works, and in all my representations, I am pure from all but the best motives, uninfluenced by poverty, the mis- understanding of others, sacrifices, etc. I have held it my duty, not to enjoy, or to gain, but to write however much time or money I have thus thrown away yes, joy also that is, the sight of Switzerland, which merely the sacrifice of time forbade ! I deny myself my vesper meal, merely to work ; but I cannot deny myself the interruption that comes from my children. Eating, drinking, money, health are nothing ! The enjoyment of my children, nature, religion assert their mastery." Paul's nephew relates many beautiful instances of the pleasant intercourse he maintained with his family. " Could one see him when the longing after the exchange of endearing expressions drew him from his quiet and solitary study into the apartment of his wife. In his eye was a sunbeam of the purest love, while the loveliest smile played around his mouth as he seemed embarrassed to find an excuse for coming." Then, on the first of April, his delight in the innocent mirth that belonged to the day. He would mislead every one of his family, and the maid always came in for her share of the mirth. Paul proceeds with his rules : " Throw little pains immediately away. " Have nothing to repent in society; be rather too fearful, than too bold. " Show love only to children, not pain, or only that which will excite pity, not shame. " Leave a good, but passionate man, time to resolve and cool, as you also need, yourself. " Say not at the first moment no, but wait. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 359 " To love only one man truly, thoroughly what enjoy- ment and reward ! " Attempt, in the midst of work, to he indifferent to complaints, disturbing noises, etc. " One should strive far more earnestly to gain and secure and elevate the love of wife and children than any other foreign love ; for nothing can contribute half as much to the happiness of life. " I will give to the children the morning pleasures of morning hours. I can later work and read. " Children need love more than instruction ; and use and example alone can give it them *. " As Winkelman set apart a half hour daily to contem- plate his Italian joyousness, a man should consecrate a half hour, daily or weekly, to reckoning up and considering the virtues of his wife, and children, and nearest Mends ; so that their perfections may not first, at their death, press together to a burning focus. Often enough, alas, do we need this pressing together, namely, after an offence in order to be only justly angry, and reflect all his light upon the offender. " Place in imagination, in every company where you speak much, an enemy before you ; a satirist among the enthusiastic ; a spy, among lovers. " Practise, every day, an acting and an opposing power, that you may be every day stronger rather than weaker. Every occasion to withstand or to sacrifice will be dear to you, without which you will never succeed. But you need only to make use of the daily go not out of your way to seek sacrifices. " With all my inclination to irony upon paper, I have never in actual life, neither alone nor in company, made a man ridiculous, but have answered his weakness with sympathizing earnestness." In the same book, Paul says : " Nothing exhausts and touches me as fantasien, on the piano. I could thus kill * See Appendix. 360 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. myself. All buried feelings and spirits rise again ! My hand and eye and heart know no limits ! At last I close with an eternally returning, but too powerful tone ! One can be satisfied with hearing, but never with making music ; and every true musician could, like the nightingales, trill himself to death. When I have fantasied long, I break out into violent weeping, without thinking of anything decidedly melancholy. The tones cut deeper and clearer into ear and heart. Tears are my strongest, but most weakening intoxication ! " No author can foresee the influence his works will have either for good, or for evil, for they excite every species of mind, and kindle the inflammable. " I could become a great author with Herder's powers, and my own application of the same." CHAPTER V. RICHTER IN RELATION WITH THE UNHAPPY LETTERS MARIA FORSTER. WE come now to a trait of Richter's character A.D. isu, that we can dwell upon with unmixed satisfaction ** 5L his relations with the unfortunate and unhappy who sought his sympathy or advice. There is no author who lives so entirely in his own creations as Richter. He him- self speaks from the lips of his characters, and gives his readers consolation or pity, elevation or lofty trust. He steps before every heart, and shows it its inmost wishes ; he lifts the veil of secresy under which it sighs, and shows the reader that he knows and pities all that lies struggling or perplexed within him. He had experienced deeply in his youth that feeling of heart-solitude that weighs heavily upon minds of sensibility, and he offers in his works sym- pathy and aid against this fretting sorrow. He had felt how easy, and yet how dangerous, it is to take the first wrong step in life, while he knew how to draw lessons of wisdom from the reaction of error or folly. This distin- guishing characteristic of Jean Paul made him the personal friend of his readers, the brother and the father of all orphaned and widowed hearts. By his expanding and never-wearied sympathy he responded to every confidence that was placed in him, and showed the beautiful harmony of the author with the man, and the power of a true Christian brother, in healing and calming the soul. How many came to him with bowed or broken hearts ; how many, in the midst of the storm of passion, sought his R Oby LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. counsel and his help ! He was trusted with the most delicate and important secrets by women of all ranks, from princesses to domestic drudges. Men and youths also appealed to him to decide affairs that concerned their entire lives. Repentant sinners sought consolation in confession to him ; and in some cases he was employed to make reparation, where a breath or a whisper would have tarnished the honour of the parties. He answered with unwearied patience the letters of young authors, and their petitions for his judgment upon their literary works. He read them patiently, criticised delicately, and, where he could, he gave encouragement. His sympathy and help, even if he could not give a favour- able judgment of the work, were never withheld from the author. Thus, while he dwelt at Meiningen, he obtained, through his sole exertions, the office of cabinet secretary to the Duke, for Ernest Wagner. He obtained also a situ- ation for Kanne, the afterwards well-known enthusiastic preacher, whose supernatural ism and mysticism, alas ! brought Richter's only son to his grave. We have only room for a few of the answers Richter sent to those who sought his advice and sympathy. The first is in answer to a querulous letter from a young man, who writes under the name of Heinrich, and which is filled with general complaints at his unhappy destiny: " Dare not to judge, from one year of unhappiness, the Eternal, who has shown his paternal care of mankind for six thousand years, and is the same great Father of all. He who has supported, formed, and educated the human race, will not desert one, even the least. Of the smallest ephe- mera of a day his providence has protected the race from Adam to us. Let your heart be tender, but your breast strong, and struggle and hope at the same time." The next is a person of a higher order of mind, who sent him several letters, and at last, a journal of his life. As the letters were anonymous, they were thrown into the general receptacle of unanswered letters. At last another LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 363 despairing letter was sent, that hinted at suicide. Richter sought, and soon discovered his name, and wrote to him the next day : " Wherefore have you not trusted yourself more gene- rously to me? My silence upon your letters, so filled with mind and heart, was owing principally to the fact that such letters must be answered not with lines, but with sheets ; and that for most of the letters I receive I have not time even for lines. The letter previous to your journal covered my horizon with a thick cloud, through the suspicion of a misfortune to yourself; but your journal dispersed the cloud, and gave me again the sun. To an immediate answer, nothing failed me but the name, which I hoped to find in the first letter but behold that was buried in the great letter vault, where, with a thousand others, it awaited the resurrection that is, arrangement and order. But the first grasp in the coffer drew forth your first letter, like a roll of destiny. I should wish and advise you more action, and less reflection : but, if we cannot discover the character of an author from many books, how much less the character of a letter-writer from a few pages ; and how difficult it is, even after a long acquaintance, to give com- prehensive counsels, that shall embrace the whole of life. Against your overvalue of myself I have nothing to say. To the youth it is always more healthful to reverence too much than to despise too much. You have a pair of gods too many, but a divinity too little. Trust yourself, or rather the universal soul, more. There will fall to you yet many of the blossoms of youth. Thrust out the invisible fruit-buds of your soul, and as a man you will profit by the ripened fruit. Flee only the demon of ambition, and the wild ape* of vanity, and you will be reconciled with the angel of the good and the beautiful." Among other communications to him was the autobio- graphy of a man, who possessed the fixed idea, that his * Waldteufel is also the name of a butterfly. B 2 364 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. thoughts, by the medium of animal magnetism, were ab- stracted from his mind, and used by other people. At the same time, the same person desired Richter to petition the Emperor Francis for a present of not less than twenty thousand dollars, to enable him to enjoy the leisure to write an epic poem. In the mean time he prayed Richter to advance two thousand dollars, that he would repay when he received the twenty thousand from the Emperor. Another letter from another person, demanded that Paul should petition the Allied Sovereigns of Europe to free Napoleon from his imprisonment at St. Helena. To such absurd requests he gave of course no answer. But I will leave these common instances, to mention only one other, that threw a cloud over Richter's life, and was the occasion of an almost repentant sorrow. The his- tory of the young girl, who knit her being so closely to his that she could not live without him, seems to us, in this prosaic land and age, so like a fiction of romance, as to be almost incredible in its sad reality. She had known him only through his books ; and what to others is but an ab- straction, became to her the life of her soul. This has been mentioned, as a parallel case to that of Bettine Brentano, whose eccentric letters and journal have revealed to us her youthful passion for Goethe. But the cases are quite dissimilar. Bettine was living in the midst of the refined society where Goethe ruled, and her glowing imagination converted him into a divinity, to be worshipped and loved. Bettine had more imagination than sentiment or passion, and required of Goethe to understand and ap- preciate her rare intellect as much as answer to her heart. Unfortunately, Goethe was afraid of the ridicule that would attend such a friendship, and wounded her vanity as well as her womanly sensitiveness. Maria Forster was living in solitude, in the midst of sublime mountain scenery. She had no one to sympathize with her passionate nature. She brooded in silence over her communion with Jean Paul, when she found her most LTFE OF JEAN PAUL. 365 Secret thoughts and her own nature revealed to her in his books. To passion and sentiment were united a sensitive conscience and feminine delicacy ; and we cannot read her history without the sorrowful conviction, that before she came to the resolution to throw herself into the Rhine, the contest between passion and conscience had destroyed the healthful action of her reason. Maria was the daughter of a high-hearted German, who fell under the axe of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror in Paris. The heroic death of her father, who despised the means of flight that were held out to him by his friends, and the instructions of an equally high-minded mother, had increased the original tendency of the daughter's mind to enthusiasm, and given her an inclina- tion to solitude, where she lived in an ideal world, peopled only with heroes of the ancient world, and those among the moderns who were worthy to enter there. Yet she devoted herself with exact fidelity to all filial and domestic duties, and did not avoid the society about her. She rejoiced with the gay, and wept with the sorrowful ; but when her work was done, when the cares of the day were over, when the hours of darkness gave the choice of refreshment through sleep, or by communion with other minds, then she turned with ecstasy to her books, and drew from her favourite authors not only healthy food, but the intoxication that, in her solitude and with her peculiar temperament, became poison to her mind. Already, in her tenth year, she became acquainted with the writings of Jean Paul, and in her innocent, childish enthusiasm, wrote him a letter. As she entered woman- hood, he became the ideal of all that was dreamed or imagined. He was the only living mortal that was ad- mitted into her ideal world ; the purest and holiest of men, a saint, " a new Christ for her" who could alone bear her over the waves of life, that threatened right and left to overwhelm her. To be near him in some form, or in some relation, was the only contingency in which she could find 366 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. peace. To hold some kind of communion with him wes a necessity of her nature. She must speak to him, or she must die. Accordingly, in her thirteenth year, she wrote to him thus: " Is it not too bold dare I write to the dearest friend of man, and call him my father ? Ah, I shall per- haps never see him whom I have to thank for so much, for the dearest benefits, the most elevated truths, all the good that excites my imitation, and a whole eternity that has opened before my soul. When I think of your infinite goodness, I burst into tears, and my heart is filled with blessings for you. This firm faith in you is a blessing of which no man can rob me. " You will ask, perhaps, who it is that speaks thus boldly to you ? But I am only a little girl so little, that I need not mention my name. Ah, were I grown, as I shall be, 110 land and no sea should prevent me from once in my life seeing him who has long held the place of a father in my heart. But my own faults and intervening relations hold me back ; and I would not trust myself to write one word to you, if I did not hope to deserve your indulgence and pardon for my wishes. " I scarcely have a wish but the highest, to be so good as to deserve your esteem, and the joy of having you once call me daughter. My whole life is only a striving after goodness ; and yet, oh ! father ! wherefore does it go so slowly forwards? It is grievous that for me it is only goodness; .that I am only true and honest*. But I will not burden you with my faults." Maria continued to write, and closed every letter with her ardent wish to go to Richter. The first portion of her correspondence only expressed a wish for a spiritual union with Jean Paul, and a meeting in that future world for which he had prepared her soul ; but at length her letters betrayed her longing to be near him, her impatience for a more intimate union. But now her eyes were opened, and * She means to say, that she has no talent. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 367 it was as if she had touched the godlike with sacrilegious hands. In bitter repentance and tears she wrote the next day a letter, with her name, in which she endeavoured to soften the impatience of the first, and to recall the contents of the postscript, but in fact repeating them both. A third and fourth letter followed in quick succession, in which she strove in vain to conceal the conflict that devoured her whole moral nature; and while she prayed him to forget her, she still held fast the hope of being admitted into his family. Now she waited with burning impatience for an answer. She could not reckon the distance, the interruption of the post by the warlike condition of the country, the literary labours of her friend, or the many possibilities that lie between the reception and the answer to a letter. One only idea took possession of her mind the thought of being despised by the most beloved of men ; and to find con- tempt where she had looked for healing and sympathy, was too intolerable to be borne ; and this infant, as she was in years and experience, could find no peace except in death. In the twilight of a May morning she sought the river, and there, to make her resolution doubly sure, she placed a knife in her bosom. She looked round on the home where her mother still slept, which the first ray of the sun was just touching with splendour, and the thought of the inconsolable sorrow of her widowed mother made her waver in her purpose ; and her sister, who had been a witness of the despairing night Maria had passed, and had followed her without betraying the cause of her fearful anticipations, arrested her, and saved her from her despair. They walked home in silence, and Maria resolved that while her mother lived she would never leave her. But at last the expected letter arrived from Richter, and here it is : " Your four letters from a good but over-excited heart have been received. I guessed the name, and so did a 368 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. friend of mine, in the first hour. Your noble, departed father is worthy of so good a daughter. But as the earth did not reward him, may he now, when he looks down upon his daughter, be rewarded by seeing her full of a pure ardour for goodness and virtue. He would speak to her thus ' May a good man receive my dear Maria as a daughter, and be to her a spiritual father. He will calm her excitement with a kindness and indulgence that cannot be imagined ; he will tell her that in actual life, especially in marriage, the strength of passion in women, even inno- cent violence, has been the thorns and daggers upon which happiness has fallen, and bled; that the mightiest and holiest of men, even Christ, was all gentleness, mildness, and peace. He will tell her she may soar with the wings of the spirit, but with the outward limbs must she only walk. She may kindle a holy fire in her heart, but must not act till the fire has become a pure light to guide her. I also, who speak to you in the name of your own father, desire such for my dear Maria, and will be that father to her. " Your dream to come to me, you have, on awaking, laid aside. Leave your mother ? Never! I shall more probably go to you than you come here. I and my wife both love you, and greet you kindly. Remain always good, my daughter. " R." Maria received the handwriting of Richter with floods of tears, before she looked within the letter for consolation and hope. She answered gratefully, and sent him, at the same time, the letter she had written the night before that frightful May morning, when she had entreated him to look upon her as one departed, who could not endure to live under the thought of his contempt. Richter was shocked and alarmed at the recklessness, to which the choice between life and death seemed so easy. His own peace was endangered as well as Maria's happi- ness, and he wrote again with true paternal earnestness : LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 369 " Dear Maria. The abundance of what I have to say to you, of which much should go only from the lips to the ear, and my want of time, have delayed my answers to your last letters. The first that you wrote to me after my answer has shaken me more than any calamity for many years ; for had it not been for an apparent accident, you would have thrown a frightful death-shadow over the whole of my future life. You should see my coffer of letters, of which at the best I have not, for want of time, answered one-sixth part, and between me and my best friends there is often a delay of months. Your first four letters truly animated me. I saw in them only a rare exalted love, and a glowing soul, but not a single line unworthy of you or of me, and I answered them with more interest and joy than I usually express. You demanded the answers only too hastily, too punctually. Might I then not have journeyed, or been sick, or dead, or absent, or engaged in business ? The fearful step that you would on that account have taken, I must, notwithstanding the greatness of mind it betrays, condemn most severely ; but never let there be mention of it between us. Besides, I wish you on your own account, and on mine, to show my two letters to your good mother, whose most painful sorrows I well know how to imagine. You think much too well of me as a man. No author can be as moral as his works, as no preacher is as pious as his sermons. Write to me in future very often of all that is nearest your heart, either of joy or sorrow. You will thus relieve your mind of what rests upon it. You have become, by a peculiar bond, more knit to my life than any other absent acquaintance only draw not false conclusions from my long silence. Very delightful to me will be our first meeting. May you be happy, my child ; may these appa rently only slightly and calmly written words, rejoice, and not confuse or wound your heart. Your father, "R." After the reception of this letter, peace returned to the heart of Maria, but only for a short time ; the arrow had B 3 370 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. entered deeply, and the wound would not heal. In the fatal hour that she resolved on self-destruction she imagined that her inclination was more than a childish reverence ; that it demanded a warmer love than that of a father; and on this account she resolved never to see Richter, and bound herself with a sacred vow never to indulge the wish of meeting. She wrote to him: " The only honourable way that can lead me to the heart, for which I so long, is the grave. You will never be seen by me on this earth, for I love you too much ; therefore, write to me something consoling ; tell the poor Maria, that you will love her when we meet beyond this world. She can think of no joy in heaven, if there, as here, she is divided from the only soul through which she lives. " Never again write me a letter so full of wisdom as the first, but rather one in which there is nothing but a lock of your hair ; and be assured I will not cease to write till you tell me you have sent it, willingly, and your good wife also, for I deserve it, and would give half my hopes of happiness for it. " I have no greeting for you from my mother, highly as she esteems Jean Paul, as neither she nor any one knows to whom I write, nor anything of the whole history. For, as she asked me at that time ' wherefore I would tear myself from her,' I promised her never to leave her, if she would ask me no questions. She cannot know how resolute I am, nor yet again how unreserved, and that it is my dearest happiness that Jean Paul has taken me for his adopted child. Ah, my father, only love me and be happy." Richter sent the desired lock of hair, and wrote: " Dear Maria. The lock, that my wife has cut from my bald pate, is the best answer to your last letter. Be not anxious, I pray you, that I shall let your letters, written as they will, be misunderstood to your disadvantage. I understand your warm, idealizing heart, and its great LIKE OF JEAN PAUL. 371 power : how, then, shall the words of a moment make me err? What I complain of is, that the sun-heat of your mind ripens too soon, or rather scorches and dries up its sweet fruit. Your vow never to see me comes to nothing (now comes sermonizing, which you have forbidden) ; for, in the first place, one cannot vow for others ; and, secondly, we vow only to do what is good, and leave the bad ; and this vow we bring with us into the world in the form of conscience, and no newer oath can contradict it. Another thing ; to swear to avoid a certain city, or a certain man, without reason, is to seek to control Providence ; and, finally, your vow does not extend to me, and I shall see you whenever I can. No ; I paint to myself the hour when you will first see my Caroline and my children, and then me, and I shall also see all your friends. " Dear, good Maria, you are the only invisible corre- spondent to whom I write so unreservedly, and send my hair. Could I do it if I had not so much esteem for you, and so much confidence that you would do much more for me than I deserve or can ever repay? Would you only not err when from business or necessity I am silent to your letters ? Do not torment yourself, for your pain is doubled in me. Your father, " R." "P.S. I have much cause to wish that you should tell all to your mother and sister, and find in their confidential love no occasion for opposition." The result of this, perhaps, too kind and tender letter, was far otherwise than Richter expected. The words so gently admonitory, sank like poison-drops into Maria's heart. " He loves me," she cried, " he will seek me ! He suffers on my account." Again the hope, the desire to see him, grew to madness, and yet the veil of holy innocence lay upon her, and the fear that she had passed the limits of womanly delicacy and reserve distracted her. Richter observed, with deep anxiety, the conflicting tempest in her soul but he wrote no more ! Then light flashed into her mind ; she saw her error, and with heart- 372 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. breaking repentance she wrote to him, promising to be again only a child a loving child, and nothing more. Then he wrote to her thus : " I have received your last six letters regularly, but not always actually without the seals broken * Your last three letters were welcome to me, as they again beautifully spake of the only possible relation that can exist between us, that of a father and daughter. A relation in which your first letters en- chanted me, and which has hitherto remained unchanged on my part. In this relation alone I ventured to love you so deeply, to send you the lock of my hair, to give you my confidence, and to oppose your incomprehensible scruples to our meeting. The word father is for a father, no less than the word daughter, a sacred and holy word. Dearer than all other words ! " Why do you imagine me troubled ? I am happy with my children and my Caroline, and as truly beloved by them as they are by me. The sciences. are my heaven. Why, then, should I be unhappy, except at these disastrous times, when all the nations of Europe bleed ? " Your unreserve gives me no pain, at least, unless you feel it yourself; on the contrary, it gives me only joy. You idolize me too much instead of following my counsels. I shall, therefore, offer you no more advice, so well do I know the female heart, especially the souls of fire to which you belong. Send me, instead of letters that I have not time to answer, rather journals of your life, your family, your little experiences. " May it be well with you, dear daughter, and the gentle spirit of love, without that of fire, fill your breast f. " R" Richter wished her to understand that her letters were inspected in passing through the post-office. f Richter, in this advice, showed his knowledge of the human heart, especially of the female heart. He wished to engage her to expend that intensity of feeling under which she was suffering, in narrative, perhaps in imaginary scenes and sorrows, that are often in female authors only the too faithful transcript of real feelings. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 373 Maria's self-tormenting spirit now assumed another form. The image of the best and most beloved of men, as it dwelt in her heart, had been profaned, and to restore herself to him demanded an expiation. No sacrifice was too great, and she would have thrown off the burden of life had not her promise to her suffering mother restrained her. But the mother died, and Maria was free. Another care restrained her the solitary and beloved orphan sister. But at this time an old friend of the family returned, un- expectedly, after a long absence, and took the orphan sister under his protection. He was an honest, firm, and bene- volent man, and Maria could safely trust her sister's hap- piness to his keeping. Now she could go to the beloved, and fall at his feet, and ask again to be his daughter. No ! the meeting she desires must be for another world, where there can exist none but spiritual relations. The domestic affairs of her friend and sister were all arranged ; every minute care taken for their comfort ; all her duties scrupulously performed, and now that the aim of her wishes was reached, she wrote to Richter : " Do not be angry, dearest father, at receiving these lines from your unfortunate Maria. My mother has been two months dead, and she will consent that I shall now follow her. She wished me to take care of my sister that is done. Her happiness is secure, and I can no longer endure to live, where mine has so incomprehensibly failed. Ah ! in the great universe of God there will yet be a place where I can recover my peace, and be as I wish. I have suffered so much ! I dare to die ! Ah, you will despise me as long as I live, for you will never understand how I have languished to do something for you, or for those dear to you, and how much the thought has killed me, when I learned that I could not make you happy. But despise me not so much, as not to let your children, of whom I cannot think without tears, accept a little present from me. Let them not know from whom it came. I would willingly be 374 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. wholly forgotten, and, unmarked, vanish away. No one can learn my history from myself. I have burnt all books and journals. Your hair only remains on my neck, and I take it with me. Farewell, beloved father ! Ah, that it must be so with me ! Oh that it were all a dream, and that I had never written to you ! My unfortunate spirit will hover about you. Perhaps I shall be permitted to give you a sign, or to bring you some higher knowledge." Together with Maria's letter, Kichter received one from the friend already mentioned, giving an account of her death. " The letter of Maria, which you will receive with this, will leave no doubt of her sad fate. What to us is a dark riddle, will find perhaps with you, who knew the unfor- tunate better than we did, a clear solution. She had long desired that death should come to her accidentally but in vain. How often she inhaled, but without effect, the poisonous breath of pestilence. A thousand times she stretched herself upon the sick couch of the dying, and pressed her cheek upon that of death ; but the poisoned arrow touched her not, and no bloom faded from her lovely cheek. Then May came again, with its dark recollections from the past year ; but Maria was apparently happy, with a festive and wild gaiety alternating with earnest and cheerful calmness. On the fatal day she read and wrote, and prepared the evening meal for the friend and her sister. She covered the table, and fulfilled with graceful attention the duties of a kind hostess. She rose from table to write a letter, and at about eight o'clock asked her sister to sit down with their friend at the piano, and em- braced her at the same moment, with warmth and agitation. She threw herself on the breast of the friend, and said, while her voice was choked with tears, ' Take care of my sister.' Scarcely had she gone, when an inexpressible anxiety was felt by both. They looked around, and saw the letters Maria had left, and hastened to seek the un- fortunate ! LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 375 " They met a multitude of people bringing the body of a young girl, that a fisherman had drawn from the stream. It was Maria ! They bore the body into the nearest house, and means of resuscitation were used, till at length she opened her eyes." But Maria's purpose to die was too strong ; she resisted all the means of recovery ; and, although perfectly con- scious, and calm, and self-possessed, before morning she had ceased to breathe. Her death drew a dark cloud over Jean Paul ; but he rejoiced that he had not followed the counsels of those who had advised him to treat her with severity or ridicule. I do not envy the mind that can find anything to ridi- cule in the melancholy history of this poor victim of the imagination, or in the far less tragical result of Bettine's enthusiastic admiration of Goethe. Bettine lived in the same society with Goethe, and was happy in all the actual relations of life. Maria, on the contrary, brooded in soli- tude over an ideal image of the poet ; or rather, she found her own nature reflected in his pages, and, like Narcissus of old, she fell in love with her own ideal. With all his boasted knowledge of the female heart, we must still think that Jean Paul erred in his treatment of Maria. At this time she was seventeen, and he was fifty years old ; and, as his biographers assert, he had lost the traces of the poet, at least in his exterior appearance. Had he permitted Maria to go to him, no doubt her passion would have been cured. She would have found him ful- filling all the duties of a good citizen, a kind father, a faith- ful husband ; living a prosaic life, with his squirrels and birds ; her imagination, heated by solitude, and an intense spiritual egotism, would have fallen naturally into the calmness of the every-day domestic duties in which woman's destiny is cast. CHAPTER VI. RICHTEE'S LOVE OF TRAVELLING VISITS PRINCE DALBERG HEIDELBERG RECEIVES HIS DOCTOR'S DIPLOMA HENRY VOSS ANIMAL MAGNETISM. A.D. 1816, WE turn now to more cheerful incidents. We a*. 53. have a i rea (jy learnt from Richter's youthful his- tory how much value he attached to the pleasures and ad- vantages of journeying. During the war, and while his pension was withheld, the old desire slumbered, or was only indulged in short excursions to Erlangen and Niirn- berg. But now he was again easy in his pecuniary rela- tions, and his history will be best learnt from his letters to Caroline, on his various journeys, from 1816 to 1821. We cannot but wonder that the beloved wife was never his companion upon these excursions ; but then he would not have enjoyed what he called the chief pleasure of travel- ling the delight of returning to her. Caroline was a true woman, and a true wife : one of those self-sacrificing, devoted beings, who, regardless of her own pleasures, was careful for the comfort of others. Everything was prepared by her for Richter's convenience on these occasions, even to the packing of the carriage, where he continued his literary works on the road, reading and writing as if he were in his own study. Paul left exact directions for his family in his absence : a sort of testament for each. To the youngest daughter was committed the care of the weather-frog ; to her sister the canary birds and the spiders ; and for his wife, such written directions as the following: LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 377 " In case of fire, the dark-bound manuscripts must be first saved. Second The money; and paper coffer after- wards. Third Record every dollar that you take out, and the date, but further of the spending, not. Fourth Let both the doors of my study be shut, and do not let the squirrel go in. Let all the windows be closed also, on ac- count of the flies, and open them only on the day of my arrival. Fifth Lend no book without recording it. I pray thee heartily to eat regularly, and to drink a little beer, that you may be blooming. Do not be anxious about me. Do not remain always in the house, and take Spitz with you when you go out." He rewarded Caroline's minute cares by long and con- stant letters. He appears in all his journeys to have written to her every other day. We regret that her let- ters are not also given to us ; but from the few we have, modest and beautiful as they are, we see his genius re- flected in hers, as the light of a distant star is reflected in the dew of the violet. Richter's first journey is to visit the Prince Primate Dai- berg, to whom he had been indebted for the first two years of his pension. The grateful disposition of the poet is evinced in this, that, instead of visiting the enchanting scenes upon the Rhine he had so longed for, he should first go to the solitary Regensburg, before all things, to fulfil a duty of remembrance to the deserted and forgotten Dalberg. " Regensburg, August, 1816. " The Prince is a tall, old man, somewhat bent, with a strongly-marked profile, especially the nose ; the left eye is always, through weakness, closed. In conversation, as in everything else, he is more of a learned man than of a Prince. . . . The first day, from eleven to twelve, he asked only about my wife, and at dinner also, when he drank her health. By evening our acquaintance was more perfect than, since Herder's death, I have enjoyed with 378 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. any one. Never in so short a time has a Prince won my love. Since then, I have been with him every day from six o'clock until half-past seven. We sit in the twilight with a half-emptied flask between us, and talk about reli- gion, philosophy, and all the sciences. In faith and works he is a spiritualist, in the best sense of the word. He told me, unreservedly, of the mistakes of his youth; in short, of a hundred things, that can only be repeated ver- bally. His working day consists of ten hours ; two hours he gives to public transactions ; two he labours upon his work upon Christianity. After intellectual exertion, prayer, he said, strengthened and refreshed his mind more than anything beside. His religious axioms are, the highest veneration for God, and the deepest self-humiliation. Against my placing Christ beneath God, he said, in a gentle tone, merely No ! He desired my judgment of the great question of Pilate. It is not easily answered, but mine satisfied him. I spare the good old man of seventy- four all disputations. " He told me, if he ever received the twenty thousand florins, that without solicitation the Congress of Vienna had agreed to pay him, he should do something for my wife, after my course was finished*. " About eight o'clock last evening the Prince took me to visit the Count Westerhold, a friend of Lavater's, who, on account of his ten years of gout, admits no one earlier. Enter his apartment, you have been there for years ! Think of a table with a curious lamp, that I know not how to name, suspended above it. On the sofa his mild and sweet wife ; the Prince near her, and, opposite, the eldest daughter, who is mending pens for her two little sisters, who, at a distant table, are preparing their lessons for their teacher; the Count, also, was writing at the great work-table. I have never seen such home-like simplicity in the apartment of a noble. * The Prince died suddenly, without a will, and Caroline received nothing. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 379 " We were all happy, especially the Prince, and I was like an old out-serviced poodle, that had got comfortably upon his stool. There was tea, with rack, and afterwards archbishop *. " Evening suppers and tea, as with us, are usual here. Except the first time, I have been always in boots. You see to what boldness a quiet, self-formed man may come. I would the situation of the learned were more respectable here. I was never so moderate in conversation ; and in drinking, I am completely to be wondered at. " Yesterday, as I came from the heavenly garden at Pruflingen, I received your precious letter. It brought me a more beautiful Eden than the one I had just left. From strong emotion I was silent. Ah, could I have, instead of the pale image in my thoughts, your warm, living eyes before me ! I shall leave here Friday the sixth, and get home about seven on Saturday. The children can go half an hour before to see if I have come, so that I may have you alone at first. "Wherefore, good soul, do you excuse your necessary expenses ? I fear only that you spare the money too much. I shall employ the two days of my journey back in moral observations, for which I have written a special book (that I studied also at Bayreuth, little as you observed me) to strengthen my mind against the perversity, which I inherit from my father, of making everywhere false lights and shades. My Primas alone has a heart, full of pure love, and free from all selfishness. You would fall weeping upon his breast. Farewell, my beloved ! Act freely, and do not trouble thyself, nor thine. " R." The following year, 1817, Richter visited Heidelberg, and saw for the first time the enchanting shores of the Rhine. His account of his reception, of his Doctor's diploma, and of a fete that was made for him upon the * Mulled wine, with roasted oranges in it. 380 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Neckar, are so naive, and betray so innocent a vanity, that they should not be withheld from the reader. " Heidelberg, July, 1817. " On the very day, my beloved dear heart, that I have become Doctor of Philosophy * will I write to you. How shall I paint to you the love and esteem, even to excess, with which I am here received. The dog even, could he speak, would tell you he had never been so well fed, and from such beautiful hands. I have lived hours such as I never passed before, especially on the water excursions; listening to the vivats of the students, and the singing of old Italian music. But I thank the All Good as much as I can thank him, by mildness, quietness, modesty, love, and justice to every one. I am most intimate with Paulus, and his wife, who is not, after the Jena report, a pretending, literary coquette, but an enlightened, accomplished haus- frau, and their beautiful daughter, Sophia, who reads, in- deed, nothing but me and the Bible, and understands the most difficult parts, or suffers herself to be enlightened. " On Sunday there was a water party on the Neckar. It seemed to me like life in my romances, as the long vessel with an awning, ornamented with oak branches and riband streamers, and followed by a boat filled with musi- cians, parted for the mountains of Neckarsteinach. The greater part of the ladies and men sat at the long table in the centre of the vessel. Students, professors, beautiful girls, women, the Crown Prince of Sweden, a splendid Englishman, and a young Prince von Waldect, all united in the most innocent enjoyment. My cap and the hat of the Prince were demanded from the other end of the table by two beautiful girls, and returned wreathed with oak leaves, and we must both wear them thus. . . . " One cloud after another withdrew from the sky. Upon the old castle rocks waved flags and handkerchiefs, * Paul's naive delight at receiving his Doctor's diploma was expressed with the most childlike simplicity. He tells Caroline that Max must translate it, so that she could show it to the friends and neighbours. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 381 and the young people shouted vivats. In our vessel there was much singing, and boat after boat followed us with music. In the evening a youth with a guitar sang my favourite song, ' Name not the name.' I was so powerfully affected, that I was obliged to think of foolish and stupid things to restrain the excess of my emotion ; and thus, in a beautiful evening, the whole little world of joy returned, without the smallest interruption, accident, or misunder- standing, to their homes. " Thus blessed, and indeed encroaching on the gifts of the Infinite, I stood in the darkness of the night in a circle of students, singing vivats, and gave my hand to be seized by a hundred hands, while I looked gratefully to heaven. " August. " Dearest ! I write again upon my Heiligenberg ! How shall I paint to you the open heaven into which I looked as the Upper Rhine opened before me. It flows eternally before me. I have passed from admiration to admiration. I was received in all the cities in the same manner. In Manheim they gave, on my account, the opera of the Vestal, by Spantini, which usually melts and weakens, by its ex- quisite beauty. I would, hearing these tones, depart from life. What lovely female forms came before me ! I have not seen for ten years so many, and so youthful, and been kissed with such emotion ; but I felt, thereby, the holiness, and elevation, and deep-rooted nature of married love, and that this, in comparison, is only a rootless and scentless flower. The love of married life, in comparison to this, is like embracing one's own children rather than those of a stranger. I know decidedly, that my domestic heaven can and will be only the repetition of what it has been ; and that it shall exceed the past for thy happiness, thou true and good ! " Max must study at Heidelberg. Pure, protecting spirits, in the form of my friends, will surround him. You will always, dear Max, be to your mother as you were 382 the day after your communion, and not afar off trouble me. I so gladly think of you thus ; and it would be hard if, on my return, I could not embrace you with the same affection as the others. I think often of you, dearest Caroline, often with painful longing ; I will never repeat so long a journey without you. You would be so loved here, by Swartz, Hegel, and Paulus ! . . . . "Ah! well, dearest! I have here much, too much to do, although I steal time to work from the fairest hours. When I return I will accomplish more, go out less, live abstemiously, and say often to the body ' thou must!' It is incomprehensible the true oversight that one takes of himself, and the faults that one discovers in him- self, when he arrives in a new place, under new relations. It is so with me, and I shall return to thee a new and im- proved edition of myself. Farewell, beloved ! Greet my Emanuel, and his Emanuelle, and Otto, and the good Kinderlein; they will soon again be crowding on my sofa." In this Heidelberg journey, Richter formed the most intimate friendship with Henry Voss, a man much younger than himself, indeed young enough to have been the friend of his son. He wrote with great delight to his wife, " that in the true German Voss, he had, in his old age, found a new thou. 11 * Richter was now fifty-four years old, and Voss " stood beside him like his youth." It is a rare blessing to the old to go back, and as ft were to live over again their youthful years in another and younger mind. It is like a new blossoming of life, after the fruit has been gathered. In this journey Richter also made the discovery of his power of imparting animal magnetism, and he afterwards made use of it to alleviate pain in his suffering friends. While he was at Heidelberg, a lady brought her daughter, * The reader will recollect thou is only used in the familiar intercourse of intimate friendship. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 383 suffering from severe tooth-ache, to him, after he had re- tired for the night. He rose instantly, and came into the hall with bare feet, and with the utmost patience and ten- derness exerted the magnetic power, and sent the young lady home in a deep and quiet sleep. But while, on one side, the discovery of this power was a rich source of humorous excitement, and an occasion of benevolent exer- tion for others, the practical use of it at so late a period of life suddenly impaired his vigour, and helped, with other evils, to bring on an early and premature old age. The following year, 1818, Jean Paul left home again, to visit Frankfort, and renew his pleasure by again seeing Heidelberg and the Rhine ; but he seems to begin to feel the weariness of travelling alone. He wrote to Caro- line: " The fairest prospect to me this afternoon was your apartment, surrounded by our children. In the morning will your eyes and heart hover about me, and remind me of a day * that has now become holier and dearer than in its first birth. Be only joyful and hoping^as I am, and we shall need nothing more. Children ! would you create a joy for your father while he is away, make your mother happy by your goodness and love, and you will be truly dear to your father." The next day. " Perhaps I have consecrated our yes- terday's festival by a health-giving action. I passed through Wiirzburg, on account of the misdirection of my pension by the finance director. But I said not a word of the mistake, for he had a consumptive daughter of sixteen years, that the family physician had given over. I pro- posed to this man (as he had no faith in it) magnetism, merely as a last possible saving means. With his consent I magnetised the daughter in bed, and put her into a pro- found and gentle sleep. Another physician, an excellent young man, who has learnt in Berlin, will continue the * The twenty-seventh of May, their wedding-day. 384 IJFE OF JEAN PAUL. magnetism. T have, at least, saved the good mother from premature tears, for without magnetism the daughter must certainly die. Her face is already like white marble sculp- tured on a monument. It was my only consolation yester- day, when I had nothing to press to my heart but my own empty arms, that you would make for yourself a real joy, in thinking of this day, of our short separation and eternal reunion. Farewell, most beloved; my heart kisses the children! Had I, of the six or eight eyes, one only here ! " " Frankfort, May 80. " To Caroline. Yesterday, in the midst of the coldest weather, I reached this great, splendid city. On the way I have gained on the right ear a wholly gray lock, and on the left, one nearly, so. I must thank either the cold or the cap for this natural powder I am in the house of the rich bookseller, Wenner. Paying is not to be thought of. I could not, without great trouble, insist upon paying for wine and beer. His somewhat sickly, but noble and diffident (childless) wife, a singer and sketcher, and my warmest reader, has provided for the most minute conveniences. I have three splendid chambers and a pri- vate staircase. Near the writing-table a bell for the servants, wax lights and silver candlesticks, and, if I desire it, the most complete solitude. The lady wept for joy when I came here. Wenner has much goodness in his coun- tenance, in which there is a strong resemblance to Goethe, and he always acts without many words. " There are as many ugly female faces here as there were beautiful in Mainz truly, broadly, ugly. Till now, I have only met and spoken with matrons, except two single ladies, which the humorist, Goethe's early passion, invited me to meet this evening at Brentano's. I can scarcely enjoy this heavenly weather, because there is no garden out of the city where I can go. . . . " How often I thought yesterday, on the water, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 385 under the splendid canopy of night, of you, and said ' Ah, could my Caroline enjoy her birth-day festival with me ; ' and this morning I awoke melancholy at the thought that you are always alone, or with the children, on your birth-day. But I need no festival of life to remind me of your love. The careful preparation and packing of every article, the new wristbands on the shirts, every morning remind me of the pious hand that so lovingly orders every- thing for my comfort." The Frankfort enthusiasm for Richter was a repetition of the Heidelberg. They also gave him a night festival, in boats on the Maine, which was nearly a repetition of that on the Neckar, except that the boats were illuminated with coloured lamps, and the shore with torches. He extended his journey to Heidelberg, and seems, almost for the first time in his life, to have made the melancholy discovery, that the same joys, although the elements are the same, are never felt a second time with the same intensity. He wrote to Caroline " I depart from Heidelberg in a wholly different disposition from the last time, although there was nothing then that ought to have been unpleasant or painful to you. Indeed, I look with too prosaic eyes upon everything. The poetic flower of love of the last year, is (alas ! for it was so innocent) entirely faded, as in its nature it could know neither continuance nor resuscita- tion. What I truly dream of is our evenings together. How long shall they last ? First Max withdraws, then the little girls, and we sit alone together; at last you are wholly alone. Ah! let us love as long as there is yet time to love ! Eternally your own " R," . . . . " As I passed through Offenbach, a beautiful mother of six children came out to meet me, and pressed into my hand a leaf of thanks for the Levana. Never female eyes, except yours, looked so amiably at me. What B 386 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. open, beautiful faces there are in this Offenbach. The love of my fellow-men is the only dew for my arid soul." To understand the first part of the letter just read, it is necessary to refer to a circumstance mentioned by one of Richter's biographers. In his first journey to Heidelberg, the daughter of Paulus, the beautiful and spirituelle Sophia Paulus, is said to have made an impression on the heart of Richter that renewed all his romantic dreams of a spiritual love. This lady was afterwards celebrated for her literary productions, and by a short and unhappy marriage with William Augustus Schlegel. Notwithstanding Jean Paul's deep, and hardly gained knowledge of the female heart, he is said to have spoken, after his return home, with such openness and frequency of Sophia as to awake a painful jealousy and humiliating distrust in the heart of his devoted wife. The reader may judge by a letter he wrote to the beau- tiful Sophia, after his return, how far the jealousy of Caroline had any real foundation. " My Sophia. My first written word is to you. In the evening, in Manheim, I could not leave the apartment where there had been so much love, and in the morning I could not remain there *, but went for the whole day to Steinburg. This Steinburg held out to me a pure heaven, and, if you will share it, a perfect one. He and others would get up for me the opera of the Vestal, which is the Madonna, the others are only nuns among operas. . You and the Rhine belong together, and when I meet it again, your image, like that of a star, will hover over it, and cast a splendour upon it, wherever it flows. How often I took the front seat in the carriage yesterday, to look at the Heidelberg mountains, that arose shining in the distance, as the clouds hung over the place where I was And so farewell, never-to-be-forgotten * Sophia and ber father accompanied him to Manheim, on his return. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 387 Sophia. Write me, above all things, every pain that you feel, for I know your joys. Nothing can divide us, not even the great happiness that I so devoutly wish thee * ! " R" * Her marriage with Augustus Schlegel, which lasted only a few weeks, when she returned to her parents in Heidelberg. The mother of Sophia was one of the most distinguished literary women in Germany, and she was herself remarkable for her study of Shakspeare, and knowledge of English literature. CHAPTER VII. VISITS MUNICH RICHTEB HIS SON MAX HIS MELANCHOLY, AND DEATH. A.D.1820, RICHTER'S journey in the spring of 1820 was to st. 57. v i s i t n j g gon M^ wuo h a( j been placed, at the age of sixteen, at the Gymnasium at Munich. An extract from one of his letters will afford an insight into the character of this interesting young man, whose early death threw a cloud over his family, that never wholly passed away. " Dear Caroline. Upon the way from Regenshurg to Landshut, God sent me, in the forenoon, three cloudless, heavenly blue, sunny hours, and I had, for the first and last time in that journey, an idyllic frame of mind, for which I have languished long years, and that endures no society except that of the coachman, who sings in the distance as mine does. In the afternoon, where the distant prospect over Landshut opens richly, the devil himself I believe seized the opportunity, and poured so out of the clouds, that he drowned the beautiful Isar, and the bridge and the mountain-crown over Landshut. " This rainy introduction into Munich continued as far as the Black Eagle. I sought Max in vain in his nest up five flights of stairs, and then went to the Schlichtgeroll's. I found them as spirituelle as in former times, but they convinced me of a truth I have long suspected, that years take from women more of the outward, than from man of the inward. " They conjectured that Max was with their son ; and in two minutes he hung sobbing upon my breast. His form and LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 389 face have filled out splendidly. He is half a head taller than I am ; blooming, and fuller in the face. He was more neatly and elegantly dressed than I am, and yet wears only the clothes he brought from home. His personal appearance corresponds with, yes, exceeds his letters, and my whole heart yearns towards the pure, free, powerful, but unpretending youth. As he went with me from Schlichtgeroll's, he asked, ' how then is my mother ?' but his voice failed him for weeping. This is pure, honest sincerity, without extravagance. He will take nothing of all I brought for him, not even the watch, as he says, ' he needs nothing.' ' V . "He deprived me of one night's sleep, by telling me of his sorrowful life in the beginning of winter, in his first destitute lodgings, with only a little iron stove that imparted no heat, his windows broken, and his wood stolen, with nothing to enjoy at morning and evening, as at home ; his clothes, from his extreme thinness, all too wide for him ; and in the solitary city without one friend, he wept all night from home sickness, and yet continued to study till twelve o'clock." This letter will prepare the reader to understand the character of this son of the poet, whose melancholy fate opened a wound in the father's heart that never closed, but continued to bleed till it exhausted his own life. From early childhood Max had devoted himself to learning with inci'edible industry. In his fifteenth year he had read the Old and New Testaments in the original languages, Homer, and the Greek tragedians. His too ascetical and mistaken sense of duty in Munich, and in Heidelberg, where he was afterwards sent; the intensity of his industry, the faithfulness with which he imitated his father's frugality, the few alleviations and comforts he would allow himself, and the high tone of his religious enthusiasm, soon and imperceptibly undermined the healthy tone of his body and mind. Although distinguished for the facility with which he 390 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. learnt all languages, he was deficient in imagination and in creative power, and the poor young man was dis- couraged in not finding the rich results he had expected from his faithful industry ; and, in his painful doubts of himself, he attributed his failure to a want of sincerity of purpose, and took refuge in the mysticism of a severe, innocence-condemning, supernatural theology. Unhappily, Heidelberg was at this time the hot-bed of those unintelligible teachers, to whom the poor youth turned for support in the sea of his doubts ; and, when he could not comprehend their mystical and philosophical phrases, he attributed it to his own intellectual incapacity, and, instead of turning to his father to find the cheerful and rational exercise of true devotion, he sank deeper in despondency. The early martyrdom of this interesting youth was partly the tragic result of Jean Paul's system of education. The whole tendency of his teaching is to cultivate the higher powers of the intellect, to excite the imagination, to make poets and literary men ; and those to whom nature had not imparted the higher intellectual gifts were dis- couraged in his presence. His personal influence also, upon every one who came into intimate association with him, was overpowering ; they believed the true aim of life was to become like him, a poet, or a literary man. Even women were not exempt from this influence, and his eldest daughter believed it her duty to remain unmarried, and to devote herself to the pursuits of her father, as his companion and friend. Happily, the instincts of woman's nature will, sooner or later, lead out of the labyrinths of theory, and after her father's death she became a happy wife, contented with the feminine duties of a good hausfrau. Bichter had seen from the beginning the errors to which his son inclined ; and, though he had warned him seriously and earnestly, he thought them perhaps only a stage in the intellectual progress of the youth, that he would soon pass over. But, alas ! the poisoned arrow had entered too LIFE OF JEAN PAUI,. 391 deeply, and his father's letters, instead of healing, but intimated prophetically the issue. He wrote to him : " My good Max. Your letters have rejoiced and touched our hearts. But the Kanne theological watering-pot, that has showered you so effectually, makes me anxious for your youth; an irrecoverable period of life, that should be cheerful and joyous without monkish vagaries, and but a preparation for a serious, useful manhood. This Kanne, always and eternally one-sided, is exactly as enthusiastic in his theology, and in the pitiful life of his saints, as he was in his ancient wars, where he held all the historical persons of the Old Testament merely as astronomical emblems. " Study the history of the establishment of Christianity; the letters of the apostles and evangelists, that were first collected at the end of the second century, that were known through Irenaeus, and particularized in the begin- ning of the third century by Origen. In all the conversa- tions of Christ there is not a single word of the doctrine of all souls falling at the same time with Adam, or of satisfaction for sin. May God, my dear son, direct you to the cheerful Christianity of a Herder, and Jacobi, and Kant. Read rather, as I did in Leipsic, Arrian's Epictetus, the loving Antoninus' observations, and Plutarch's biogra- phies, than Kanne, who is as worthless as an exeget as he is an historian. There is no other Revelation than the ever-continuing. Our whole orthodoxy, like Catholicism itself, first centered in the evangelists, and every century opens and produces new views. Oh, could I complete my work on ultra Christianity ! With this new monkism you will destroy in yourself all joy, power, and ardour, and in the end gain nothing. " I am somewhat calmed, with regard to your ultra Christian despondency, by the hope that it has a physical source in your exclusively sedentary and studious life. It is indeed a poor consolation. The vigour of youth may enable you for some years to surpass others in knowledge, 392 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. but then, alas ! my son ! you come before me, in imagina- tion, in the years of full ripeness, twenty-five or thirty, pale, emaciated ! apparently more dead than alive ! God spare me that sight !" The father was, indeed, spared that sight ! The incli- nation of his son to mysticism took a more decided form, and, leaving philology as a human science, he devoted himself entirely to theology, as to the free gift of God. Religious enthusiasm assumed with this poor young man not only the form of distrust in, and contempt for, all his intellectual gifts, but it was united with a severe asceticism of life, that he concealed for a long time from his parents. To his strenuous self-consuming industry he added the most limited parsimony in food and expenses of every kind, and threw over this life-consuming self-denial the tender veil of duty, thinking thus to spare his parents every sacrifice on his account. His mother, also, upon whom he hung with childlike love, and who stood by him as a consoling and protecting spirit, wrote to him thus : . . . " Your letter, under all the views we can take of it, must yet make us melancholy ; and I hasten, before everything else, to inform you of it, and draw you, dear Max, from your tormenting errors. Your father loves you inexpressibly, and esteems you so entirely, that he can ask nothing from Providence but such a son as you are. I, and your sisters, and all our friends, bless God that you are so pure, so innocent, the joy of your family, and of the world ; that you have preserved the honesty and truth of your mind in striving after science, and that there is ever developed in you the love of the holy, the true, and the beautiful. What would you then further ? Can men be gods ? Nothing is to be said against your placing your ideal so very high. But if your jealousy of yourself, on one side, holds you in that touching humility that so well becomes the greatest men, yet real religion is only apparent, when, added to our earnest struggle for the highest, cheer- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 393 fulness stands as a companion by her side. To strive against the limitations of humanity, that are opposed more or less to every individual mind, is not pious is not per- mitted by God. Oh, suffer your beautiful enthusiasm for faith to show itself in this childlike submission. Strive, but torture not yourself with just nor unjust criminations, when neither the one nor the other belong to you. Depend upon the aid that is lent you, and the success flowing therefrom will give you rest and peace. " ' The lioness covets not the lion's mane ; The mother pheasant sighs not for ornament ; With proud neck the swan sails the sea, Humbly his mate shelters her young. The rivulet murmurs most sweetly, But bears no proud navy on its breast. The ruby outlasts the fragrant rose, But the dewy tears of evening Shed no mild radiance from it Vain man ! What would'st thou be 1 Be thyself ! Covet no greater gift." " This extract from Plato's poems, that pleased me so much on the first reading, happily expresses my views. Oh, how painful to me is your melancholy, and the slavish, unjust self-accusation before God, that impairs all your active powers ; that excess of religious sensibility, that, instead of the cheerful and loving power of Christian faith, pours only death-streams into all the veins of life. " Adieu, my dear son. I embrace you a thousand times, with the warmest love." This wise and tenderly maternal letter will make the reader regret that there are not more of Caroline's to her son, where the riches of an intellectual nature are united with the tenderness of a mother's heart. The anxious solicitude of the parents of Max was only too soon justified. The too sensitive and conscientious youth returned home at the end of the year, shaken, pale, s 3 394 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. emaciated ! and a nervous fever, of a few days' continuance, consigned him to an early grave. This melancholy death of his son, at the age of nineteen, like a heavy blow, seemed to strike our Richter to the earth. The firm, strong man, whom we have seen, like a block of marble, by every previous stroke becoming only more po- lished and statue-like, was shattered and broken by the death of his son. He could not bear the sight of any book his son had touched ; and the word Philology (the science in which Max excelled) went through his heart like a bolt of ice. He had such wonderful power over himself as to go on with his comic romance of Nicholas Margraff, while his eyes continually dropped tears. He wept so much in secret that his eyes became impaired, and he trembled for the total loss of sight. Wine, that had previously, after long- sustained labour, been a cordial to him, he could not bear to touch ; and, after employing the morning in writing, he spent the whole afternoon lying on the sofa in his wife's apartment, his head supported by her arm. Caroline stifled the yearnings of a mother, bereaved of her only son, to comfort and support her husband. She contrived every artifice to draw him from his grief proposing amusements for her daughters, to induce him to dress and shake off his despondency, and go out ; but at the same time she repre- sented him " as a true angel" in his sorrow. At the end of three months Richter was able to write to his friend, Henry Voss : " How often, for a quarter of a year, have you com- plained of me, excused me, and again complained, and yet at last excused me, poor devil that I am. Ah ! I could not do otherwise. My being has suffered not merely a wound, but a complete cutting-off of all joy. All former losses are unlike the last, and my longing after him grows always more painful. Not on his account do I need consolation, but for the loss of his love. I have still the power to avoid constantly dwelling upon him, although every Grecian author, yes, even the word Philology, cuts me to the heart. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 395 But to hear or see anything that was his ! Ah, that I cannot bear ! Enough of this. " I am revising the third volume of the Comet. The book upon immortality demands the strength that I can only dare to think of in the fulness of health. In looking over the thirty years' work, I find that it descends into the depths of philosophy *. " I will open new light for a thousand veiled and tearful eyes, and show them new kingdoms in the future world of existence ! What new year shall I wish to you all ? One only, that has not the most distant resemblance to my own!" t * The Kampaner Thai. Jean Paul began, on the day of his son's burial, a new work on the Immortality of the Soul, upon the foundation of the Kampaner Thai. f In Richter's letters to his wife, I have translated only what was personal to himself and family ; allusions to persons and passing events are wholly unintelligible to us. CHAPTER VIII. BICHTEB VISITS DBESDEN THE IMPRESSION HE MADE UPON HIS RELATIVES. A.D. 1822. WHEN the spring returned, that season that set. 59. Richter so loved, and that had never failed to exhilarate him, his friends urged him again to journey, hoping to awaken new hopes, or to turn his thoughts from his heart-consuming sorrow. The loss of his son, also, made him wish to draw closer the bonds of relationship with the members of his wife's family. Caroline's sister, Minna Spazier, had lived many years in Dresden, and sup- ported her orphan children by her literary exertions *. One of these sons was born in the same year and month with the poet's son Max. Such a coincidence could not fail to interest the imagination of a man who attached so much importance to coincidences, and to the time of his own birth. He wrote, therefore, to his sister-in-law : " I come to you with a written petition, for which I will thank you verbally. In April I would enjoy again the beautiful city of Dresden, where many years ago, in the train of the Frau von Berlespsh, I lost more than I found. Ah ! I need now not to forget, for that would be impos- sible, but to continue to remember all that I have ever * Caroline Wilhelmine, called Minna Spazier, married, the second time, a person of the name of Uthe, and added his name to that of Spazier, her literary name. She was now living in Dresden, editor of the Immergrun (Evergreen), a periodical in which Jean Paul, and many distinguished female authors, assisted her. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 397 loved. I seek in Dresden only music, nature, that is, the environs of the city, and loving men. In myself, much has changed. Time treats wounded men like a block of marble, and beats off, with heavy blows, piece after piece, even if it were the form of a son. Ah ! that we were indeed of marble ! " To the young Richard Spazier, the twin cousin of Max, to whom we have been much indebted through the course of this biography, we owe an account of the first meeting with Richter : " The children had been educated in the utmost re- verence for their uncle, the poet ; and, although they had heard of his works, they had never read a line of his. Their mother received the announcement of his visit with some timidity, and prepared her children for his reception with stories of his severity, of his penetrating knowledge of every weakness in others, and infinite firmness in their suppression in himself." He says, " even my eldest pat- tern brother trembled at the thought of appearing before Richter. My situation was most painful ; born on the same year and day with his own sou Max, my mother, in her maternal solicitude, looked upon it as the finger of Providence, indicating that I should supply to the afflicted father the loss of his son, and pointed out this as the deci- sive moment of my life. Ah, what could be expected of a youth of nineteen years, who had never read a line of his works, who had been half a year at the university, and was just in the most shining period of Philistery*. What would the severe moralist say to my beard, my renownist * dress, my pipe, my open breast, my unshorn locks ! I heard his voice in the hall, and would have fled, but it was too late ; and pale as a cloth, and with trembling lips, I stood before him. But it was only for a moment, and fear gave place to astonishment. I saw a strong, but under- * For the meaning of these worda the reader is referred to Howitt'a ' Student-Life in Germany." 398 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. sized, apparently kind-hearted man, with brown face, and eye that did not annihilate, but beamed mildly, even ten- derly, upon me. He was dressed in a summer coat of in- visible green, with a straw hat. He held a strong stick in his hand, and was followed by a white poodle. I felt in a moment that here was a man who would leave to every one his own independence, who would not make himself the standard of morals or manners, and that the want of a neckcloth would be no crime in his eyes. And so it re- mained the whole time he was with us he demanded nothing he asked not that we should give him our time, or yield our opinions to his. He received gratefully the attentions we offered him, but left every one the liberty to speak freely the freest opinions. Instead of feeling re- serve or constraint in his presence, he seemed to enlarge the region of self-dependence, to excite and draw out the resources of our minds. My student's nature, that others abhorred, he would draw towards him and protect yes, he was often the direct advocate of youthful impulses. " After he had been with us some time, from gratitude, and perhaps to give him pleasure, I read the most cele- brated of his works, the Titan : the book left me for the most part cold, with the exception of the charming scenes in Italy, and the character of Linda ; but my indignation was extreme at the catastrophe of Linda. Richter received, without the smallest surprise, my declaration, that I had never before read anything of his, and observed just as calmly, that I was extremely displeased at the fate of Linda. He even led himself, to my excuse, by saying that Jacobi, and the best judges, had expressed the same displeasure ; but for the purpose he had in view it could not have been otherwise ; and no encouragement to read another of his works passed his lips. At last, it happened one morning, that he asked after my studies, and my aim in life. I answered only, ' that I would learn all that was best and most beautiful, but that I had not yet made choice of a profession.' He sought to help me to know LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 399 myself, by asking ' if I had not a favourite author ?' I had not, at that time, but I told him ' that as a boy I had learnt Homer by heart, and that I now longed to read Tacitus.' ' I see,' said he, ' that, like every youth, you would be an author,' and he asked me to show him any essay that I had ever attempted to write," etc. In the five weeks that Richter spent in Dresden, every- thing united, as by mutual consent, to restore his wounded spirit to its former cheerfulness. The fairest blue heaven rested the whole time upon the valley of the Elbe. Dis- tinguished strangers, such as Tieck, Tiedge, Bottiger, and Carl Forster were then in Dresden. The inhabitants, indeed, manifested for him nothing but curiosity, and the Court did not notice him. Distinguished and accomplished women, as usual, crowded around him ; but, to avoid all exciting emotions, he strictly adhered to the rule he had laid down for himself, not to visit more than once at any house. His sister-in-law's family afforded him a domestic circle, where he could enjoy the privacy and the intimate friendship he loved. The highly nervous state of his mind made it necessary for him to avoid all excitement, and all deep impressions. He therefore did not set his foot within the Dresden gallery, or any other hall of art. He avoided the theatres, and only once heard a mass in a Catholic church, surrounded by friends who shielded him from all exciting emotions. A lady at this time speaks thus of his reserve and self- control in society, when he did not always take the hand that was held out to him, and suffered ladies to stand long moments, unnoticed behind his chair. " These little appa- rent incivilities should not bring into question the just, enlightened, ever-compassionate disposition, that has made the soul of this extraordinary man its temple. How beauti- fully does he extend to every one, even the least intellectual in society, a spiritual arm ! He comes to the aid of the poorest with the riches of the mind. How his host and hostess revere him ! A wild animal, since he has been 400 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. under their roof, has become mild and humane ; a miser would build a house, merely to make him a convenient chamber. No, never shall I forget the night when my daughter, suffering from a severe toothache, burst into his lodgings at midnight, and waked him suddenly from his first sleep. How indulgently he came, barefooted, down the garden steps, for the fainting child had thrown her- self into a garden seat,, and began to stroke her magneti- cally. Soon her pain was alleviated, and after half an hour she was carried in a deep sleep to her own house." How did Richter himself enjoy what gave others so much pleasure? He wrote to Caroline: "After a long time a blue sky is united with blue mountains God wills, that I should again, and without display, be a little joyful. Among the women who here particularly interest me is the wife of Professor Forster, who sends me frequently, by her little daughter, fruit and flowers. I enjoy here many pleasures through the society of enlight- ened men, and the arts, but I long inexpressibly for our life again, at home together." To his young friend, Henry Voss, he also wrote : " The pleasure-gardens of Dresden exceed all Germany in beauty of prospect. The Bruhlesh terrace, in the evening, with its lights, mountains, the bridge and the Elbe, gave me an hour of inward inspiration, that I have for many years sought in vain ; when all hovered over me as in the spring of youth, and within and without all were blessed dreams. It was not melancholy, not even longing, but full intoxi- cation of happiness from within. The Dresden weeks were the last of light and joy Richter ever passed. The death of his friend Henry Voss, immedi- ately after, bereaved him of one who hung upon him even with feminine tenderness ; and it was during the Dresden residence that he accidentally discovered that the sight of his left eye was so much gone, that he could only see about one inch from it, and that the right eye also was rapidly falling. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 401 He wrote most touchingly to the mother of Henry : " He and my Max lie buried in my soul in one grave, for I know how both could love me ! Whatever other powers your Henry possessed, one glowed within him with resistless fervour the disciple John's capacity of loving. It was strong, firm, trusting, sacrificing, but not the acci- dental impulse of an imbecile. His heart beat as strongly against one as for another. Oh, Henry ! for ever lost ! Never more upon this earth shall I be so loved ; but even this guarantees to thee and to us the assurance of meeting again. The sciences need for their enjoyment no immor- tality; but love demands the continuance of its objects! May your husband and son bind up your maternal heart, till the wound closes, or until all depart together to join the lost one." It may seem to the reader that there has been, in the last year of Jean Paul's life, an unmanly despondency, in- consistent with that Christian stoicism with which he bore all his early disappointments. But to one whose whole employment and life had consisted in literary pur- suits, who had still many works planned, for which he had made voluminous preparation, the prospect of closing his writing-desk, and leaving his work unfinished, must have been full of melancholy. He had planned, also, before the death of his friend Voss, a complete revision of all his printed works, in a new and improved edition, for which Voss was to become the editor. He had also begun the Autobiography, which makes the first part of this work ; and his reluctance to speak of himself at first, and the cloud which his son's death threw over the present, pre- vented him from continuing that picture of his youth that lay behind him in magic sunlight. But, above all, there lay warm on his heart his beloved work on the Immor- tality of the Soul ; that work, by the beginning of which he had consecrated the burial-day of his Max, and from whose sepulchre he hoped it would rise phoenix-like, and point the way to that immortal home, which was indeed 402 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the home of his spirit, and that where he now centred his dearest hopes. And after all these works were com- pleted, and all his life's duties finished, he had held, hright in prospect before him, a journey to Switzerland and Italy, countries that he had thirsted to visit, and that he had looked to as the reward of a life of industry and zeal ; but now a dark cloud had descended, and blotted out all but the inward consciousness of duty fulfilled. Richter's nephew mentions the pain with which Jean Paul recurred, in his last days, to the loss he had suffered in never having been able to look upon the sea ; and his severe disappointment, that in his latter days he could not have ascended the Rigi, where he fancied he should see nature in her greatest elevation and her most lovely beauty. CHAPTER IX. THE PURELY COMIC WORKS OF JEAN PAUL THE LIFE OF FIBEL NICHOLAS MARGBAF, OR THE COMET. I HAVE omitted, for the purpose of bringing the active part of the Life of Jean Paul to a close, all mention of his later and purely comic works. After the publication of the Flegeljahre, the troubles of the wars of Napoleon came on, when his deep interest in the fate of his country, and the necessity of providing for the daily demands of his family by short narratives, essays, and reviews, that brought an immediate pecuniary return, prevented him from com- pleting any great and long-sustained work. The Life of Fibel, which, he says in the preface, was begun in 1806, was given to the public in 1812. In this preface, Paul calls the work "an octavo volume, in which some few harmless, guiltless, lightless, splendourless beings, with the like fate, live their little life. The whole is a quieting, still life, a cradle for the Far niente of growing readers ; a soft, gray, evening rain, that, instead of drawing perfume from flowers, draws it from the lowly, invisible earth ; where at most only a finger-breadth of evening glow shines out." Spazier says that Fibel was as much a turning-point in the author's works as was the Invisible Lodge; and both are explained and understood only through his Life and his succeeding works. The first was written at the period when emotion and earnest feeling burst forth from the ice- rind, in which the winter-cold of satire had imprisoned them. In the following season of blooming and ever- 404 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. increasing love, he had risen in creative power, and in richness of fancy, as his experience of life became more varied and full, till he reached nearly his own ideal of the Titan. Here, in ripened power and self-consciousness, he followed with the Flegeljahre, in which he analyzed and exhibited his inseparable double nature, his deep and earnest emotion, united with eccentric and comic humour. In the ^Esthetics, he sought to justify and reconcile his poetical peculiarities, and the nature of his works, with the universal laws of art and beauty. But now in these last works he returned to the point from which he started, but with altered views, the result of his life and experience. The calm satisfaction and contentment, the harmonious quiet, the spirit of repose and order that breathed in his life, is imparted to all the works that were written after the Titan. There is moderation in his earnestness and emotion, as well as a genial tenderness in his humour, that divides these last from his earlier works, and proves that his poetry was only the reflection of his life, and deeply rooted in it. The theme of all Jean Paul's works is the same, what- ever the form in which it is expressed or evolved. This theme, the experience in human life, from the Godlike in man, in contention with the littleness of life ; the spark of the immortal, struggling with earthly damps and obstruc- tions. This, in Paul's convictions, is not the distinction of the few, who, in lively consciousness of the contest, think themselves unfortunate beings, but is more or less the inheritance of every human being. In his latter works it is no longer a subject for pain, for the illusions of life soften its strivings, and in themselves make man happy. He is healed by the same spear that wounds him. The strivings of the ideal in man, the disproportion between his aspirations and his attainments, that in his earlier satires were the occasion of bitter jests, become in his later works the subject of a genial and sympathizing humour. The illusions that nourish these aspirations become the LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 405 source of the highest and purest joys in elevated characters, and often produce in others, as in Don Quixote, a humour in which the noblest minds can sympathize. Fibel has his ittwions, that recreate his whole life ; but the ludicrous contrasts in it are purely objective, and are revealed to the reader alone. The author jokes here, as in his satires, but with wholly different feelings, with sorrow-enlightened wisdom, rather than cutting contempt. He contrives to maintain in the breast of the reader the secret conscious- ness, that he is an exception to the general folly, that would live upon illusions ; a feeling that gives to every satirical work its principal value. It produces, therefore, a strange mixture of feeling, the consciousness of universal insufficiency, and of individual success. This is partly the effect of the limited nature of his hero, and partly the result of the period in which it was written, and the circumstances of the author's life. The outward relations of Jean Paul had become so harmonious and happy, that his mind was kept in perfect equilibrium. He had reached, as far as is ever allowed humanity to attain, to the ideal of his former aspirations ; his pension of four hundred dollars raised him above all pecuniary anxiety ; his children, blooming in health of body and mind, hung upon him with infinite love; he enjoyed the fruit of his early industry in his materials for further works, and the food of his mind, in the environ- ment of his beloved nature ; his works appeared to him the best that he could create, and their failures and imperfec- tions not as peculiar to them, but as belonging to the universal imperfection of humanity. The Germans deem the author more successful in his later than in his earlier works. His humorous works are more completely artistical and perfect, as works of art, than his serious. Although he thought otherwise, humour is more completely his native element. He could not repre- sent a perfect, unfortunate, elevated character ; but he was completely successful in his happy fools and simpletons. 406 MFE OF JEAN PAUL. Fibel is nothing less than the Don Quixote of literature; not merely in the construction of his ABC book, with its bad pictures, and worse verses; but he believes he is a world-blessing genius, and that he has given to posterity the most precious works, when he has collected and put his name to all the old contemptible rubbish swept from the waste heaps of a bookseller's shelves. Richter, who always united persiflage upon himself with universal satire, represents the heterogeneous contents of the books printed with the name of Fibel, as not unlike his own productions, prepared from his world-wide extract books, and identifies the enviable happiness of a being gifted with the illusion of Fibel, with himself, as the relator of it, and endeavours to remove the joke from his hero to himself. The reader finds himself in Fibel's childhood, upon the same ground and under the same circumstances as in the poet's earlier Idyls in the school-houses of Joditz and Schwarzenbach, with the well-known consumptive figure of the finch-hunting schoolmaster and believes at first, that as Wuz and Fixlein had both busied themselves with literary amusements, this is only a repetition of their characters. But Fibel differs from them in this, that it establishes the possibility of the happiest and most joyful existence, in the abdication of all wishes and employments, except those connected with the illusion. The hero seeks no honey except that made from the modest flowers of his own little garden. This stands, therefore, in intimate connexion and contrast with the theme of the serious romances the misery which the unsatisfied demands of an over-excited imagination occasion in the breast of man, being the theme of some of the former. Between the publication of Fibel and the Comet, Paul had the happiness to prepare many of his old works for new editions. We are reminded in this, as well as in his love of animals, and in many other peculiarities, of his resemblance to Sir Walter Scott. It was a work of love. His new editions were all furnished with new prefaces, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 40 T from which, as in Scott's, many humorous incidents and little biographical particulars may be gathered. In the Comet, the other humorous romance of Eichter, the same idea (happiness, from the illusions of life, ren- dered comic by the disproportion between the means and the end) lies, as with Fibel, at the foundation of the work. But the conditions of happiness, through the preponderance of imagination in the hero of the Comet, are two ; first, the power of this fancy turns within upon the possessor, and plays only before him; and, secondly, his intellectual power is so limited that he is not conscious of the errors and falsehoods that his fancy impose upon him. This seems to differ little from the fixed idea of any madman, and Jean Paul might have found a hero for his romance in almost any lunatic asylum. This is the opposite of that exalted fanaticism of Emanuel, Liana, Linda and Gus- tavus, who would bring into actual life the ideal of a higher existence, which is now in contradiction with this actual life, but hereafter may be the soundest wisdom. To such exaltation all poetical natures are more or less inclined. Every species of unrestrained imagination leads to innocent madness ; if from outward circumstances it has not play-room, it concentrates itself upon a fixed idea, that has no connexion with the circumstances of actual life. The difference between Don Quixote and the hero of the Comet is as wide as the circumstances of the times, and of their respective nations. Cervantes placed the eccen- tricity of the fixed idea of his hero close upon the limits of probability, while he unites with the errors of imagina tion in Don Quixote a refined understanding and extensive cultivation ; and the satire turns upon the mania of the people of an age just passed. In our times, the fixed idea, carried to such absurd extent, would soon make its pos sessor the inmate of an asylum. Jean Paul takes, for the hero of the Comet, a man whose phantasy has led him, from his earliest youth, to 408 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. cherish the imagination that he is the son of a prince, and that he must so accomplish himself as to act the prince through life, and thus he will find the father upon whose throne he expects to ascend. The psychological interest, and the humorous result, arise from his efforts to conduct himself right royally, in the midst of the most ludicrous outward difficulties, and surrounded by unbe- lieving friends, who make sport of him, and from the blindness of his fixed idea, and his own limited nature, are able completely to govern him. Nicholas Margraf is the son of parents wholly opposite in character; his mother, a gentle and amiable Catholic, enthusiastic in her love for holy images and pictures of the saints ; while her husband is cold and heartless, a miser, wholly engaged in the avaricious heaping up and increase of riches, by the gains of his apothecary's shop, and little scrupulous as to the means. The fixed idea of the son must be nourished by the lavish use of money ; and this must be obtained by making diamonds with the chemical apparatus, furnished by the apothecary's business. Richter begins his work in the biographical form, and, as usual, with the childhood and education of his hero. He brings out, in rich profusion, secret and avowed motives, and surrounds his hero with characters of every grade of humour and folly. Jean Paul professed the artistical faith, that a fictitious character will not engage the sympathies of the reader, that does not create a moral interest in spite of his faults and weaknesses ; he therefore unites with his hero's limited faculties a disinterested desire to make others happy ; and, with his superficial smattering of all the sciences, a princely desire to lavish money. In the course of the work Paul touches, with exquisite satire, most of the follies and vices of the time. The vertigoes of education and finance ; the follies of gold-seeking and title-seeking, of proselyte- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 409 making and system-making ; the coquetry of love, and the affectation of the fine arts. And, in this last great work, he contended with noble courage, armed with his own weapons, for the political freedom of his country, and the object dearest to his heart, the cause and the freedom of the people. In going back to his own childhood to describe that of his hero, to whom he gave the same contrasts between the destitute present and the anticipated splendid future ; the same phantasy for changing stones into gold, that belonged to his own ; Jean Paul formed the resolution to unite his own life in a peculiar manner with that of his hero ; and, while he parodied the poetry in that of Nicholas Margraf *, to place the actual life near it as a companion. He no doubt borrowed the idea from Goethe 's Dichtung und Wahrheit; but instead of interweaving them, as Goethe has done, the truth from his own life was placed near its poetry, in the image of another. In this way only can the comic tone, and the apparent affectation of speaking in the third person in his Autobiography -j", be explained or ex- cused. Bichter apparently seized the idea of appending his own biography to a comic romance, as only under a humorous form could he lay bare before the world his con- cealed emotions, his crushing poverty, and the low and narrow circumstances of his early life. But he seems soon to have found that it was far more agreeable to idealize his own life under the mask of his fictitious heroes, as he had already done from Wuz to Fibel, and thus reflect upon it a poetic splendour, that vanished as soon as the naked truth was opposed to the poetical illusion ; he proceeded, there- fore, only to his thirteenth year : afterwards, the death of * To give a complete analysis of Nicholas Margraf would require sheets instead of pages, and would be quite beyond the limits of this work. t In the Autobiography the reader has a specimen of Jean Paul's humorous style ; the extract from the Kampaner Thai, in the Appendix, is in his earnest, or what is called his sentimental manner ; while his description of his Curland Visit, also in the Appendix, is a fair specimen of Paul's usual manner of writing. T 410 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. his son, that rendered the humorous form in which he had begun it displeasing to him, and his succeeding blindness, never permitted him to resume it. Jean Paul had made more extensive preparation for his Comet than for any other preceding work. The books forming the quarry consisted of sixteen volumes of twelve sheets each. It was left, as already mentioned, incomplete, although German critics pronounce it one of the most artistically perfect of all the author's works. CHAPTER X. RICHTEB VISITS NURNBEHG ON ACCOUNT OF HIS EYES KANNE HIS BLINDNESS LAST LETTERS " SELINA." ACCOMPANIED by his daughter Emma, once again A D lffi only did Richter leave home to visit a celebrated * 60 - eye-surgeon in Nurnberg. An extract from his letter to Caroline must suffice : "Niimberg, August 30, 1823. . . . "Yesterday, at noon, I arrived here. In Erlangen I visited Schelling, whose pleasing wife gave us tea. He was full of love, but cannot satisfy me *. Wed- nesday, I was with Kanne in his stove-heated chamber, on account of his gout. His is a noble, splendid physiognomy. The outer head has won, through Christianity, what the inner has lost. He received me with heartfelt lovef. But in the midst of his cheerfulness he put out his theological sheep's-ears against his physician, thus ' that medicine can do no good -only help from above.' Of objections the little ears would hear nothing. He pointed with true friendly love to my heart, and said ' he would rely upon that that it would be at last ' (namely, Kannish). I an- swered, 'that with age I removed further from him.' He said, ' In the end we shall see ' I, ' and beyond the end ! ' We could live years happily together ; yet, without one moving the smallest pebble's weight of the other. * With his philosophical views. t This was the man for whom Richter obtained a situation with the Duke of Meiningen, and through whose theological mysticism Richter's son was sacrificed. T 2 412 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Next week I shall end my useless visit here. My eyes will make journeyiug always an empty pleasure, and the most beautiful days one enjoys better at home. Here, there is, alas ! no distinguished head ! Among the men, not one. The last time I had Schweigger, Pfaff, Hegel. But I knew all this before, and the ascendancy of the merchants, and their coldness towards poetry, and philosophy, and the arts ; and the want of elevation in the women, that always keep pace with the others, and on whose heads there are rarely faces such as one meets in the Wendehchen tea dance by the dozen. I found only one beautiful exception, and was, on my way home, under the starry heavens, a little blessed. " I knew all this before, and therefore I remain in the house, and am glad when the weather is somewhat bad. . . . " The people here are well-meaning and obliging ; as the bookseller Eickhorn, who makes his servant mine, and my good old Osterhausen, who will take me to-morrow to a pleasure-garden. . . . The common people refresh me through their orderly appearance, and their true-heartedness. " Poor Hof ! The flames shine always horribly before me. If one could dare to think of himself in such a calamity ! But one imagines the loss can be as important nowhere as to himself. Thus I reflect that, for the second time, all the memorials of my youth are burnt, in Schwar- zenbach and in Hof, and, if I should return there, nothing is left for memory and reflection, and my youth has a second time passed away. We will love each other more truly, my Caroline, since life is so short, so full of changes, so decaying ! I greet ye, my dear children. Greet all thy friends warmly." Richter made no more journeys. His increasing blind- ness rendered all the tender attentions of home necessary, if not to his cheerfulness, at least to his daily comfort. He consulted many celebrated oculists, tried glass after glass, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 413 and many reputed healing remedies ; but, although he parted with the light of day and his beloved occupations with painful struggles, and ever-increasing regret, he was obliged at last to feel that the contest was hopeless, and resignation his latest duty. Once again was he separated from his wife, which gave occasion to a few more letters, the last, except a few notes, that he ever wrote. Caroline never left home, except upon some call of sor- row or duty ; namely, at the death of her father she visited the widowed mother, and spent some time in Berlin; now she was summoned to the dying bed of her sister, Minna Spazier, who has been often mentioned as supporting, by literary exertions, her young family in Dresden. From scattered hints it would appear that Minna was very un- happy in her second marriage. No reader can have avoided noticing the singular fact, that united as were Richter and his wife, and apparently sympathizing in every agreeable emotion, and in every social enjoyment, Caroline was never the companion of those little journeys, from which Richter derived such elevation of spirits, that it would seem as if the being he loved best must have been indispensable to his complete enjoyment. But for this there were many reasons. Their income was never sufficient to permit them to relax the strictest rules of economy in their expenses ; and, although the recreation of journeying was absolutely necessary to restore the powers of the author, exhausted by intense application during ten months of the year, Caroline, in her quiet, domestic, feminine duties, did not require the allevi- ation of novelty or pleasure. Richter, also, in all his journeys, was received and/eted as a literary lion, a distinguished author he was patronized by people of rank : and invited to the palaces of princes, not on a footing of equality, but as one who was expected by his wit and celebrity to repay the condescension and flattery graciously bestowed upon him *. See Appendix. 414 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Jean Paul had less obsequiousness, and a more manly independence in his intercourse with princes and nobles, than any foreign author with whose works we are ac- quainted ; yet we can easily imagine, that to a woman of true nobility of soul, and refined delicate feelings, all condescending attentions, that implied any inferiority in outward advantages, would have been painful and deroga- tory. From what we can gather of the character of Caroline, she seems to have been the guiding and protecting spirit of all who came within her influence ; all her journeys were errands of mercy, all her letters messages of love. She had become like those beautiful plants that from the centre of the flower send out protection branches, that shade and refresh after the blossom has fallen. In this last separation, Richter wrote to her thus : " Beloved Caroline. The clockwork of housekeeping goes and strikes accurately, as you have wound it up. Emma does everything well, and takes excellent care of me. She is an excellent Hausmutter (house-mother). The children are good, and every day give me a new joy. I have nothing to wish, but one dearer than all the others near me. We speak longingly of thee, and I shall rejoice at your return, as formerly at my own, when so heavenly a time always followed it." Again : " Beloved Caroline. Letter-writing is, as you know, extremely difficult on account of the gray paper. The sulphur bath, for which Emma takes punctual care, works excellently, but not immediately, upon the eyes ; but reading, and still more, writing, is impossible, as the light is not strong enough. " Ah, this melancholy half-year of my life ! The former years of poverty and contempt were Sundays in compari- son. Now, I am deprived of so much, and condemned to so much " Enjoy, at least for thy sacrificing days, a few joyful hours. Be not too anxious for us who are sound at heart. Visit the terrace often at evening, and farewell ! farewell ! LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 415 " Next day. " Your letter has touched and refreshed me, dearest ! and increased the longing for your return that I have hitherto concealed. Exactly on the morning that, the first time for many months, I went to Rolwenzel's *, your heart's words delighted me. I must indeed suffer much much ! for as yet all means help only a little, or imper- ceptibly ; but I firmly believe God will send me, even in this extremity, only what is best for me ! " For God's sake provide a good opportunity to return. Venture upon no risks, but think of the poor children who love thee so inexpressibly ! Control yourself, and take no formal leave of Minna rather take none, and tell her before that you must leave her, else she will die in your arms. How do I already rejoice at your relations of your Dresden life. Come, only, soon ! You will be received with thirsting love and jubilee ! Greet the sufferer. Thine ! " R." Thus adjured, Caroline was obliged to leave the death- bed of her sister, and when she returned to her home she found her husband almost wholly deprived of the light. His blindness obliged him to relinquish the hope of finish- ing Selina the book upon the immortality of the soul. So fondly had he cherished the hope of completing his proofs of the highest consolation of humanity, that he seemed really to believe the Eternal Providence would grant him time ; that darkness would not fall upon him, until he had made it light to others ; and in this view he withstood all indications of illness, and repelled any anti- cipations of death. The dramatic interest of Selina is slight. The characters of the earlier work, Kampaner Thai, are again brought before the reader with the beautiful addition of Selina, the daughter of Gione, of the former work The proofs of immortality are drawn from the positive religious belief of * The cottage, out of the city, where Jean Paul had his study. 416 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. every nation, and of all times ; and Richter wished to im- part to them the highest degree of completeness by poetic illustration, as well as by arguments of the deepest philo- sophy. " There are souls," he says, " for whom life has no summer. These should enjoy the advantages of the in- habitants of Spitzbergen, where, through the winter's day, the stars shine clear as through the winter's night. They should have the nearest compensation for their colder and more distant sun." For such persons the book is written. " Take from the wounded soul, lying on the sick-bed of life, the prospect from above, and he is doubly unhappy, and robbed and wounded." The divisions of the book bear the names of the planets ; and it is said in the preface, " as Herodotus gave the divi- sions of his history, Goethe his Herman and Dorothea, the names of the Muses, so, on account of the greater number and the inferior value of his chapters, Jean Paul gave them the names of the eleven planets. At least, he says, there is one resemblance in his chapters, of which the wandering stars need not be ashamed ; " that these, as themselves, revolve around the sun as their centre, which has the double name of God or Immortality." When Richter found his strength, as already mentioned, rapidly failing, instead of going on to the completion of the whole work, he did what he had never done in any former work, went back, and revised and improved the five planets, or first chapters ; and a few weeks before his death said, with a deep melancholy tone, entirely unusual to him, " that now these chapters were ready for printing." This was the more remarkable, as he was apparently un- conscious of the near approach of death ; and although he despaired of ever seeing the light again, he hoped, by the help of an amanuensis, to complete the numerous works already planned. * See Appendix. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 417 The last words he ever penned, except a short note to Otto, and these with trembling hand, the lines running into each other and almost illegible, were : " Knowing each other again (in a future world) is the cardinal point of immortality, as many pater-nosters close with a relic." " Life departs not from the soul, but in the soul. It lays its organic sceptre down, and dismisses the world that had hitherto served it, or rather it abandons its empire." Thus unfinished, the work was hidden from Eichter's eyes, that yet lay so warmly at bis heart that he wrote by the hand of his wife to her nephew, Otto Spazier, to lend him his eyes and pen for its completion. He closes his letter thus : " I expect a delightful life with you. Every morning till ten o'clock you shall be left to your own studies ; then, I shall request you also to lend me your eyes, if not your hand, for the chaos of my library. We will read a little, copy a little, talk a little, be a little joyful, and that is all I expect from you You cannot guess what a balsam your arrival will be for my wounded eyes, and for the half of my life crushed by destiny !"* " Such a call from the immortal old man, as it entered my solitary apartment," says his nephew, "filled me with delight. The reverend image of his beautiful old age, a just reward for a holy life, rose before me, and with joyful haste I travelled through the wet days of October, and entered his study on the evening of the twenty-fourth of that month. The same joyful tremor affected me as for- merly, when, at the twilight hour, I had listened here with his family to the voice of wisdom. The windows of his room looked towards the rising sun, and far over the garden and over scattered trees and houses, towards the Fichtelgebirge, that bounded the horizon. A mingled perfume of flowers and grapes led the fancy to southern climes, to beautiful blue June days, or to the vintage on the * Jean Paul refers to the death of his son. T 3 418 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Rhine. His sofa, where he usually read in a reclining posture, was opposite this window, and before it his writing- table, upon. which appeared a regular confusion of pens, paper of all colours, glasses, flowers, books, among which last were the small English editions of Swift and Sterne. At the other window stood a small piano, and near this a smaller table. Depending from the cage of his birds was a little ladder, that led to his own work-table, where the birds were permitted to roam among the confusion, sprink- ling with water from the flower glass the sheet upon which the poet was writing. Often was Paul seen to stop in his most excited passages, to let his little canary, with her young, travel, undisturbed, over the page, where the water she scattered from her feathers mingled with the ink from his pen. In the corner of the room was a door by which, unobserved, Richter could descend the steps into the garden, and on a cushion near it rested his white, silky- haired poodle. A hunting pocket and rosewood staff hung near. All three had often been the companions of his wanderings, when, on beautiful days, he went through the chesnut avenue to the little Rolwenzell cottage. " All in the room retained its usual position, but the ruling hand appeared to have been absent. The light was shaded, and the windows hung with green curtains ; the robust form that in former years, even before the snowdrop had loosened the icy crust of winter, had worked long hours, with uncovered breast, in the open air, lay supported with cushions, and shrouded in furs upon the sofa; his body drawn together, and eyes for ever closed. ' Heaven,' said he, ' chastens me with a double rod, and one is a heavy cudgel ! (meaning his blindness) ; but I shall be well again now. Ah ! we have so much to say and to do. But we shall have a thousand hours at least, minutes.' His voice was weaker, his words slower, and it cut me to the heart to hear him speak of himself. It was late and soon his wife, ever watchful, called me away, to return to him again in the morning." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 419 Early the next morning he began a complete revision of his works. The nephew read aloud, and Paul inserted his alterations. When Spazier thought one necessary, he in- dicated it by pausing, to draw his attention. With great mildness and patience Paul listened to every objection, and himself related, explained, praised, and blamed. He reconsidered and overlived thus his whole spiritual life in his works. In the comparisons scattered through his sixty-four volumes, of which indeed every page is filled, he found only two or three were repeated. The arrival of his nephew, and the hope of completing Selina, and the revision of the new edition of his works, gave new life to Richter. Great indeed was his joy, as they were read to him, that he could assert that he had never written a line against virtue, or one that, for this reason, he could wish to blot. But he soon began to perfect rather those that he considered unfinished, than to continue his new works ; and we must ever regret that he left his Autobiography unfinished ; that he went home before he had given us this golden key to his works ; the psycholo- gical unfolding of his poetic nature ; the impression that the ever-changing scenes of life and literature had made upon him since his childhood. This he intended to make a memorial of gratitude to those great men, Gleim, Herder, and Jacobi, to whom he felt himself so much indebted. He had already spoken earnestly of his eternal gratitude to Gleim, for the timely present of fifty dollars ; and he intended to give a full-length picture of the princely form of Herder, and to illustrate his character with beams of light. But, alas ! it was now too late. His weakness in- creased so rapidly that he was obliged to resign, but with all possible submission, the design of continuing any of his works. He withdrew from all self- activity, and gave up the pleasure of speaking of subjects, that in his circum- stances would have had only an egotistical interest, and devoted himself, for the short remainder of life, to the happiness of those about him. The long, dark days of No- 420 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. vember were cheered by reading. The books that until the last he delighted most to listen to, were Herbart's Psycho- logy and Herder's Philosophy of the History of Man. When wearied of these, he desired to smile at some humorous work, and his nephew laments that German literature is so poor in books of this kind. At this moment rose higher than ever within our Richter the Apostle John's power of love. Age often serves the heart as it does the outward form, takes from it the fulness and tenderness of sympathy, and leaves it hard, and sharply angular ; but in the heart of Jean Paul love was a plant that found ever a richer and warmer soil, disclosed continually new buds and blossoms, spread its roots and fibres always further, and extended, in his last days, the perfumed shadow that gave him peace and blessed dreams. He sat, as Spazier describes him*, like an innocent, tranquil child, with the firmest confidence in God and in future good, although the present was sinking around him. His own pain only increased his interest in the joy of others. His weakness, that denied him acts of love, im- pelled him to express more fully the language of affection, that had been till now concealed in actions. The friends who visited him never heard a complaint over his blind- ness ; but to anxious questioning he answered with low, but cheerful, hopeful, signification. When others, thinking to conceal from him his situation, spoke of hopes and joys for the future, he drew them immediately to subjects of more universal interest. Self-forgetting, he would speak to his visitors of any other subject. As this was the time of the so-called freedom's contest in Germany, deeply as his true German heart had been directed to the interests of freedom, now its beams spread a glow in his evening sky. As his eyes were extinguished, and expression denied * The narrative from which I have taken that of the last days of Jean Paul is so extremely inflated and diffuse, that the wish to avoid the same has perhaps led me to the opposite error. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 421 him through this organ, he sought, by a more tender tone of voice, to draw others to his heart, and, when his voice also failed, love pervaded the whole expression of his countenance. His cheerfulness was much increased when one or two friends were added to his domestic circle. Otto or Emanuel came almost every evening. They clustered around his sofa, and here, like an electric spark, he kindled all about him. Every new thought received from him organization, and he ever suggested something new ; his picture-language never wearied ; and the departure of his friends was always too early. One evening the conversa- tion turned upon the sense of smell, and Richter mentioned how strongly the recollection of perfumes excited the imagination. He said " that his father, sometimes, in his boyhood, shut him into his room, and that, when he went again into the open air, he met the fumes of the tobacco the carpenters smoked, and that tobacco now brought back, like the sound of the cow-bell, his whole childhood before his soul. Through the sense of smell, as its impressions are so undecided, the romantic is singularly excited. Schiller always rejoiced in perfumes, while Goethe, the 'plastic artist, was more interested by the form of the nose. Smell is the most refined of the senses. A gentle and refined Indian would think us all offensive animals. Herder had the most delicate sense of smell, but in everything he was an elephant." With this one word Richter delineated Herder's greatness, his delicate organization, which also distinguishes the elephant among animals, and his Indian nature. In the last weeks of his life he could take a less active part in the conversation, on account of the weakness of his voice. For this he often touchingly asked pardon; and Caroline sat with her ear close to him, to interpret to those less accustomed to his accents. Eight days before his death the darkest night settled upon him. Even then he sat patiently, trusting the coming spring would bring again for him the warm sun, 422 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. and the blue heaven, and the eternal stars. Many times he raised his darkened eyes to the window, hoping a faint ray would pierce the gloom ; once only his pain broke out in words, as his friends were lamenting the helplessness of his situation, that prevented him from seeking relief for his other infirmities. The thought for a moment over- powered him, and in the most touching voice he cried out with Ajax in the Iliad " If we must perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish in the light of day." The extraordinary talent for music that Richter possessed has often been mentioned. When weary with thought, he would seat himself at the instrument, and, with accompani- ment on the keys with one hand, he would translate with the other the emotions that filled his mind. When they were tender, he, as well as all who heard him, would break out in tears, till all hearts were melted. The music of others also affected him deeply, and once in a large party he could not restrain his tears, when Mignon's song was sung by a young lady. In the evening, during this last dark period, when the" day had exhausted him, he longed for the refreshment of music ; but the voices of his children overpowered him, and his father's heart wept at their simplest tones ; but when in the next apartment the sounds appeared to come from a distance, he could listen to the voices he loved. Then he would turn his face towards the wall, and earth and sorrow were forgotten ; while he flew with the sounds to fairer climes, and flowers, and mountains, and beautiful forms. When his family returned, they would find him sitting upright on the sofa, and in his face were the traces of emotion, that his darkened eyes could no longer ex- press. Schubart's splendid composition of the Erie King, " Thou dear child ! come, go with me," Zelter's song of the Harper in Meister, and the many-voiced little song of LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 423 the people, " So many stars are in the sky," and many of Goethe's songs, lulled him so blessedly, that they seemed to exert a wonderful physical power on his well-being. One evening he said it was as if, during the singing, some one had drawn over him a soft and warm mantle, and, when the sounds ceased, he wondered to find no covering upon him. He was deeply moved one evening, when a young girl sang a Spanish song before his door, accompanied by the guitar. It brought the south into his winter apart- ment, and excited and warmed his fancy. Kichter went every morning to his study, and continued revising with his nephew the new edition of his works, until from weakness of the breast his voice could no longer be heard. The soul seemed to have withdrawn from all the external organs, and to communicate with the outward world only through the ear ; the eye was turned inward upon the soul, and his biographer says, " The volume of the noble brow seemed to expand still more, as if thought sat visibly upon it ; the outline of the delicate nose became more beautiful, and around the firmly closed mouth the most amiable mildness played. That which has come to us from tradition of the bust of Plato, what the saints have told us of the expression of the holy Christ, hovered upon his face. Deprived of the veil of human senses, with which the earth protects the dwelling-place of thought, the beau- tiful form spoke only of the spirit, and of immortality ; a tremor of reverence filled the heart of the spectator, and unconsciously the hands were folded as if in prayer ; every one who entered spoke softly, as if in the presence of a holy being." On the morning of the 14th of November, when his nephew came down, Richter for the first time was absent from his study. Spazier found him in the apartment of his wife, and, although early, Otto and his physician were with them. Caroline sat with her ear close to the mouth of her husband, for she only could now understand the well-known but imperfect accents. He said " good 4Q4 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. morning," when his nephew entered, for his hearing was still acute. Through the perpetual night about him, and the irregu- larity of his repose, Richter had lost the consciousness of the course of time, and thought it was already evening. He was confirmed in this impression by the presence of the physician, who usually made his visits in the evening, and not to make him more uneasy they humoured the error, and did not try to undeceive him. His nephew read the newspaper to him, and some passages from Herder's spiritual works ; but he seemed this day to thirst more than ever for the voices of his wife and children ; his youngest daughter climbed perpetually on the back of his chair, and held her youthful face close to his. The son of Herder came in ; and it so happened, that just at this time the transfer of the Princess of Lucca took place in Bayreuth. The incident was more noticed, because it was to the same Saxon Prince Max, the transfer of whose first wife, also an Italian Princess, Jean Paul had described in Hesperus. So remarkable a coincidence could not escape a poet, who professed, as Richter, to believe in the duality of all things. Young Herder told him, that the Bust of the Prince, as the Portrait in Hesperus, ac- companied the Princess, borne in a sedan-chair, and, what appears infinitely comic, dined and reposed wherever the Princess rested. This led the conversation to Hesperus, and Richter whispered many alterations he intended to make in that work, and said it had failed totally of the object he wished to accomplish in writing it. Noon had by this time arrived. Richter, thinking it was night, said " It was time to go to rest!" and wished to retire. He was wheeled into his sleeping apartment, and all was arranged as if for repose ; a small table near his bed, with a glass of water, and his two watches a common one and a repeater. His wife now brought him a wreath of flowers that a lady had sent him, for every one wished to add some charm to his last days. As he touched them LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 425 carefully, for he could neither see nor smell them, he seemed to rejoice in the images of the flowers in his mind, for he said repeatedly to Caroline " My beautiful flowers, my lovely flowers !" Although his friends sat round the hed, as he imagined it was night, they conversed no longer ; he arranged his arms as if preparing for repose, which was to be to him the repose of death, and soon sank into a tranquil sleep. Deep silence pervaded the apartment. Caroline sat at the head of the bed, with her eyes immoveably fixed on the face of her beloved husband. Otto had retired, and the nephew sat with Plato's Phcedon in his hand, open at the death of Socrates. At that moment a tall and beautiful form entered the chamber; and, at the foot of the bed, with his hands raised to heaven, and deeply moved, he repeated aloud the prayer of his Mosaic faith. It was Emanuel, and, next to Otto, the most beloved of Richter's friends. About six o'clock the physician entered. Eichter yet appeared to sleep ; his features became every moment holier, his brow more heavenly, but it was cold as marble to the touch ; and, as the tears of his wife fell upon it, he remained immoveable. At length his respiration became less regular, but his features always calmer, more heavenly. A slight convulsion passed over the face ; the physician cried out " That is death ! " and all was quiet. The spirit had departed ! All sank, praying, upon their knees. This moment, that raised them above the earth with the departed spirit, ad- mitted of no tears ! " Thus Richter went from earth, great and holy as a poet, greater and holier as a man ! " Involuntarily we recall the death-bed of another great poet, on that delicious summer's day when the windows were all open, and the only sound the ripple of the Tweed upon its stony bed. Here, in the midst of winter, a deeper repose must have consecrated the death-bed of Richter, as 426 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. if Nature herself stood reverently still, when her wor- shipper and interpreter laid down the garment in which he had ministered in her temple. Bichter was buried by torchlight : the unfinished manu- script of Selina borne upon his coffin, and the noble Ode of Klopstock " Thou shalt arise, my soul ! " was sung by the students of the Gymnasium at the burial vault. Otto could not survive his loss. He lived only a few months, in order to arrange the unfinished sheets of Se- lina, and then, in secret mourning, followed the departed friend. CONCLUSION. I HAVE now finished my task, and I might safely leave the Biography of Richter to make its impression upon the reader without one word of commentary ; but, like Otto, I linger by the tomb of my friend, unwilling to part with him who has been my companion so long. I have not the presumption to imagine that I can en- lighten those who have had opportunities to study the works of Jean Paul, from which alone his character can be appreciated ; but in this country it has been the custom to contrast him with Goethe, and to class them as belonging to opposite schools in literature. They are, indeed, widely different, but the one need not blind us to the excellence of the other. They were widely different in their lives. Goethe grew up in a happy home, where the genial dispo- sition of his mother, who used playfully to say " Her Wolfgang and herself were of, the same age," (in fact, he was born in her seventeenth year,) led him to enjoy every natural good, every innocent pleasure ; while Jean Paul, born in poverty, brought up in almost ascetic frugality, tended by a mother so sorrow-bowed, so fearful of joy, that she could not even understand her gifted son's fame ; living in an obscure village with few associates, and none superior to himself, so that he could form no impartial and accurate estimation of himself, differed in this, as in every other respect, from Goethe. Goethe stood upon an elevation 4'28 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. above his fellows, attained by what the Germans call universality, the power of observing all the bearings and points of the times, from an elevation far above them all. The difference between Goethe and Eichter is not more striking than the anomaly in the character of each, and the discrepancy between that character and their works. Goethe, whose classical culture would not allow him to violate the unities, whose polished exterior gave him the appearance of a Grecian god, in private life permitted him- self much licence, and of his associates would cry out, " Oh, that they had the heart to commit some absurdity ; " while Jean Paul, in his works so wild and luxuriant, that he might be compared to a great, gnarled oak, making grand music in its branches, as they stretched towards heaven, while the little singing birds nestled in its leaves, in pri- vate life hedged himself round with rules and resolutions, and all the safeguards of order and form. His journals are filled with reiterated regulations, and expressions of repentant sorrow whenever he violated the least of them. It was safe for Goethe to allow himself the seductions of social and polished life ; but Richter, whose great and irre- gular nature was always breaking through the polished border of conventionalism, planted himself around with the thomy hedge of minute observances. Goethe needed no rules, no restraints ; he was in no danger of the dis- courteous developments of a generous manhood ; his nature was polished to elegance. If he ever struggled, " the graces" as Bettine said, " kept him prisoner." He needed no reiterated hints in his journal, to do everything in its season, and keep everything in its place ; the clockwork of his nature went neither too fast nor too slow, and struck the hour at the exact second, while the virtue of neatness was in him almost sublime. Richter's life may be divided into three epochs, and his works into three corresponding divisions. The first, that of pure satire, terminated with the writing of the " Con- tented Schoolmaster." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 429 The infancy and early youth of Eichter alone were genial and poetical. From his entrance into the flof gymnasium, through his Leipsic life, he was struggling with actual want, and opposing an iron resolution to an adverse destiny. At this time a cold scepticism shrouded his mind ; he had not broken the crust of that merely intel- lectual period of his life, when the buds of his fancy and all the warm springs of his heart were imprisoned by the ice of an ungenial belief. At this time, his French and English studies led him to Pope, Shaftesbury, Swift, Rabelais, and the encyclopaedists. He wrote only satires. To give interest to these essays, that were without all poetical or dramatic charm, he acquired his peculiar man- ner of writing, crowded his page with figures, comparisons, and antitheses; ransacked heaven and hell and all the regions of earth for illustrations, anecdotes, proverbs, and quaint expressions, and acquired what Carlyle has called his claptrap manner. This manner was foreign and arti- ficial, for his private journal, written at this period, is free from everything of the kind. This manner of writing became a second nature ; he says himself, he could not help it, " that his figures and illustrations were like mice let out of a trap, one caught hold of the tail of. the other in interminable succession." The usual theme of Eichter's satires is the contrast of the infinite in man's breast with the low and narrow circumstances in which he is placed ; and in this early period it is treated with the bitter and cutting coldness of a sarcastic laugh. But his soul was soon unsatisfied. He began to long after his inheritance. He could no longer quiet his thirst after a higher good with a scornful laugh. We find in his journal that " he laid long hours in the night upon the dewy grass, and longed to allay the thirst of his soul by looking into the starry heavens. When he arose and saw the impression his body had made upon the grass, he thought of his grave, and the flowers thus pressed to- 480 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. gether; the terror of annihilation seized him with iron hand. Then came the warm beams of the arisen sun ; and the blessed thought of God, and his love to man, that would burst the gate of the grave ; and his sunken heart rose again." Such moments sometimes occur in life, when a strong and powerful emotion has the effect of the most startling events. We know not whether Bichter meant to represent this moment as a turning from darkness to light ; but the death of his two youthful friends, that occurred at this period, fixed his thoughts upon immortality, and a strenuous exertion freed his soul from its fetters. Now, he turned back in imagination to his childhood in Joditz and Schwarzenbach, and it appeared in the ever-increasing light of poetry; the perfume of his childish faith and early education was again breathed into his life. Now, his heart began to overflow with emotion and bitter pain at a misdirection of his talents that had deprived his youth of elevation and spiritual joy. He had no longer before his mind the cold conception of the follies of fools and sim- pletons, but also the disappointments and fond longings of the suffering and good. How significant is this passage in his journal of November, in this year : " And you, my brothers, I will love more, I will create for you more joy. I will give up my greater plans, and limit my endeavours, to make you cheerful, and turn my comic powers no longer, as hitherto, to torment you. I will use my art to make myself cheerful, to content myself with every necessary limitation, and thus to win joy for you. I will make you happy by imparting what I have hitherto gained. Fantasy and wit shall be united to find consolation, cheerfulness, and joys in the most limited of life's relations." The result of this holy purpose of his life were the works be- ginning with Wuz, and ending only with the Selina. Few have been like him, faithful to a great idea. He had, as we have seen, consecrated himself to instructing his countrymen through the press, and no office, no emolument, no honour LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 431 seduced him. In his cold and hungry hut, in his humble school, he wrought out, in patience and solitude, the gems that he afterwards joyfully produced. He surrendered his soul to God, and his life became in harmony with the true, the beautiful, the good. The very limited relations in which Richter stood with others, the poverty of incidents in his life, the few characters he knew, the small number from which he could choose his hero, compelled him to go back to his early recollections ; and his memory and fantasy supplied him with a model that answered to the wants of his soul, that in poetry, as in life now, thirsted for love. Wuz is the embryo of a whole succession of such characters ap- pearing in Jean Paul's after romances. He is the first result of the author's creative imagination, and the trans- ition from his satirical to his serious, earnest works. In this conception is first apparent the so much talked of double nature of Richter, the contradiction, the contest of form with tendency. Richter had not in the beginning of his change the courage to manifest his feelings and emo- tions. He was ashamed to open his heart to the public ; he is, therefore, through ridiculous follies, in Wuz, con stantly interrupting the earnest impression of the work. But although he had freed, by this exertion, his earnest creative power from the mastery of the comic and familiar, the process took place too late for the comic ever to be entirely subjected. The contest continued through all his serious works, and takes the form in them of the most genial humour. He compares this tendency of his nature to the bird Merops, whose tail is turned towards Heaven, but in this direction continues to rise. The second peculiarity of Wuz, which is more or less that of Richter's serious works, is, that he lends to the character the peculiarities of his own childhood. Hence, for the first time, his father and himself, and all the idyls of village life, appear in the borrowed light of poetry. As they pass before him, he gives them individuality, and the 432 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. colouring of reality. It seemed only necessary for him to touch his native ground, the home of his childhood, and from them he immediately received inspiration. The contest, as I have said above, of the serious and humorous, never ceased. Humour was often, even in his most serious works, the quality that ruled his nature ; the product not now of contempt, but of love ; springing from the heart, as much as from the imagination, and pouring the balm of a sympathizing spirit over the wounds of hu- manity. If I mistake not, Richter's humour is the quality that has made him so beloved by the Germans. Its origin is a true sensibility to the discrepancies and contrasts of life, and a quick perception of the alleviations, which his rare gifts enabled him to present, with a simple and touching pathos. In his preface to Quintus Fixlein, which is an enlarged repetition of Wuz, he tells us the purpose for which he writes. " That I may show to the whole earth, that we ought to value little joys more than great ones ; the night- gown more than the dress coat ; that Plutus's heaps are worth less than his handfulls ; 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, by 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 night-caps ; in their pillows, in mere apostle's days, in the evening moral tales of their wives, &c. You perceive my drift is, that man may become a little tailor-bird, which, not amidst the crashing boughs of the storm-tost, roaring, immeasurable tree of life, but upon one of its leaves, sews itself a nest together, and there lies snug."* The whole of this preface, with its quaint illustrations, is an excellent essay upon contentment, and worth all the * I avail myself gratefully of Carlyle's translation, aa I have not the original at hand. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 433 philosophy and all the sermons that were ever written on the art of being happy. In the succession of works that followed this, Jean Paul's power of conception and creation rose higher and higher, till he reached the ideal of his Titan. But the theme is always the same, the contrast of the ideal with the real, the godlike spark striving with the mists of earth. This leads us to the third series of his works the Comic, where the striving after the ideal becomes an illusion, and the source of joy and contentment rendered infinitely humorous by the limited nature of his heroes, and the contradiction be- tween the striving of the heart and the striving of the head ; the contrast of the grand idea with the limited and paltry power of execution ; as Nicholas Margraff, who be- lieves himself born to be a king, and conducts himself right royally under the meanest and most pitiful environment. All such characters protect themselves, by their ideal, from the frosts and miseries of the external world. A true en- thusiasm, as Bichter says, is " like the bird of Paradise, that slumbers flying, and on his outspread pinions over- sleeps, unconsciously, the earthquakes and conflagrations of life, in its long, fair dream of its ideal mother-land ; " an illusion becomes comic and ridiculous only, when it is like that foolish bird, who thinks she protects her body by hiding her head. I have said too much, perhaps, upon this subject, but it seems to me to solve what has been called the enigma of Jean Paul's works. When we come to the execution of his works, to the out- ward form, there indeed he falls far short of his own ideal. He pronounced one of his works a born ruin. All, more or less, partake of that character. His conceptions were glorious, perfect ; the edifice stood whole and secure in his mind, but, when he comes to the execution upon paper, it seems to fall together in a confused mass ; the fair propor- tioned columns, that should support the edifice, stand alone, or are prostrate ; ignoble parts of the structure are u 434 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. thrust out in close contact with the beautiful, and mar the just proportions of the whole ; the divine pictures, and cabinets of gems, that should adorn with chaste beauty, are scattered in reckless profusion over every part ; mean- ness and grace, beauty and deformity, are everywhere mingled together. That Richter was deficient in taste has been allowed by his warmest admirers. He had an eye open to beauty, but he had also no disgust at deformity. He seems, in- deed, to have imagined beauty in all deformity, except that of vice. This want of taste may be accounted for by the homely poverty and meanness of his early life. He had a deep and pervading feeling of moral beauty ; he also dis- cerned beauty in the humblest forms, where other eyes had never looked for it. But, as he was ignorant of the conven- tionalisms and elegancies of polished life, he did not see meanness and deformity where a fashion-educated eye would have found both. Every form of human life, the humblest domestic occupation, possessed beauty for him ; and, in his view, the hunting of rats was as heroic as the hunting of hares. In this respect he reminds us of Shak- speare how soon, after an acquaintance with Shakspeare, are what the French call his barbarisms forgotten. The result of the perusal of one of Jean Paul's works is like going through a gallery of pictures, where celestial Madonnas, St. Johns, and St. Cecilias hang, side by side, with Dutch inns, Sancho Panzas, and drinking boors ; but we go back again and again lo study the divine pic- tures, and feel their elevating influence, while the others, although admired for their truth and nature, are forgotten as works of art. Another peculiarity of Richter, which has been ridiculed by superficial readers, is, what has been called his sentimen- talism. It is not a weeping or sickly sentiment that cha- racterizes Jean Paul, but a tenderness of heart, a poetry of his own, that leads him to cherish the flower planted by the hand of love ; to remember birth-days and anniversa- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 435 ries ; and to institute many festivals of the heart. It is a religion of the affections, that belongs to the Germans more than to any other nation, that makes them capahle of superstitious illusions, but that it would be unjust to call sentimentalism. Humour also is united with this senti- ment, as in no other author, except Sterne, whom Richter is said to resemble. In this respect he also resem- bles Burns, uniting with a deeper tenderness an equally playful and heartfelt pathos. Humour is fatal to false sentiment, extinguishing it as fire devours water; but it heightens the tenderness of Richter, as a smile on the lip enhances the charm of a tear in the eye. Ah ! I feel how impossible and how presumptuous it may be, to endeavour, through translations, to do adequate justice to an author whose writings awoke the enthusiasm of the whole German nation, excited the admiration of every rank, and were equally felt by such opposite cha- racters as Lavater and Herder, Jacobi and the ancient Gleim. The circumstances of our own country are, it is true, widely different. Richter appeared in Germany in the midst of that mighty shaking that was given by the French revolution to all established institutions, to all artificial distinctions among men. As one of his critics writes, " The whole nation, like Jean Paul himself, was labouring with the great idea of spiritual and social eman- cipation. Napoleon's giant hand had arrested the advanced steps of freedom, and the nation gave itself back to a secretly growing scepticism of feeling, before which the earnest emotions were ashamed to appear. Under this secret pressure of the heart, Jean Paul's works were like the words of a prophet, who appeared before them with the freshest and purest emotions of nature ; he had the courage to bare for them his breast and his beating heart, while at the same time he held the scourge over the pitiful restraints and vulgar ridicule before which the tearful eye concealed its love, its longing, its enthusiasm, and its higher faith." Richter's heart beat in unison with the heart of his fel- u 2 436 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. low-men. While Goethe withdrew in philosophic retire- ment to study osteology, or mark the beautiful shades upon the lip of a shell, or the corolla of a plant, Richter threw himself, with all his powers, heart and soul, into that up- rising of the German people for freedom, which has been called a living poem. With us there is, indeed, no restraint in thinking, writing, or speaking ; but is there not a secret infidelity as to the existence of disinterested and self-sacri- ficing love ; an extremely practical course of thought, that leads us to place all spiritual relations among the illusions of life ? Is there not a cold egotism that disposes us to undervalue everything whose material existence cannot be proved by its solid advantages ? All that deviates from the straightforward railroad path of life is, with us, called transcendentalism. Even Richter has been said to belong to the "Bedlamite school" It would be nearly as just to call Paradise Lost of the Bedlamite School. The charge of affectation, that has been made against Jean Paul, is perhaps as unjust, but is not so easily disproved. All affectation supposes some insincerity, or attempt to appear otherwise than strict truth allows. Now Richter was the truest of men he was so open and fearless in the assertion of all his opinions, that he made almost as many opponents as persons with whom he conversed. But the charge of affectation applies only to the form of his writings, and, as already mentioned, arose from the nature of his first works. I repeat again, that they were essays and satires, without dramatic form or fictitious incident. To give novelty to old themes, he sought out every strange and striking form of expression ; exhausted every depart- ment of science, and all the realms of nature, for illustra- tions; heaped image upon comparison, and comparison upon image ; distorted, and reversed, and turned his sen- tences topsy-turvy. He was like a juggler, who, in the absence of all dramatis person, makes one material assume many different forms, to be now a bird, and directly, by sleight of hand, a jewel, a flower, or a stone. This manner LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 437 became habitual to him, and later, he could not, if he would, have thrown it off. Otto was always urging him to translate some one of his works into plain German, and publish it without name or preface. Richter answered, " that he would preserve his own manner in an age when Schiller found nothing in Thummel, and Herder nothing in Schleiermacher and Tieck, Schlegel everything * when Herder called his (Richter's) style classical, and Merkel called it poor ; when Goethe said, the stupid Genovefa was good ; and all were pitifully in opposition to themselves and to each other." It was a heavy disadvantage for Richter, that his estrange- ment from Goethe took place at the beginning of his popularity ; he lost the benefit of that severe, but candid and friendly criticism, that, to one so regardless of all form, would have been of incalculable benefit. The reviews, as he justly complained, bestowed upon him only indiscri- minate praise or boundless censure. Mrs. Austin, among English critics, has been most impartially just. She says, " Jean Paul has overlaid a world of genuine and humane wisdom with bewildering conceits, and far-fetched, unin- telligible illustrations. But the reader who will look below the surface will find, that his knowledge of actual human nature was profound, and his views, as to what human nature should be, benevolent, elevated, and consistent with the soundest reason and humanity." Mr. Carlyle, to whom we have been so eminently in- debted for his beautiful and eloquent essays upon Richter, has been singularly happy in presenting him to the English reader. But I must be permitted to say, that his genuine admiration has led him to exaggerate the peculiarities of Jean Paul. He has taken the colour of that upon which he fed, and now gives it back in intenser shades. His later translations from Jean Paul have been deeply over- laid with Carlyleisms. What may be called the machinery of Jean Paul's ro- mances is as strange as their form. Like Scott, he pre- 438 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. faces his works with a humorous account of the motive and the manner of their composition, and, however serious the subject, it is usually set in a comic frame. His cha- racters are few in number, but with little change, they are always the same company, and appear again and again in tragedy, comedy, or farce. Sometimes, as he says himself, they phiy their part upon the " cold Mont Blanc of aristo- cratic life ; " then, in a sheltered cottage in the valley, or in a shepherd's hut ; his favourite theatre is the quiet parsonage of a country minister, where he takes a part himself, and holds a wire that involves or extricates the mysterious motions of his puppets. One of his favourite modes of addressing the public is in a letter to one of his own fictitious characters, in which he indulges himself in all sorts of witty allusions and humorous remarks. His various works are like episodes, where we meet, in other and far different circumstances, our old acquaintances, who belong to one great whole, like characters in real life, who meet and part, and meet again. Those that we have met in their early years in one romance, we see again in a happy old age, or we listen to the eulogy that is pronounced by a successor upon their grave. The reader may be surprised that I have uniformly called Jean Paul a poet ; but, if the definition of poet be, " one that gives expression to what others feel ; " one, who interprets that in the heart which, like the inarticulate lisping of the child, cannot be made known for want of adequate expression, then he as truly deserves the name of poet as if every line he has written were measured and rhymed with another line. His great heart beat with the united pulses of all human hearts. He is the truest in- terpreter of joy and sorrow, love and grief ; and all those hidden feelings that are revealed by the poet, as the sun- beam penetrates the mine, and shows its hidden treasures. Finally, no poet's inward life is more distinctly made known than Jean Paul's in his works. In his elevated characters; in his Gustavus, his Albano, his Dehore. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 439 Like a solitary sage he looked out from his hermitage upon the ever-swelling and rushing waves of the literature and politics of that remarkable period in which he lived. Unmoved hy its passions, still and calm, he was like a holy prophet of its issue. Glowing for freedom, truth, and the happiness of man, yet never failing in the clear- ness of his understanding, or the firmness of his will. Full of scorn and hatred of all servility and all tyranny, yet ever free from the folly and madness of enthusiasm. With impartiality and justice he weighed the advantages of this world in the same scales in which he had placed the hopes of another. I have seen a cast of the Alps a few feet square, in which mountain and valley, river and lake, are represented in their true position and just pro- portions. The avalanche, the cataract, and the shepherd's little hut are there ; nothing is added, though much is left out ; but ah, how inadequate to represent those giant palaces of nature, those glorious masses of light and colour, rising in the blue depths of ether, close neighbours to the stars. Such a representation the present biography must bear to the real Jean Paul. May it induce those who have the power to become acquainted with him in his works. APPENDIX. PAETS I. AND II. I. (Referred to at page 168.) OF Kichter's " Bon-mot Anthology," a rich collection of the remarks of his seven pupils, only a small extract can be given. Of these, Kichter says he has written them down from many others, without adding to, or taking a word from, them : The ages of the children were: Leo Vogel, 15 years; George Cloter, 11; Carl Volkel, Hi ; Samuel Cloter, lOJ; Wilhelmine, 9 ; Fritz Cloter, 7; Emilie, 7. Wilhelmine. Men without colour are like diamonds without colour, the most beautiful. Fritz asks : Why God, who foresees that men will be wicked, yet gives them good things] Wilhelmine. The day with the sun is like the giant Polyphemus, who had only one great eye. The same. In our school it is like a Quaker meeting, where all may speak. Leo. Life is a clock, that is wound up and then runs down and George added, and in Heaven is again wound up. Leo. Abraham, at the sacrifice of Isaac, was like the Cartha- ginians, who sacrificed their children to Moloch or Saturn. Wilhelmine. God, alone, is a soul without a body ; and we, that is our souls, do not come into the grave, but into the body ; and Carl. God is the soul of the earth, and moves it, and the body is the grave of the soul. Wilhelmine. The countenance changes colour like the chameleon, from fear and anger. Samuel. Men are, like electricity, attracted by metals. u 3 442 APPENDIX. George. Men are bad in this world, and after death become better ; as crabs look black in their dwelling-place, the water, and become after death red and beautiful. George. People with deep sunken eyes are considered more capable of intellectual employments, as the mole, on account of her deep eyes, can go deeper under the ground. The same. As an angel bore the Loretto house, so also were the sciences in the dark ages carried into Italy. Samuel. The glass is the echo of seeing. Carl. Man has two fathers his own, and God. Wilhelmine. The earth is a great clock-work. Men are the wheels, and animals are the little teeth upon them. Leo. And the soul is the regulator. George. The sympathetic nerve is the chain that winds around the fusee*. George. The earth is God's Botany Bay, because we are here made better, or punished or rewarded. George. As every person thinks the whole time, it is incorrect to say one thinks more than another. Emilie. People who dress the most plainly are the wisest ; as birds, whose plumage is the least gay, sing more delightfully than others. Carl. Europe, that is half Catholic, half Lutheran, is a religious Centaur. Wilhelmine. We write with one end of the feather, after the goose has long before written with the other. George said of one who had often been whipped, that he had a chymical affinity with the stick. Leo. Some persons, through beating, are made to attract know- ledge magnetically, as iron is made magnetic through blows. Fritz. The world must be eternal, as God is eternal, and God must be in the world, as he is everywhere. Fritz. God is the provider for our table. George. The Confessional is the holy sepulchre, to which we make a crusade to obtain the forgiveness of our sins. George. The fire stolen from Heaven by Prometheus was the forbidden tree of knowledge. Fritz. The days of our life are the week-days, in which we work for the Sunday of the second life. Fritz. In this life we are only apprentices ; in the next we shall be masters. * The age of the speakers should be remembered. APPENDIX. 443 II. GLEIM. (Referred to at page 200.) JOHANN WILHELM LuowiG GLEIM was bora in 1719, in the Prin- cipality of Halberstadt. He lost his parents in infancy, and was educated at the charge of some benevolent families. After some time, he was appointed Secretary to the Chapter at Halberstadt, where he lived very agreeably. He corresponded with all the literary men of Germany, and used to assemble them around him at Halberstadt, where they used to enjoy poetry and life together. He was intimate with them all, for friendship was the element of his life. He was never married. His clever niece, Dorothea, so often celebrated under the name of Gleminde, kept his house. The war- songs that he published during the Seven Years' War raised his fame to the highest pitch. He drew, and established around him, a circle of young literary friends ; and his zeal for their social welfare, as well as their literary fame, knew no bounds. He had the rare talent of mixing with all classes and sorts of men, on the most kindly footing. His songs for the people show this. He was a philanthropist in the truest and noblest sense of the word. Two years before his death he became totally blind. In the eighty-fourth year of his age he took leave of his friends, and died tranquil and resigned. The Germans have given him the fairest of all titles, " Father Gleim." The following is extracted from Goethe's Tag-und-Jahres Hefte : " The groundwork of Gleim's character was a passionate benevo- lence, which he endeavoured to render active in word and iif deed, encouraging every one by conversation and writing ; labouring to diffuse a universal and pure feeling of humanity. He was a friend of all ; beneficent to the wretched, but more particularly the bene- factor of indigent youth. Frugal in his household, beneficence seems to have been the only taste on which he expended what was necessary to himself. Most of what he did was from his own re- sources ; more rarely, and not till the latter years of his life, he employed his name and reputation to acquire some influence with kings and ministers. " Altogether, we must admit that he had the sense of the duties of a citizen in the highest and most singular degree ; he held an important public post, and proved himself therein a patriot ; and towards the German Father-Land, and the world a true, genuine Liberal. 444 APPENDIX. " And further, as every religion ought to promote the pure and peaceful intercourse of man with man, and as the Christian Evan- gelical religion is peculiarly adapted to that end, he who constantly practises that religion of the upright, which was an integral part of his nature, might well and truly consider himself as the most orthodox of men, and might rest tranquilly in the profession of the established simple rites of the Protestant Church. " After all these lively reminiscences we went to see another image of the departed we visited the sick-bed of Gleim's dying niece, who, under the name of Gleminde, had been for many years the ornament of a poetic circle. Her sweet though sickly coun- tenance was in delicate harmony with the exquisite neatness of all around her ; and we had an interesting conversation on those de- lightful bygone days, and on the works and ways of her excellent uncle, which were ever present with her. " Lastly, to conclude our pilgrimage solemnly and worthily, we went into the garden, to the grave of this honest and noble old man, to whom it was granted, after so many years of sorrow and suffering, activity and patience, to rest in the spot he loved, sur- rounded with memorials of departed friends." From Mrs. Austin's Characteristics of Goethe. III. -' (Referred to at page 225.) THE fear of making my book too large has prevented me from giving more of the letters of the friends of Jean Paul than would allow the reader to understand their respective characters. The little that is said in the text of Madam von Kalb induces me to add some further extracts from her letters. In August, 1796, she wrote to him : " I had, perhaps, compelled myself not to write to you, if I had not something to impart that concerns you, that will make you rejoice, and will also be advantageous to you. The first is an extract from the letter of Wieland to Bottiger. " ' Tell our friend Jean Paul, that his literary visit was one of the sweetest hours of my life ; that he has immediately taken his place in my heart above Jean Jacques, and that I am as yet not cool enough to express in words what I think and feel about him. I rejoice inexpressibly that we shall this winter enjoy his personal society, and I hope the demon that pledges himself to me that we shall both find good in it is none of those lying spirits that the A doni Elohim of the Jews had in his Court service, who, when he would lead their kings and prophets upon the ice, made use of APPENDIX. 445 deceptive thought.' I take the most intimate part in your welfare, and therefore I have written this to you immediately, that you may make what use of it you please. I have your air a trow notes, but I cannot part with it, for in this another longing from the heart of Jean Paul is expressed. " I am not yet, but I hope I shall soon, perhaps, be sufficiently resigned *. Ah, I shall at last learn to understand my destiny, for always the same wounds are repeated. Perhaps you will answer me, if it is only a few lines, to tell me that my letter is received, and what I have further to fear or to hope from Jean Paul. " Herr Falk is here. I have not seen, and do not wish to see him. He has also given out a satirical almanac, with which they are here delighted ; but I will have nothing to do with any strange, heterogeneous nature any writings that degrade the mind. I do not even willingly read Wieland ; he proses always, and sometimes sleeps; and lowers the fancy always, and sometimes love. Then the words Law, Duty, Virtue, must be defined, and the Evangel of Love vanishes ; this is the reason that I cannot bear the four words. I am not willing to be reminded in the most distant manner of any but a pure existence. " Farewell, my young amiable philosopher, between Scylla and Charybdis ; between the Graces and the Syrens ; between the in- cense of glory and the intoxication of applause ; allured at the same time by the cadences of nightingales in concealing hedges, and the songs of the Muses in princely chambers. " Apropos, Buonaparte looks like you, only he is very small. I am glad of this, for the monster pleases me. " What have I yet to say ] Ah, not much ! Be wise as Minerva, happy as Apollo ! Do not smile ! you smile too beautifully ! The tones that your mind gives are sweeter without words than the sounds of the harmonica." .... In May, 1799, three years after the above, Madam von Kalb wrote, after receiving the Conjectural Biography: " I read your new book with wholly new pleasure and feeling ; and as I have called to you for three years, Come to me, so I now call again, Come to me, and remain with me ! I understand all. The deep, the light, the reflecting, the imagining. I also could add a page to your life, that might have been, had God sustained our love ! " Otto will come to me with his Amone, and will make me pre- sent in every one of your domestic festivals ; and if there is sorrow * To his refusal to return to Weimar. 446 APPENDIX. in the house, or a sick child, Hennine will send to me for the soothing counsel of my ever-present and active love. "And when I am weaker, and can no longer leave my solitary chamber, one or the other will spend the evening with me, and in confidential intercourse we will exchange our thoughts, our reading, and our experience. And when again, under the shadow of the linden trees, the fresh grass springs, and the children in the twilight interrupt their sports with short recollections of me, and the father asks at their return to the house, ' What has happened, and where have they played V it will be a saying in the village, ' that upon the grave of thy friend the children played most hap- pily and most securely.' " "June 19, 1799. "This is the day I expected a letter from you, and received none, but I will write what has occurred to me respecting your book *. " The Preface has beautiful thoughts. It may prepare for a better time in quiet dispositions ; but how hard it is, when men will have for themselves the Evangel of selfishness, but for woman the severity of the Law. There are also views of things that will have no effect. No caricature can improve or make moral, that is, calm, and happy men. The Wandering Aurora has pleased me much ; so has the Essay upon Dreams; and indeed all the Philosophical letters. I have written to Herder about them. " The Testament for Daughters is too light a work for you. I must write a testament for daughters, if I am ever so stupid as to know my own errors. The testaments of men, for daughters, sound about thus : ' You have no rights in life. There will be no love for. you ; you will be despised, or appropriated. You must love, and make one only happy ; but you dare neither have understand- ing nor will of your own. You must not manifest either wishes, joy, or sympathy; and the desires that you possess in common with us, in recollection will appear like guilt.' " I know nothing weaker or more ridiculous in a man than to make known such a knowledge of the female heart ; certainly not for purposes of injury, but for information. " The satire upon the authorship of women I find not entirely true. I may have nothing to do with either; and even my daughter shall not trouble herself; pride would forbid it. But what you do from self-interest does not make you get rid of our * The Conjectural Biography. APPENDIX. 447 souls. Like the devil, they will remain in eternity. The happy, loving woman, will be no author ; and to the unhappy no one will have recourse. Wherefore will you not, that women sustain the same troubles, and live by the same illusions as yourselves ? Ambi- tion has never the same power over a female heart as over a man's. She can never forget that she has a heart, and can love ! No illusion, no enthusiasm increases this consciousness of the highest ; and the love, of which men sing, is, with women, an eternal truth. " Jean Paul must take care that with his garden shears he does not prune the delicate plant too much. He cannot check true genius ; but he may increase its burdens, and accelerate many follies. Shall not women be, what they may and can be "? " It must be, that they have children, and cook, and stitch ; but the graces may unite with the understanding for all these pur- poses." Madam von Kalb, although Eichter calls her a disciple of Herder, was deeply imbued with the aesthetic doctrines taught by Goethe and the Schlegel school. Esthetics, as far as I under- stand it, is the pursuit and worship of the beautiful, as the perfec- tion of human life. All morality takes a subordinate station ; but religion is one with the perfect, or beautiful, and by aesthetics, or the love of beauty, the mind is able to soar to religion or immor- tality. Thus a finely-organized soul can exist only in a state of perfection or beauty. One may easily understand the practical consequences of this doctrine ; for as morals were subordinate to the love of the beautiful, and only finely constituted souls could have any affinity with each other, the relations of social life, if not happily formed, became subordinate, and were violated, or became the occasion of profound and terrible misery, as in Goethe's Elective Affinities. Few, like Ottilia, would choose the better part, and die, "because breathed on by unhallowed passion." The evil that Kichter most lamented in the aesthetic philosophy was, that it conspired with passion to deceive ; and men imagined that, as all purity was within, outward relations might be violated, without sullying the purity of eine schone seele. We sec indications of this philosophy in all Madam von Kalb'a letters ; and the letter that occasioned the rupture with Jean Paul avowed the aesthetic doctrine " that religion upon this earth con- sists in the perfection of all the powers, physical as well as spiritual, and that these powers should suffer no restraint, but the weak yield to the strong." Jean Paul's abhorrence of these doctrines, and of the immorality and misery in domestic life, Jhat might be ascribed to them, is ex- 448 APPENDIX. pressed in every one of his works, but particularly in a little tale, " The Secret Lamentation of the Men of Our Times," in which two young persons become attached to each other, with circumstances of singular interest. Their misery and shame, when they discover that they are brother and sister ; the remorseful agony of the father, and the contempt that takes the place of love in the breast of the injured wife, make the interest and instruction of the story ; but, like all narratives written for an express moral, it fails in that freedom and fulness of thought that distinguish his spon- taneous works. Speaking of domestic morality in Weimar, Paul says : " This is certain, a spiritual and more important revolution than the poli. tical, and far more murderous, is now beating in the heart of the world ; therefore is the vocation of an author, whose heart beats with wholly different principles and aims, so necessary, and de- mands so much heed and circumspection." Madam von Kalb's views of love were entirely of the aesthetic school ; but Richter had too much delicacy in his, to wish to marry a divorcee, and after his decided opposition to the divorce, on his second residence in Weimar, there was no further question about it. Madam von Kalb extended her friendship to Paul's wife ; and, although she afterwards demanded the return of her letters, their friendship did not wholly cease. PARTS III. AND IV. I. (Referred to at p. 257.) WIELAND was born in 1733 (just thirty years before Richter), in Biberac, in Suabia. His father was a Lutheran minister. In his 14th year he was sent to a cloister, where he penetrated deeply into the spirit of the ancients, and became acquainted with English literature. Everything conspired to make Wieland a poet his humble natal roof, hallowed by the presence of his father, a learned, patriarchal pastor ; the ancient cloisters of Bergen, the still mo- nastic Tubingen, his devotion to Sophia La Roche as to the idea of perfection, and the hope, ever retreating before him, but always kept in view, of one day consecrating himself to her, and to the APPENDIX. 449 highest virtue, as to one and the same thing ; his long residence in Switzerland, where he elaborated his works, and gave them the elegance, the clearness, and the natural grace, which cannot be attained by mere drudgery. These glad, bright regions of the golden time ; this paradise of innocence, when he regarded what he imagined and dreamed, as absolute reality, he dwelt on long ; but disappointments came ; he could not succeed in combining these high interests with the necessities of every-day existence ; the conflict with the outward world began, and after long struggle she accepted the actual as the necessary, and henceforth made war upon his former romantic dreams ; his idea of Platonic love, and upon all that cannot be shown to exist in reality. Henceforth he per- mitted no single impression to have dominion over him. Wieland's change of views may be in part attributed to his resi- dence with Count Stadion. His library, rich in modern French and English literature, helped him to descend from that ideal region, in which he loved to dwell with Sophia La Roche, and, after he had been wounded by what is called experience, he threw himself entirely on the side of the real. In his fortieth year he was invited by the Duchess Amelia to superintend the education of her sons ; and from this time he was assured of a life of leisure and independence, which was continued to him after he had done with his pupils, by a pension from the Duke. Wieland, in possession of complete literary leisure, longed for a more poetical retirement, and bought an estate in Osmanstadt, not far from Weimar. Man, born for society, often cheats himself with the sweet dream that he can live better, more joyfully in seclu- sion. In the excitable days of youth we imagine that solitude is the great refuge against ourselves, the grand remedy for the wounds we receive in the contests of life. It is a grave error. The expe- rience of life teaches us that neither the enjoyments of litera- ture nor art can fill the abyss of the soul. Wieland's happiness was interrupted by the death of Sophia La Roche, the daughter of his first love, and the excellent, careful partner of his life ; whom Jean Paul thought he could never survive. He did survive for the space of twelve years, but the solitude of Osmanstadt became too oppressive to his bereaved heart, and his friend, the Duchess Amelia, recalled him to herself. He was henceforth a member of her Court and house, and when, with others, he had to bear the afflictive event of her death, Court and city vied with each other to console him*. * From the Notes to Mrs. Austin's " Characteristics of Goethe." 450 APPENDIX. Wieland's hearts history, of which Jean Paul says he imparted the particulars to him, a willing listener, was in part his early and innocent connexion with Sophia La Roche, the grandmother, that Bettine mentions so often in her letters to Giinderode. She was the daughter of an eminent physician. Her father possessed an extensive and excellent library, and when she was only two years old he taught her to read by the titles of the books, as they rested on the shelves. Her parents gave her early religious instruction, and cultivated a love for all that was beautiful in nature or art. In her sixteenth year she was strikingly beautiful, and was sought in marriage by a learned Italian, who instructed her in the language and literature of his native land. At this time Sophia had the misfortune to lose her excellent mother, and her father became de- sirous to have her marriage completed ; differences arose, however, in consequence of religious scruples, Bianconi insisting that all the children of the marriage, daughters as well as sons, should be educated in the Catholic form of Christianity. The father of Sophia immediately annulled the engagement, and poor Sophia was obliged, in the presence of her grandmother, father and aunts, to destroy all the letters and souvenirs of her happy love ; the picture of Bianconi was cut into shreds, and a ring, set with brilliants, broken into pieces, and all committed to the flames. Her mother, who had been her tenderest and most sympa- thizing friend, died too early for the happiness of her daughter ; for she would, no doubt, have found a way to smooth all difficulties ; but Sophia, who would shed no tear in the presence of her stern relatives, retired to weep in the solitude of her chamber, where she struggled alone with new temptation. She received a note from Bianconi, urging her to a secret marriage, and a flight to his own country, to the bosom of a noble and loving family. He forti- fied his request by more than thirty letters from her father, where he had unconditionally promised him his daughter. Sophia would not leave her father without his blessing ; but in the depth of her soul, and in unconsoled solitude, she vowed constancy to the man who had done so much for her intellectual nature. With this view she desired to enter upon a noviciate, in order to pass her life in a cloister. Her father would not permit this sacrifice ; but he allowed her the uncontrolled use of her time, and to live in retirement, where she devoted herself to study, and to the sciences and accomplishments that Bianconi preferred. Sophia's disinclination to society obtained for her permission from her father to go with her sisters to live with her maternal grandfather, who was brother to the mother of Wieland. The death of the grandfather occurring soon after, Sophia entered the APPENDIX. 451 family of Wieland's father, where she lived, as her biographer ex- presses it, by her own economy. Young Wjeland came in the vacation to his father's house, and the beautiful maiden of nineteen inspired him with the most en- thusiastic passion. He was two years younger ; but Sophia could then appreciate his noble character ; a close friendship was formed between them, and even in old age they thanked God for having led them both under the same roof. Often they kneeled together, and devoted themselves in prayer to the eternal pursuit and worship of truth and duty. Wieland says, "It was an ideal, but a true enchantment in which I lived ; and the Sophia that I loved so enthusiastically was the idea of perfection embodied in her form. Nothing is more certain than that, if destiny had not brought us together, I should never have been a poet." They vowed to love each other as long as either lived, and virtue eternally. Sophia returned to her father's house, and Wieland to Tubin- gen ; but longing to see Sophia impelled him, at the end of two years, to return. He then went to Switzerland, where he lived eight years, but always without the prospects of any provision that would allow them to marry. At the end of this time Sophia gave her hand to Herr La Eoche. It does not appear whether her father's authority was again, as in the first instance, exerted ; or whether considerations of prudence influenced herself; but the marriage was a very happy one. She informed Wieland of it by a letter, and he seems to have been convinced that her upright and true heart could not have done otherwise ; and he prayed for the continuance of her friendship. " A friendship that had been so pure and disinterested need not be broken by another union, and in the land of the blessed, if never in this life, we shall meet each other again." Many years after Sophia's marriage Wieland visited her. As she sat at the window, there was a knock at the door ; a presenti- ment that it was her friend ran through her frame, and she called out to him to enter. At the well-known sound of her voice, Wie- land remained transfixed ; when she opened the door, and met him with the heartiest welcome, he stood speechless. Seeing her eldest son, a beautiful youth, he called him to him, and, bowing his head over that of the boy, shed streams of tears. Sophia's husband entered the room, when, taking the hands of Wieland and his wife in his, he pressed them together. The noble La Roche cemented the bond of their friendship, which endured yet many years. Sophia could not be otherwise than happy with a man so gifted 452 APPENDIX. with every noble quality, as the one with whom Providence had united her, although she married against the voice of her heart. She had hitherto lived in retirement, or in learned circles ; she was now introduced by her husband into the exclusive society of the German nobility ; and her knowledge of the world, gained by reading, was corrected by experience. Her truly enlarged mind rose above the conventionalisms and artificial distinctions of rank, and enabled her to see and acknowledge worth and talent, wherever it existed. After sixteen years' service at the Court of a German prince, where Sophia had every opportunity to form friendships with dis- tinguished characters, her husband retired to an estate in Offen- bach, the beautiful residence from which so many of Bettine 's letters are dated, and the letter was written that is published in the body of this work. Here she lived with her husband in the enjoyment of the quiet of domestic life ; in devotion to her favourite sciences, surrounded by a beautiful nature a poet called her house a temple of Euphrosyne, where the pious sacrifice flame was always lighted. Goethe, in his biography, gives an interesting ac- count of the manner of life at Offenbach, and of Madame La Eoche. Here, after thirty-five years of happy union, she lost her husband, and soon after the blooming youth of twenty-four years old, whom she mentions so touchingly in her letter to Jean Paul. In consequence of the French war, she lost the greater part of her fortune ; but her trust in Providence was so firm, that she never for a moment lost her cheerfulness. After thirty years' sepa- ration, she visited Wieland at Osmanstadt, near Weimar, where he was living at the time of Jean Paul's second visit to Weimar. Wieland had taken the daughter of Sophia La Roche Sophia Brentano, into that intimate friendship he had ever preserved with the mother ; and after, the death of both, he said, " What I have once tenderly loved never dies for me. I help myself with illu- sions. They are dead only to my outward sense, and that is cer- tainly painful." The life of Sophia La Roche was a high ideality, and age, instead of lessening it, only increased its pure and lofty pur- poses. She was a living proof of the immortality of the soul, for her life was so spiritual, that it must have come immediately from a higher sphere, and immediately returned there. Her deep religious faith and firm confidence in Providence, were immovable; hence her enthusiastic love of plants and all the works of God, and her knowledge of all the appearances and phenomena of nature. APPENDIX. 453 She was extensively acquainted with the sciences, well versed in ancient and modern history, and her knowledge of the philo- sophy of history, and observation of the fate of nations, as well as of eminent men, not only established the benevolence of her heart, but made her patient under sorrows, and grateful for her own happy destiny. Everything connected with the beautiful arts was infinitely dear to her. In early life her poems and pictures of touching scenes were charming. She held the purity of the female character to be the foundation of all domestic happiness ; without which no other female virtue could have its influence or power. She studied the science of edu- cation, not only through her tender interest in her own children, but to make her little books for the benefit of young people more useful. All these virtues are expressed in her writings, and make her one of the most distinguished female authors of Germany. They are not highly imaginative, but they recommend virtue and domestic happiness in a noble, simple, and attractive manner. Her stories are domestic scenes, after the manner of Richardson. She wrote many real and imaginary journeys for young people ; many stories to teach resignation under affliction ; books of instruction far young wives and housekeepers, and published many translations from the French and English. The female literature of Germany is rich in books of the kind above mentioned, and those of the Frau- lein La Roche are among the best. After her death, Wieland had the melancholy satisfaction of editing her whole works, and writing many prefaces and notes. Abridged from SchindeFs Biography. II. ( Referred to at p. 31 3. ) HERDER was the son of poor parents. His father was the teacher of a humble school for girls, " but an earnest, duty-fulfilling, honest man ; his mother, a sensible, industrious, quiet Hausfrau ; distinguished by her gifts of mind and person, and by accomplish- ments surpassing others' of her sex in lowly life." The history of Herder's youth is the often repeated tale of the unfolding of mind under every circumstance of oppression and want. In his father's family all the domestic business and the hours of reading were strictly regulated. If there was anything to be done, the children durst not excuse themselves. It must be done. It was only by strenuous industry that his father could make his small income meet the expenses of a large family. When his father was satisfied 454 APPENDIX. with him, his countenance expressed it ; and he laid his hand upon his head, and called him Gottes-Friede (God's peace). His name was Godfried. Herder's youth was so quiet and reserved, that his teacher thought him dull, and advised his father to bind him to some mechanical employment ; but he observed, that the young man kept his light burning late at night ; and, going into his room long after mid- night, he found the bed covered with Greek and Latin classics, open, as if they had been studied ; and the boy lying asleep in the midst, with the lighted candle in his hand. About this time the regiment was quartered in Herder's native place. The surgeon, a benevolent and enlightened man, was fa- vourably impressed by the young Herder, and offered to take him to Konigsberg, to study either medicine or surgery, and to obtain help for his already impaired eyes. The offer was received by his parents as a light from heaven in a dark night ; and, although Herder felt no inclination to surgery, he regarded this deliverance from his destitute and oppressed situation with joy. Immediately after his arrival at Konigsberg, his friend led him to an anatomical school, and the young Herder sank fainting upon the floor ; from henceforth he could not bear the name of surgery without a nervous shudder. As he returned from the school, he met an old schoolfellow, who was a student of theology, and resolved to present himself for examination to the theological faculty of the college. He was immediately admitted ; and, although his worldly possessions were only three Prussian dollars and eight groschen, he wrote to his parents, that he would support himself by his own industry. He kept his word, although he practised the strictest economy, and his food was often, for many days together, only bread and water. At the age of*twenty, Herder was chosen a teacher of the Domschule in Eiga, and began to preach. With true religious feeling, Herder knew how, in his preaching, to excite careless minds and insensible hearts. His themes were immortality, love to God and man, and every virtue. With soul-moving eloquence, the ornaments of a youthful fancy, and a persuasive voice, he seized irresistibly upon every heart ; while his fine speaking countenance, his eloquent eye and graceful gestures, heightened the impression made by his sermons. It would be delightful to follow Herder through his life ; but I wish to speak of him only in his union with his accomplished wife. In reading the lives of literary men and women, no one can avoid the melancholy conviction, that divorces, consequently unhappy mar- APPENDIX. 455 rages, are more frequent among them than any other class. The reasons that might be given for this would open a sorrowful page in the history of women. It is delightful to find, in the lives of Herder and his wife, two literary characters, living from youth to age in the most beautiful harmony of mind and of pursuit. Caroline helped her husband in his literary difficulties, sympathized in his disappointments, and vindicated his memory in an eloquent and touching memoir, pub- lished after his death. They were betrothed long before their poverty would allow them to marry. Herder had become governor to a young prince of Darmstadt, and, in accompanying him, on a visit to a kindred prince, he was invited to preach in the Court chapel. Caroline gives the following account of her first meeting with her future husband : " Herder was invited to preach. I heard the voice of an angel, and soul's-words such as I never heard before. In the afternoon I saw him, and stammered out my thanks to him. From this time forth our souls were one. Our meeting was God's work ! More intimately could not hearts be united than ours. My love was a feeling, a harmony. Ah, certainly no one knew him as I did, thanks be to God ! From this time forward we saw each other daily. I felt a happiness never experienced before, but also an indescribable melancholy; I feared I should never see him again ! " The twenty-fifth of August, we celebrated, in the little circle of his friends, his birth-day. He gave me his first letter, and with this letter I received the holiest gift this earth contained for me his love ! Ah, I could only thank God ! The twenty-seventh, he left Darmstadt, to go to Strasburg. At the moment of separation, I spoke with him for the first time alone. I5t no words were necessary ; we were one heart, and one soul ! No separation could ever divide us." It was upon this residence in Strasburg, for an operation upon his eyes, that Herder met Goethe, who has given a minute account of their intercourse in his Dichtung und Wahrheit. Caroline gives the following account of their marriage. "A worthy old clergyman married us, in the circle of my relations, by the rose-light of a beautiful evening. It was God's blessing that seemed audibly spoken over our union. The separation from my sisters was painful, but he indemnified me for all, and gave me a thousand-fold more than I deserved. I thought now with pain how, during our betrothment, I had tormented him with asking him to forget me ; for I had no fortune, and possessed no other 456 APPENDIX. advantages to make him as happy as he deserved. In every letter, he told me that I was the blessing of his life ; that I durst not, I should not leave him, for thus he would be alone in the world. That God would never leave us ; that He would bless our union." Thirty-three years afterwards, Caroline wrote to Jean Paul, on thia anniversary " I am to-day alone, and in the other world. It is the second of May, our marriage-day." Their marriage was indeed a happy one. Herder usually wrote by the side of his wife, and she assisted him in copying his rough sketches and first thoughts. Three years after his marriage, Herder was invited to Weimar to fill the place of Consistorial Rath, and Court preacher. Many reports had preceded Herder, of his heresy and contempt of forms. They had said, among other things, that he preached in boots and spurs, and that after every sermon he rode three times around the church and out of the door on horseback. Accordingly the church was crowded to hear his first sermon. All were charmed with his eloquence. Herder refers to the reports about him in a letter to a friend, where he says " I live in the whirlpool of business, a quiet and retired life, and preach in Dr. Luther's coat and surplice." Herder and his wife were both distinguished members of that delightful literary society that formed around the Duchess Amelia ; where they enjoyed the fairest evening hours, with spiritual men and accomplished women, and read the Poets, and acted Shak- speare ; and where we meet again Wieland and Goethe, Knebel and Einsiedel, Madam von Kalb, and all the names so familiar to us in the Life of Jean Paul. Herder's first separation from Caroline was occasioned by a journey to Italy, where he spent nearly a year. This was the occasion of many delightful letters. I translate only one : "To-day is th^day of our Verlobung in spirit when I brought you my first letter, my Caroline. Oh, a thousand, thousand times dearer than when, trembling, I gave it to you. Oh, believe it, thou much-tried, good, dear, richly sacrificing, heroic soul ! You have made me all that I now am ; have cared for all, and have given yourself to me a thousand times ! And what have I done for you 1 how can I repay you 1 Spare your health ; and I am certain, as of my existence, that we shall lead a new bridal life together, happier than the old ; for we are wiser, and in the future we shall be better. I am certain our short separation has been a present from the All Good. Remove all doubts from your heart, and be with me with thy good strong soul, as thy dear, beautiful form is always at my side." Herder wrote also to Jacobi at this time " I have a wife that is APPENDIX. 457 the tree, the consolation and happiness of my life. Even in quickly flying, transient thoughts (which often indeed surprise us) we are one ! She suffers only when she sees me suffer ; at other times she is all peace and activity, full of good courage and cheerful views." Herder's situation in Weimar was never favourable to his hap- piness. He was oppressed with a multiplicity of affairs, obliged to preach all kinds of occasional sermons, especially to eulogise the members of the Ducal family ; and he was constantly opposed in his efforts to improve the schools and churches under his care, and to place a barrier against the fashionable levity and irreverence for religion, that made giant strides in Weimar during the time of the revolution in France. Herder died, not of old age, but, as his wife expressed it, " from disappointment over his false position, his failed life ; of highly excited nerves, and a heart wounded and broken by the evils of the times." After his death, Caroline exerted all her power to collect ma- terials for his life, which she did not publish herself, but prepared them for a literary friend. She arranged his unpublished papers, and prepared them for a complete edition of his works ; saw her six sons well established in life, and her only daughter married, and then followed him, from whom her thoughts had never strayed*. I have given this little notice of the Herders to show that literary women are not necessarily eccentric or egotistical ; not necessarily mad enthusiasts, or careless housekeepers ; faithless wives, or ne- glectful mothers : but that they may perform all the duties of life as cheerfully, as gracefully, and as faithfully, as if they had never learnt the alphabet of literature. III. THE KAMPANER THAL. (Referred to at page 232.) THE Kampaner Thai is so beautiful a work that I wish to give a fuller account of it than I had room for in the text. It purports to be part of a journal, kept by the author in travelling through France, and is addressed to Victor, the hero of the Hesperus. Jean Paul was in the habit of addressing letters to his fictitious dtaracters, From the Life of Herder, by Carl L. Ring. 458 APPENDIX. as to his other correspondents ; and it seems as if it must have been difficult for him to draw the line between his living and his imaginary friends. To return. In this imaginary journey he meets a gentleman, Carlson, called the Rittmaster, who had been travelling with a party of friends, consisting of the baron Wilhelmi, his wife, wife's sister, and their domestic chaplain. Carlson had been deeply attached to Gione, the newly married wife of the baron ; and it is delicately hinted, that the attachment had been mutual ; but, some German conventionalisms interfering, she had married, although not very unhappily, against the voice of her heart. The party rest at an inn, where a bridal party are celebrating their nuptials in one apart- ment, while the young and beautiful daughter of the host lies in her shroud, in another. The sight of the pale face, with its crown of roses, affects Gione, whose nerves are already weakened, in such a manner as to produce a fainting fit, so long as to assuaie the ap- pearance of death. Carlson, whose love for Gione had taken the nun's veil, and he had built around his heart a cloister wall, is betrayed by the sight into the discovery of his concealed passion, which he expresses in an odtej " The complaint without consolation" and leaves the party before Gione had recovered from her swoon. Just now, Jean Paul overtakes him, and, having been later at the inn, tells him it was only a fainting fit that had assumed the ap- pearance of death. He returns to the party, and takes Paul with him. They all agree to travel on foot through the beautiful valley (Kampaner Thai), situated in the upper Pyrennees, at the termi- nation of which is the castle of the baron, the future home of Gione. The description of the valley is in Jean Paul's best man- ner, and the female characters are made known with exquisite touches. Nadine, the sister, to whom intercourse with the world and a happy temp'erament have given a playful, light, ever cheerful exterior, is contrasted with Gione, who- has a tender and earnest ex- pression, with a slender and perfectly Grecian style of beauty. Carlson is not an atheist, but his " complaint without consolation," has betrayed his disbelief of a future life, and his faith in anni- hilation. The chaplain is a disciple of Kant. Jean Paul undertakes to support the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and a future recognition of friends beyond the grave. After asserting many proofs drawn from analogy, the Kantian said, " that from the unity of the universe it may be concluded, that emigrants from the earth will visit every planet; and those delicate souls who shun the sun will find' themselves happy in Uranus : that the widely APPENDIX. 459 differing climates in the planets was no conclusion against the future residence of man upon them, because man can accommodate himself to every climate." Jean Paul answered, " I have a strong objection against the future voyage pittoresque through the planets ; we bear in our own breasts a heaven, full of constellations. There is in our hearts an inward spiritual world that breaks like a sun upon the clouds of the outward world. I mean that inward universe of goodness, beauty, and truth ; three worlds that are neither part, nor shoot, nor copy of the outward. We are less astonished at the incomprehensible existence of these transcendental heavens, because they are always there, and we foolishly imagine that we create, when we merely perceive them. After what model, with what plastic power, and from what, could we create these same spiritual worlds] The atheist should ask himself, how he received the giant idea of God, that he has neither opposed, nor embodied ? an idea that has not grown up by comparing different degrees of greatness, as it is the opposite of every measure and degree. In short, the atheist speaks as others, of prototype and original. "As there are idealists of the outward world who believe that perceiving a thing creates the thing itself ; so there are idealists of the inward world, who deduce the being from the appearing, the sound from the echo, instead of, on the contrary, inferring ap- pearance from reality, consciousness from the object itself. We take erroneously the power of analyzing our inward world for the ^reformation of the same ; that is, we think ourself the originator and founder, when we are only the genealogist. " This inward world, that is indeed more splendid and admir- able than the outward, needs another heaven than the one above us, and a higher world than that the sun warms ; therefore, we say justly, not a second earth, or globe, but a second world beyond this universe." Gione interrupted me " and every virtuous and wise man is a proof of another world." " And," continued Nadine, quickly, " every one who undeservedly suffers ! " " Yes," I answered, " that is what draws our thread of life through a long eternity. The threefold echo of virtue, truth, and beauty created by the music of the spheres, calls us from this hollow earth to the neighbourhood of the music. Why and wherefore were these desires given us] Merely that, like a swallowed diamond, they should slowly cut through our earthly covering. Wherefore were we placed upon this ball of earth, creatures with light wings, if, instead X 2 460 APPENDIX. of soaring with our wings of ether, we are to fall back into the earth- clods of our birth ? " Carlson asked : " But could not our spiritual powers be given us to preserve and heighten the enjoyments of the present life 1 !" " To preserve 1 " I answered," as if an angel would be imprisoned in the body to be its dumb servant ; its stovewarmer and butler ; its cwmnier and porter at the door of the stomach ! Shall the ethereal flame merely serve to fill the circular stove with life's warmth ; obediently burn and warm ; and then become cold and extinguished 1 Every tree of knowledge is a Upas tree to the body, and every refinement a slow poison infused into the cup of sensual pleasure ; but, on the contrary, corporeal needs are the iron key to freedom of soul ; the stomach is the rich forcing-glass of future bloom ; and the different animal impulses are only the earthly steps to the Grecian temple of our higher nature. " For enjoyment, do you say 1 That is, we receive the food of animals to satisfy the taste and hunger of the gods 1 The part of us that is of earth, this indeed, like the earthworm, is filled and nourished with earthly food. All the conditions of our earthly existence must be complied with, ere the demands of the inward nature can be made known. Is the bellowing animal circle fed, the animal contest finished ; then the inward being demands its nectar and ambrosial bread ; but if this inward being nourishes its appetites with earthly food alone, they become avenging angels, or change to a god of hell that impels to self-murder, or is destroyed in a poisonous mixture of all joys. For the eternal hunger in man, the unappeased longing of his heart, demands not richer, but other food. Thus our indigence is not satisfied with the quantity, but depends on the species of the food. The imagination can paint itself a degree of satisfaction, but it is not happy in the accumulation of all possessions, if they are other than truth, beauty, and " But the finer souls ? " said Nadine. I answered : " This discrepancy between our wishes and our rela- tions, between the soul and the earth, remains a riddle if we continue; and if we cease to live, a blasphemy. Strangers born upon mountains, we consume in lowly places, with unhealthy heimweh (home sickness). We belong to higher regions, and an eternal longing grows in our hearts at music, which is the Kuhreigen of our native Alps." . . . "From hence what follows?" asked the chaplain. " Not that we are unhappy, but that we are immortal ; and this world urithin us, demands and manifests a second, without us ! Ah, what can we not say upon this second life, whose beginning APPENDIX. 461 is so evidently in this, and that so wonderfully doubles our joys'! Wherefore does a certain higher purity of character disable us from being always more useful, as, according to Herschel, there are suns to which no earths belong 1 Wherefore is the heart consumed and broken by the long, feverish, but infinite love for an infinite object ; and only alleviated with the hope that this heart sickness, like the physical, will be stilled with the ice of death, and after- wards raised 1" " No," said Gione, with a voice trembling with feeling, " it is not ice, but lightning ; that, when the heart is laid on the altar as a sacrifice, falls from heaven and consumes it, as a proof that the sacrifice is well pleasing to God." I know not why, but her touching voice and eye entered my soul, and totally interrupted the concluding links of my chain of argument. Nadine, who is usually victorious over all emotion, was touched by her sister's voice. She reached her hand into a neighbouring garden, and took from under the hairy leaf of a potato branch a large, night butterfly, and showed it to us with a calm and tender smile. It was the so-called death's-head. I stroked the depressed wings and said, " It had its birth in Egypt, the land of mummies and graves ; it** bears a memento mori upon its back, and a miserere in its plaintive note." " It is, nevertheless, a butterfly," said the chaplain. Upon Gione's face again rested that reflective calmness that made her, through the silence of her sorrow, so infinitely beautiful and great. " Once you said the female Psyche, although pierced through with burning iron, should not beat violently and con- vulsively her wings, for thus she would destroy her exquisite, un- ruffled beauty ! Ah, how true a word !" At this moment, the already-mentioned ode of Carlson's is read, in which he laments the annihilation of so much beauty and truth, and avers his inconsolable sorrow. Jean Paul resumes. I cannot tell thee, my Victor, how painful, how monstrous and horrible the thought of an annihilating death, of an eternal grave, for this noble form, in all its spiritual beauty, now appeared to me ! If Carlson was right, this innocent soul, that had never been happy, would pass from its prison upon the earth, to its hollow prison under it. Men often bear their errors, as their truths, about in words, and not in feeling ; but let the believer in annihilation place before him, instead of a life of sixty years, one of sixty minutes; then let him look upon the face of a beloved being, or upon a noble and wise man, as upon an aimless hour-long appearance ; as a thin shadow, that melts into light, and 462 APPENDIX. leaves no trace ; can he bear the thought 1 No ! The supposition of imperishableness is always with him. Else there would hang always before his soul, as before Mahomet's, in the fairest sky, a black cloud ; and as Cain upon the earth, an eternal fear would pursue him ! I continued but all argument was now changed to feeling; " yes, if all the woods upon this earth were groves of pleasure ; if all the valleys were Kampaner valleys; if all the islands were blessed, and all the fields Elysian ; if all eyes were cheerful, and all hearts joyful yes, then no ! even then, had God, through this very blessedness, made to our spirits the promise, the oath of eternal duration ! But now, oh God ! when so many houses are houses of mourning, so many fields battle fields, so many cheeks are pale ; when we pass before so many eyes, red with weeping, or closed in death ; Oh ! can the grave, that haven of salvation, be the last swallowing, unyielding whirlpool 1 No, the trampled worm dares raise itself towards its Creator, and say, 'Thou durst not create me to suffer alone ! ' " " And who gives the worm the right to make this demand ] " asked Carlson. Gione answered softly, " The All Good himself, who has given us compassion, that speaks aloud in us for all ; and which alone would give us a hope, a claim upon him ! " This gentle and beautiful word could not immediately calm me. About my inward eye collected the forms of those whose hearts had been without guilt, as their lives without joy ; who had not attained one wish of their innocent souls, and were now lying under the snow of the past ; for they had been like men who, in freezing, try to sleep. And the forms of those who have loved too well, and lost all, like the beautiful one near me ; and so many others, who are most surely martyred by destiny, as the beautiful flower Nar- cissus is consecrated to the god of Hell ! Then I remembered your true remark, " that you never heard the words sorrow and the past, spoken by a woman, without at the same time heaving a sigh over the eternal union of those two words," for women, in the narrower theatre of their plans, and with their ideal wishes, build more than we do upon the worth of others, and have to suffer for more failures than their own. The sun sank deeper behind the mountains, and the giant sha- dows rose like birds of night out of their eternal snows ; I took the hand of Carlson, and looking in his beautiful, manly face, I said, " Ah, Carlson, upon what a blooming world do you throw your im- measurable gravestone, that no time can lift. Your two difficulties, which are founded upon the necessary uncertainties of men, if APPENDIX. 463 solved, would only have the effect to destroy our faith ; which is the solution of a thousand other difficulties; without which our exist- ence is without aim, our pains without solution, and the Godlike trinity in our breast, three avenging spirits. From the formless earthworm, up to the beaming human countenance; from the chaos of the first day, up to the present age of the world ; from the first faint motion of the heart, to its full, bold throbbing in the breast of manhood, the invisible hand of God leads, protects, and nourishes the inward being ; the nursling of the outward ; educates and polishes, and makes it beautiful and wherefore? That when it stands as a demi-god in the midst of the ruins of the temple of the body, upright and elevated, the blow of death may prostrate it for ever, that nothing shall remain from the corpse-veiled, the mourn- ing and mantled, immeasurable universe, but the eternally sowing, never harvesting, solitary spirit of the world I One eternity, look- ing despairingly at the other ! and in the whole spiritual universe, no end, no aim ! And all these contradictions and riddles, whereby not merely the harmony, but the strings of creation are tangled, must we take, merely on account of the two difficulties, that indeed our annihilation cannot solve ! * Beloved Carlson ! into this har- mony of the spheres, that is not over, but ever around us, will you bring your shrieking discord 1 See, how gently and touchingly the day departs, and how holily the night comes ? Oh, can you not be- lieve that even thus our spirits shall arise from the dust, as you once saw the full moon rise from the crater of Vesuvius ? " Carlson touched accidentally the strings of Gione's lute that he carried. Gione took it with one hand, and gave him the other, while she said in a low tone " Among us all, will you alone be tormented with this despairing faith? You, who deserve one so beautiful?" Her words touched the buried love of his long-closed heart, and two hot drops fell from his blinded eyes. He looked at the moun- tains, and said, " I can bear no annihilation but my own ! My heart is of your opinion ; my head will slowly follow." The party now drew near the castle, the future home of Gione, which was already illuminated, and filled with music to receive its mistress; and the book closes with the celebration of her nuptials f. Jean Paul called the Kampaner Thai the living work of youth. In it, the proofs of immortality are drawn more from feeling than from philosophical investigation. In the Selina, which was begun Carlson's two difficulties were the uncertainty of our union with the body, and of our union with friends in a future world, f This short extract will give the reader but an imperfect idea of the work. 464 APPENDIX. on the burial-day of his son Max, he intended it should be other- wise. The same party are introduced, with the changes that would naturally take place in thirty years. Gione, the beloved of Carlson, is dead, but in her daughter Selina she has left a full echo of her heart, and a bright reflection of her form. Her voice also resembles her mother's, and she enhances the likeness by always wearing her mother's favorite colours. Upon Carlson, who had borne his love-veiled heart into many lands, time had left few marks. From the melancholy shadows that hovered over his noble countenance, and the traces of pain about the firmly closed mouth, it was difficult to determine whether his sorrow had been recent, or remote. Carlson had at length married a lady of the court of Albano and Idoine, and was the father of two sons. He had become a firm be- liever in a future life ; but his eldest son, Alexander, professed his father's ancient faith in annihilation ; and on Jean Paul's visit, with which the book commences, this faith is combated with philoso- phical arguments and poetical illustrations of the most beautiful order. Paul says, among other beautiful things, that " our investigations of our immortality are too often held in a time of sorrow and mourning, when we seize the proofs from spiritual necessity, and therefore they are not transparent. The graves of others are like icy mountains, that travellers visit with veils upon their faces. "My principal exertion in Selina has been, to gain a height, where the prospect may be open on every side, where the glance may be freely thrown into the grave, into earth and heaven. En- deavour to free the mind from systems, and early prejudices, and then look boldly around. Do you find no consolation near, rise and seek it higher ; like the bird of paradise, who, when his feathers are ruffled by storms, rises higher, where none exist." Speaking of the church, he says : " To the crucifixion and girdle of thorns, they should add hopes and joys ; or flowers, as well as herbs. In the vineyard of the Lord they grow herbs and emetic wine ; but the little Hamburgh piece of land, and the little church flower-plot is wanting, as dteerfulness is wanting in religion." IV. (Referred to at p. 246.) THE friendship between Otto and Jean Paul was one of the most beautiful that literary history has made known to us. But the fre- quent outbreaking jealousy of Otto, at what he imagined approach- APPENDIX. 465 ing coldness in Paul, was the occasion of many letters that disclose the generous and forbearing spirit of his friend. As these letters would have taken too much room for the body of the work, I have placed some extracts from them in the Appendix. Otto's were written immediately after Paul finally left Hof, to accompany his brother to Leipsic. "You have appeared to me, my.Richter, in these latter times, to be no longer the same. Inspired by fame, you only now and then returned to yourself and to me; when, in a moment of emotion, your countenance itself (but probably under the thought of separa- tion) painfully declared it. Your short letters, if you were neces- sarily absent, wounded me ; and when in the evening you came, our conversation was constrained and one-syllabled. I missed every- where the accustomed warmth, and our former life : we had become strangers to each other. Thus we lived near each other, in different houses, and nothing but the near neighbourhood seemed to bring us together. I felt as if I must withdraw in some degree of self- dependence, within myself, and not advance too submissively ; thus I endeavoured to harden myself in your absence, but never in your presence. I consented that you should live with others, but a secondary sympathy through narration I could not give up. I said, as I withdrew into myself, man can have nothing nearer than him- self; he must, let him be what he will, have a reliance upon him- self; he must be self-grounded. If he would be self-consistent he must advance and rise by himself. The judgment that he must pass upon himself can be formed through no foreign help ; he must therefore depend solely upon himself. " Bank and station appeared to exert an increasing influence upon you, and you appeared to give into the pretension to both that distinguished and accomplished talent establishes. You believed, that you penetrated all things, (but sometimes you yield to first im- pressions that you rarely contradict with the second,) and, as you did not betray yourself you thought I should not perceive your feel- ings ; but I knew quickly all that you felt, for all that interests so deeply, makes us penetrating and sharp-sighted* " When I wrote the above, I said to myself yes, we are for ever divided but you will never find a man, a friend who will love and understand you better Ah ! there is much passed, that will never return. The most precious bloom and consciousness of beauty in every thing, in every being, when once past, never never returns all disposition, every effort, every exertion to recall it helps nothing but to make the loss more deeply felt. In vain we stretch * There are many more charges, too long to be inserted. Paul's answer makes them apparent. x 3 466 APPENDIX. out our hands, nothing returns but the longing and the shadow, that vanishes when we would hold it. " At that time, long passed, when sleeping together, we never thought of speaking ; we thought not of entertaining each other. I neither saw, nor feared, nor thought, nor felt, that you could descend to me ! Ah, then it was other and better than now ! Now I sit alone, and think of those lost times of freedom and equality. But since I have been compelled to understand that our roses are withered, I have gained self-reliance, that came not indeed from reason, but from necessity ; and I am obliged to acknowledge that I am reduced to myself. " In that early time, when you found me in the upper apartment; when we were pressed to impart to each other ; and if we were silent it was not oppressive, and we parted again, strengthened and joyful. Formerly, you enjoyed for me as for yourself; now, for yourself alone. Formerly, the fleeting and changing joys of the moment were prolonged, and received a greater value from the thought of repeating and enjoying them again with me. Think not that I do not miss this communion. That I have not reminded you of it, was because I would only receive the gift with the double value, that generosity makes itself doubly happy, when it imparts to another. Formerly, you were more lenient towards every one you esteemed what every one gave, according to his good will, and not after the measure of his mental riches now you demand, beside the gift, that the giver should be rich. Now you take consciously, what you formerly received unconsciously. " By degrees your letters became colder, hastier, more selfish self-sustained, measured, prudent, passing more ceremoniously over the present, and anticipating the future with no animating hope and in your letters the cold you would more frequently come, if you did not reluctantly recollect yourself, than the intimate and pre- cious thou (DO). " I am not susceptible ! you do not yet wholly understand me ; and my worst and best sides, not justly. " If you should return again you could not alter. The past will never return ! The tender, once blooming, but not perennial past, never, never ! There is a self-confidence, a repose in oneself that suffers every man to be what he can be ; and to mine belongs this faith in, this clear perception of an unchangeable destiny. I know too well that it depended most upon me ; but yet, somewhat upon you. I have never, never believed you inconstant, and never will. Say, always, that I do you injustice ; say, that I misunderstand you; but yet I cannot conceal from you that I believe you have not yet left all the errors of your life behind you ; that it seems to me as if APPENDIX. 467 you stood very near the last ; and that it is my fervent wish and hope, if you conquer it, or can ever conquer it, that we should again approach each other. " Be not angry on account of what I have written ; or if you are, and must be tell me so at least be not silent this time, not silent. In future, as often, and as long as you will. But if you are silent if you can be angry with me, yet I will love you as formerly, as now, unalterably, as none other ! eternally ! eternally ! " Thine ! OTTO." Eichter answered immediately, and would not, by a single day's delay, allow Otto to think he was wounded. " Dear Otto : Your letter gave me, occasionally, little shudders ; but it is well that you should lay before me the whole web of your errors, that I may unravel them. May you never, in future, weave a single thread that shall cut into your heart ! How have you mis- understood me, but always from love ! and all that gives me pain in your letter, is your sorrow. " I will now go through with all the objections against me in your letter, either to acknowledge or remove them this is the only way to relieve the oppressive fulness "of my heart. " ' R. appears to me so absorbed by fame as not to remain wholly himself.' I have often thought that to many I should appear thus, and that they would thus represent me. But I assure you, my Otto, my inward being cannot, by all the laurels in the world, be raised one inch higher than it was before the publication of the ' Mummy.' * I have a humility within me that no man can guess, and, that is not a victory over, but a necessity of my nature ; as I alone know how to separate my industry, my added growth of years, from my natural powers. Towards the B s, towards Renata, towards your family, I am as I have always been ; but when the mercantile, despising, money-loving, egotistical Hofers came, then, not my intellectual nature, that the public alone have praised too much, but my moral nature arose, and compared the Hofers with strangers ; and I could not forget how they formerly, and indeed always have treated me, and how they despised and deserted my poor mother, in her poverty. Remember that the contempt, (a contempt that I felt much more strongly in my poverty,) was only expressed against arrogance, at least against the H s, never, never against thee or thine ! * The Mummy was another name for Siebenkas, or Flower, Fruit, and Thorn- pieces. 468 APPENDIX. " ' Evenings when we met, we sought painfully for conversation he appeared to let himself down to me j sought to talk politics, to speak of the peace,' &c. " This suspicion had been fearful to me if I had guessed it, and I should have been altogether silent, or remained away. But with you, my Otto, I felt always that phantasying freedom to speak either about everything or nothing. I cannot tell you how happy I went from you, because I had been excused the trouble and ennui of seeking after conversation. Me, poor innocent, how pitiful my quiet satisfaction now appears to me ! I asked about the peace, because the newspapers torment me, and I read them very unwil- lingly, and your opinion was more valuable to me than my own ; and the idolatry in these for the, to me, scarcely human French, permitted me no questions. Politics or history always turned a new side towards us, and was more prolific than any other subject. Then our Schwarzenbach conversation had the double charm of ex- changing mutually our novelties, from the eight days' separation. Your judgment upon politics, and not my own, was the only one that I had faith in. I never thought that friendship need entertain, or that silence was a sign that the heart was cold. " Of the ' letting down,' had my heart, as my understanding, no sense never a thought. Ah ! how can I represent to myself such an idea ? Yes, our personal separation was indeed a happiness if such a monstrous, infinitely painful suspicion was to continue to gain strength. Or, if not the separation, a letter, such as you have written. " ' Concealing my departure.' This you do not understand. I do not know whether you are acquainted with the fearfully destroying power of emotion, that the excitement of imagination leaves. What I see, and do not think about, I can bear ; but if the object turns from the eye to the fancy, which is the key of my heart, then the weakening power of emotion is so great that I seek levity instead of tenderness, merely that I may not think. I could write sheets upon this subject. Formerly I loved the storms of feeling; but no longer, for they destroy. I ask for little from the world that I have already tasted ; less on account of the pain than the physical conse- quences. Emotion is never wholly bitter when the love therein makes it sweet ; but I would deny it, if it injured others. " The last Sunday I was with you there arose in me a whole world of tears as I looked at you ; and, as I saw in your expression the same emotion, I could look no longer, but stifled my tears and left you rather. " ' He believes that he has discovered everything.' I believe it, never ! As I know that, on account of my imagination, I see APPENDIX. 469 nothing justly in the beginning ; and also that at first all things men, places, books, music, appear to me too good. " ' He considers me vain.' I have never found this vanity exer- cised towards me. / was satisfied with everything in you, and thought you knew it. I never think, when I love any one, of assur- ing him of my esteem. In the ecstacy of love, I see nothing, I think not of appearances, I merely rejoice. When I made you guilty of vanity, and wrote you a cold letter, it was when you were at Bayreuth. " ' Ah, there is much past that will never return.' Every stroke of the clock is to me the funeral bell of a past emotion, but also the baptismal bell of a new one. Ah, the twenty years' feeling of friendship, the twenty years' delight of love are past, and will enjoy no earthly morning ; but as old stars go down, new ones rise. No emotion remains the same, but the new-born are sweeter ; and the heart, if it is more unhappy, is not colder than of old. Upon this subject I could write a book. Nothing fades ! The growing plant throws off its leaves in harvest, but it blossoms again, and at length is a perfect tree. Man has many springs, and no winter. " ' Why do I tell you so little of myself.' Ah, innocent as a child do I stand before thee. The eternal repetition of my / was hateful to me, as I could only speak of my works. Every day the individual features became worse, and I gave you, unvrillingly, a history, that as I became more accustomed to it, appeared only a perpetual abstract of the same thing ; and, further, I did not think you ex- pected it " I have read yours, and this letter again. Mine does not satisfy me. In yours I find excellent remarks, and a love that I can never forget, although the same faults that you reproach me with, namely, upon you alone has my new relation with the public produced a change. .... " I never mingle you with others ; my feeling for you is unique, and belongs to no other human being. Often when I hear music, and long for my Hofer friends, you alone come before my heart ; and it is always, as it was lately, in a dream, when Kenata appeared grown old, and your younger brother led Albretch with swollen lips ! At last you came ; and for joy loudly weeping, I fell upon your neck, and awoke ! " Only when I need to, shall I write. Ah, that is always. But I have no time ; and when the need is strongest, I had rather not write, but phantasie on the piano; that gently quiets the longing that writing increases. Ah, every year my love for you increases, becomes purer and nobler, spite of the faults that I discover in you. 470 APPENDIX. I would that it were the same with you ! When in the spring I again find myself in the blooming circle of your love, and the old, disturbing relations have passed into pure benevolence, then we shall find no firmer love and joy, but a higher, a greater, a more heavenly and I willingly give the past for the future. " Nevertheless, you only are right. I fail often without knowing it. There are also other reasons why you misunderstand me. I have more faults than you know. Until now I have only given negative answers ; to the positive belong a book. How strange it has been the last year with my inward being, no one can guess. Enough. I give you again my hand, and say, forgive me, for / have nothing to forgive ! Forget your pain, and stand by me eternally as I by you ! " R." V. (Referred to at p. 359.) JEAN PAUL kept a record of the remarks of his children, when they were quite young. I select a few. Odilia, three years old. After speaking of God, said : Ah, dear God ! I prayed, make my mother sleep well. When they asked how God looked ] I answered : More beautiful than the sun ; than the starry night ; than any dress, that they might get an idea of the Infinite, without corporeal existence. Odilia. I will be a thousand times good to thee ! I will be a hundred gulden good to thee ! Emma, five years old. I love thee so well so well as a great piece. I love thee as good as thou art ; I cannot love thee more ! I told them my father had punished me because I drew a key from the door. What would you do, if your children were to do sol Max. I would throw them out of the window. / will, then, throw thee out, I said. Max. No. For then I could not throw mine out. Mother to Max. Why did you not work this morning] Max, five years old. Why did you not tell me to work this morning instead of now ? I said : your father and mother work without any one command- ing them to work. Max. But the dear God commands you to work. Max said, angrily, he would not bring in the coffee. I repeated the order, and he went ; but said, as from revenge, that I had made him tell a lie ; for he had said, he would not bring in the coffee. I said : Now in the spring the Chriatldndchen has no presents. APPENDIX. 471 Max. The dear God gives everything himself, and does not need the Christkindchen in the spring, when everything is so beautiful. Odilia came sobbing, and threw herself on the sofa. " Do you know the shoemaker's little girl is dead ] I wish I were myself dead !" After an hour, I said, if I were to cut a little place on your finger with my knife, and you saw the blood, you would not wish fo die. Odilia. I am not so sorry now; and as she is at last dead, we will leave her. Max. The dear God has made us, and will kill us ! What then can help] Max, when asked to pray, said, " I will think in the night will not God hear 1 ? Somebody asked, what they would do if father and mother were dead] Max answered : We would weep. And what else ] Max. We would go out a little in the street. &c., &c. Eichter had a peculiar manner of clothing his requests in a garb of pleasantry and humour. I translate only one, a billet to his brother-in-law. " Day before yesterday the academy of sciences in Munich offered a prize of two ducats for the solution of the prize- questions, ' What is the best dish in Bayreuth ?-' and ' What is the best drink in the world]' As a member of the academy, I an- swered the question, ' that the best dish is a ham cured by my jPraw-sister, and the best drink is the beer that my brother sends me.' To-day, by the running post, I expect to receive the two ducats, of which you shall have three, dear brother, upon condition that you send me your splendid beer, soon, often, and for a long while to come ! " VI. (Referred to at page 413.) ONE other journey of Eichter's deserves a place, because it has been the occasion of a very pleasant description of the amusements of the court of Kurland, published by Cotta in the Ladies' Pocket-book ; and shows, that the cheerful, hospitable, country life at a German 472 APPENDIX. court, is very much like the country life of the wealthy classes in England. Jean Paul was rewarded, in the year 1819, for the want of & spring journey, by the splendid blue harvest weeks in Lobichau, the estate of the Duchess of Kurland, where, with her three daughters and her sister, the Countess Eliza von der Keck, and a multitude of dis- tinguished visitors, literary men, artists, and beautiful women, they lived after the true old German custom, in princely hospitality. I translate from the printed account. " If I should now tell you, that a quarter of a hundred strangers have made the castle their autumn quarters, and that sometimes on Sundays thirty-five guests sit down in the dining saloon, you would not wonder if I should go on to say, that there are not many ex- amples of guests remaining only a few days. Besides those from the neighbouring city, who can come and go when they please, there are many, like myself, who stay from the 31st of August to the 17th of September. There are others, with families, who have been here four, five, six weeks. But at last, dearest, I will surprise you with the fact, for you cannot yet guess the reason of the union of so many people in one place, so that guests of every species sit, or wander about. Counts and countesses, barons and baronesses, doctors of medicine and doctors of theology, doctors of justice and laws, pre- sidents and painters, sons of the muses, poets, all with, or without, wife and children. For the present, to mention only the poets, there are Schink, Tiedge, and myself. .... " But, my good reader, you would know, from a true hand, the Duchess of Kurland, and how a princess, who can summon together such a wide circle, can hold them fast in a ring of enchantment. Her name would often be pronounced with delight in the whole of Europe, but she loves rather to bloom in the midst of the sur- rounding blossoms of her daughters ; for whoever would look with penetration behind the enchanting eye, and deeper than the beau- tiful face, where the soul, with its peace and mildness and love, dwells, would find the face faded little by time, for the inward keeps the outward young. " But I will describe the Lobichau daily life itself, and begin in the morning, when all is apparently solitary and calm. Every guest breakfasts in his own room, and merely sees from his window, if, like myself, he has one upon the balcony, ladies wandering at that cool morning hour in the park ; or a few chambermaids, who are not yet before the hot fire, engaged in folding and plaiting their mistresses' white dresses. Many gentlemen, who belong to the learned class, are at work among their papers ; but if it is with APPENDIX. 473 them as with me, they bring little to pass. A little later, morning visits begin from the gentlemen to the ladies, such as from me to my friend the Fraiilein von Ende, whose apartment, with that of her son, is close to mine. The princesses, who live in the adjoining palace of Tannefeld, now receive visits from young gentlemen, or from me. The Duchess Dorothea sits in her chamber, and reads and writes. " All this goes on after the early private breakfast, and before the call to the general breakfast, that takes place about twelve o'clock. Many, among whom I place myself, are of opinion that the word breakfast is altogether unjust, for apparently this is what used to be called, after the good old custom, although an hour later, the German dinner. It consists of a multitude of warm dishes, such as are to be served at what used to be called the German supper, at six o'clock ! but which is now, an hour later, called our dinner, and differs from the breakfast, not by the greater variety of dishes, but by more distinguished splendour in the service, which for the stomach, in its reckoning of time, has little weight. Whoever, from love to the old customs, or from any other cause, prefers the old dining-hour of two or three o'clock, may remain away without ex- cuse, for all may come and go ; and conversation and dressing goes on, free from all court restraints. " I consider the princess happy who can wear a light hat, free from the heavy weight of a royal crown, for she can bow her head without inconvenience to the humblest field-flower of joy, or raise it to the highest star for devotion. The canopy of the throne is open to the prince, and leaves him some little freedom of prospect ; but the courtier is often more closely imprisoned by the flowery chain of favour, than by the fetters of displeasure. The princess is bound, at the same time, by the hereditary golden chain of rank, the silken cord of sex, that enfolds her like an ornament, and the iron ring of conventional custom. " Freedom descends here to little things ; for, say what you will, dearest, it is very agreeable to a literary counsellor like myself, if he is about to appear at court, and has no three-cornered hat, and no shoes, and consequently would have to borrow them, to be able to appear as he is. Wonderful indeed is it, that at court, where everything rounds itself into a circle, the hat alone must show its three-pointed corners, or that the throne should be a Vesuviiia, which, it is well known, can only be ascended in shoes. But what is the absence of extensive or minute forms of constraint to the blessed power of freedom of speech 1 Fair reader, you maj r sit at the table at Lobichau, or afterwards upon the sofa, and attack or 474 APPENDIX. defend any opinion you please. You may be for, or against mag- netism, for, or against the Jews, for, or against Ultras or Liberals. Yes, you can, in the last circumstance, if you are a lady, raise your beautiful voice the loudest for liberalism; no one will say anything against it, or at most, give his reasons. There happened a political contention, where all fought together the learned, princesses, and the other ladies; when the always calm and cheerful Dorothea entered upon the theatre of war. Immediately the burning beams and opposing lights, that were rushing together, sank apart, and changed into a mild, pure radiance, in which all could see and re- joice. This freedom in social conversation, as in social enjoyment, is now the Contract social in Lobichau. Give but freedom, and both joy and knowledge will advance of themselves. The tree of freedom supports the clusters of the vine of joy, as well as the branches of the tree of knowledge. " I remark, first, that we have not yet risen from the table of the so-called breakfast, where, if conversation succeeds, it may endure some hours. Afterwards, every one goes where it may seem to him good ; into his study or his reading apartment, where he may pro- vide himself from the select French and German library of the duchess, or into the library itself; or, if it be a lady, into her dressing-room, to prepare for the evening dinner ; or, as I often do, into the carriage with the Countess Eliza von der Reck * where I see, in this distinguished woman, in her pious will, her firm faith, and warm love, a wholly different being than in the journals of Biesters or Nicholai ; or at last I, and many others, go to Tannefeld to the princesses, who rarely all appear at the mid-day breakfast. All, in that little dwelling-room, is as brightly cheerful as if it, with the chambers of the heart therein, formed together a spring temple for the sun. There are Johanne and Pauline, and Wilhelmine, and sometimes the beloved-loving mother, with her guests from the hall, united in cheerful conversation or business; as we said above, it is open to every guest. " The evening dinner, that begins about seven o'clock, lasts, after we have risen from the table, till twelve o'clock at night, and this is the most delightful part of the day. It possesses a charm that fills and rejoices every heart ; for one becomes weary of the harvest of joy, merely, when they do not gather the fruit from the tree itself. " About seven o'clock the writer, whose window opens upon the * The Countess von der Reck was one of the most distinguished female authors of Germany, severely treated by said reviews. APPENDIX. 475 balcony that leads to the several apartments, has the satisfaction to see the guests collect for dinner, and he could have thrown flowers upon the beautiful heads of the ladies as they passed under his window. All the inhabitants of the Tannefeld enchanted castle appear at the evening dinner, and remain to share the evening joy; and for a benevolent heart it is a beautiful spectacle to see with what mutual joy mother and daughters meet after a short separa- tion ; and how with them those signs of tenderness, which have be- come vapid in the world, receive a new dignity and warmth through their heartfelt sincerity. " The dinner now begins under the departing beams of the sun. Upon the writer, the long table, to which sometimes, especially on Sundays, a supplementary was added, filled with gay youths, with the dare obscure of twilight, which, before the artificial lights were brought in, excited the gay society most agreeably ; but upon the writer (to whom it always renewed the memory of his childhood's years, where, in the poor village of his birth, the evening meal in summer was taken in the soft twilight,) it made a childlike, poetical, enchanting impression. " What took place after dinner it would be difficult to prophesy. Sometimes a celebrated violinist, as it happened twice, played for us. Princess Pauline, and her sister Wilhelmine, could sing in a masterly manner from Tancred or Stabat mater, or the whole choir could unite in the German and Swiss national songs, or they read aloud, or played charades, or danced, or did all at once, for each took part in all ; or if one wished to devote himself to one alone, there was no restraint, but perfect freedom in the choice of joys. Flowers of joy are no artificial growth, but the sensitive-plant of feeling. " But I must excuse the absence of what every less cheerful society possesses, namely: cards. I will not deny that the higher we rise the more indispensable they become, and that where a king is pre- sent the four card kings are either regents or vassals, for without the four cardinal colours, the heavenly chart of social pleasure can- not be illuminated. Also the noble cannot dispense with his card- table, as a free table of gain, where the whole collection of friends sit at their tables, and pray mutually, as the people in Blankensea, by Altona, do in the church, that God would shipwreck the one, for the advantage of the other. But how were mixed society held together, without cards'? The card is the olive leaf, or sticking plaster, of secretly angry people, who otherwise would wound each other with something sharper than trumps. For to men that have nothing to say, at least to women, they present cards out of tender- 476 APPENDIX. ness, as a passport, or a dispensation-bill from conversation, and thus they can pay their debts of wit in good card paper during the evening. But a quadruple alliance of the four card kings, against ennui and peevishness, was not necessary in the tetrarchate of Lobichau. " Every evening the beautiful world, or a part of it, danced for some hours, and the other part sat and looked on. Frequently they chose hastily a charming princely dancer, and placed her at the Vienna piano, where she formed, alone, a complete orchestra, till another took her place. " The twelfth of September, the harvest festival, was also made a spiritual harvest. A valuable altar service of gold and silver vessels, with a new altar cloth, the Duchess Dorothea had from the first in- tended for the harvest festival, when in the afternoon all the guests collected in the little friendly church, to hear the harvest sermon. Besides, the four princesses had not waited for such an occasion to visit the church for the first time. A warm, pure love of religion ennobled both mother and daughters. In this women differ from men in the most decided manner, especially in the higher ranks, which always upon their journeys visit the churches to perform their devotions before the pictures, pillars, and coloured glass of the windows, so that they often interrupt a full church in their singing and preaching. Therefore, as in French cities, a bell is rung before the Porte-Dieu, called the JewVbell, to inform the Jews of the entrance of the crucifix, and frighten them away thus for travellers and connoisseurs, before they enter a church on Sun- days, a bell should be rung, that they may not unawares disturb a whole church in their devotions. " In the Lobichau church there was devotion, pious joy, and grati- tude to heaven, that had given them the rich harvest and the bene- volent princess. This gratitude looked beautiful in so many country faces. Many of the old heads were worthy of a painter I had nearly written as if the artist himself had not been made by the original artist, whom a Raphael had earlier to thank for his own en- chanting face, than for his painted faces. An hour after the service was ended, a more joyful and beautiful procession than God usually receives, (for whom, among us, there are only sorrowful and praying processions,) brought the princess the signs of grateful love and joy. They collected with music before the castle, upon whose balcony the princess stood surrounded by her friends boys and girls, vir- gins, and youths, and old men, with wreaths of flowers upon their instruments of agriculture, and cried aloud their love and joy. The duchess threw them not merely glances, but words of her own grati- APPEKDIX. 477 tude and joy, which, for true men like them, were more acceptable than presents of money, stamped with the crown. " The young men looked up delighted, forgot the gift in the giver; and looked their thanks for a second. Some of the ancients brought their speeches, and a printed poem, with freer bearing than, alas, the learned of middle rank can usually command. They received from the duchess, with grateful modesty, the offer of a free ball at the Werthhaus, but declined it, as they would rather, themselves, pay the last joy of their harvest festival. " I here add my harvest sermon, as a thanksgiving to my hostess, composed in the chapel of my sleeping chamber, on the fifteenth of September, in a dream. " ' My devout hearers, from Kurland and Germany.' So far the beginning of the sermon for, alas, in awaking I had completely forgotten the introduction, and the thirty-two parts into which the sermon was divided; only the application, or the usus epanortho- ticus remained with me, and sounded thus : ' I have, then, dearest flock, in the thirty-two parts of my sermon, shown for what harvest of sheaves, and clusters of joy, we have to thank our revered Dorothea, that we have enjoyed the highest freedom from all the bandages of court restraint, for the bonds of love, in reason of their lightness, are counted for nothing; our fetters have been only formed of flowers ; not in the sweat of our faces, but in the smiles of the same have we all gathered our joy-sheaves, from hence to Tan- nefeld ; and the preacher himself returns to Bayreuth, overpacked, with the most respectable tithes. " ' Beloved children of my flock, whether in Lobichau or Tanne- feld, consider the happy neighbourhood of the mother church to the filial church yet more attentively, whereof, in the twenty-fifth division of my discourse, I have already hinted. In heaven, as astronomy teaches us, the suns are so far apart, that they do not disturb the attraction of each other's planets ; but, on the contrary, in Lobichau and Tannefeld, the neighbourhood of the different suns increases the attraction of the revolving comets ; and the wor- shippers of the four stars of beauty maintain, after present astro- nomers, that they consist of Dorothea, Johanne, Pauline, and Wil- helmine.'" .... Only one more of Paul's thoughts in his chapel at Lobichau. " The more tenderly and warmly one loves, so much more does he discover in himself defects rather than charms, that render him not worthy of the beloved. Thus are our little faults first made known to us, when we have ascended the higher steps of religion. The more 478 APPENDIX. we satisfy the demands of conscience, the stronger they become. Love and religion are here like the sun. By mere daylight and torchlight, the air of the apartment is pure and undisturbed by a single particle, but let in a sunbeam, and how much dust and motes are hovering about." I have given these long extracts, as a fair specimen of Jean Paul's most familiar and trifling manner of writing. THE EXD. G. Woodfall and Son, Printers, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London. LONDON, 142, STBAND, September 20th, 1851. A LIST MR. CHAPMAN'S ME. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. NOEIC A ; or, Tales of Niirenberg from the Olden Time. After a Manu- script of the 16th Century. Translated from the German of AUGUST HAGEN. Fcp. 8vo., ornamental binding. Nearly Ready. LECTUEES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. By FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, Author of " Phases of Faith," " History of the Hebrew Monarchy," &c. Post 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. " This most able and instructive book. I than economical wisdom." Prospective which exhibits, we think, no less moral | Review. THE CEEED OF CHBISTfiNDOM J Its Foundations and Superstructure. By WILLIAM EATHBONE GREG. 8vo, cloth, 10*. Gd. " Will rank high with those critical and erudite works which have of late cleared uu so many obscure matters in the history of religion, corrected so many false theo- ries. dispelled so many errors, and done so much to bring into harmony, science, and religion, the voice of Nature, and the voice of God." Economist. " In a calm, dispassionate manner, and in a style peculiarly elegant, and, at the same time, argumentative, the momentous ques- tions of revelation, Christianity, and a fu- ture state, are discussed. There is no dog- mutism, no assertion, no arriving with an undue haste at irrelevant conclusions in its pages ; but there are to be found all the evidences of profound study, scholarship, much reading, more thinking, and cer- tainly there is every indication of sincerity and truth. It will arouse a spirit of in- quiry where that is dormant, and will take its place among those suggestive and intel- ligent works which are now becoming the moral alphabets of a new generation." Weekly Dispatch. " He appears to us to have executed his task with thorough honesty of purpose, and in a spirit essentially reverential in a style clear, animated, and often eloquent, and, for one who disclaims the possession of learning, with no small amount of criti- cal knowledge and philosophic endow- ment." Prospective Review. " No candid reader of the ' Creed of Christendom ' can close the book without the secret acknowledgment that it is a model of honest investigation and clear exposition ; that it is conceived in the true spirit of serious and faithful research; and that whatever the author wants of being an ecclesiastical Christian, is plainly not essen- tial to the noble guidance of life, and the devout earnestness of the affections." Westmimter Review. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. CHBISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. MS- courses by JOHN JAMES TAYLEK, B.A. Post 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. and elevated, and his religious feelings and aspirations pure and fervent We are sure that many will thank us for com- mending to them a volume from which such catholic views and elevated sentiments may be derived." Nonconformist. " Marked by much fervid sincerity, by plain and clear language, by calm, quiet, good taste. The business and duties of life are viewed under a Christian aspect, and the object of elevating and improving the human character is never lost sight of." Economist. " Abounds with lessons of the highest practical wisdom conveyed in language of consummate beauty." Inquirer. " These sermons are admirable. They partake more directly of the character of religious instruction, and possess vastly more literary merit than is usual in such compositions. The thought is arranged with great clearness, and the style for its lucid and felicitous phraseology is beyond all praise. The greatest charm of the whole volume, however, is its fine spirit. All the writer's human sympathies are generous THE COTTON AND COMMEECE OF INDIA considered in relation to the Interests of Great Britain ; with Remarks on Railway Communication in the Bombay Presidency. By JOHN CHAPMAN, Founder and late Manager of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company. 8vo, cloth, 12*. " Promises to be one of the most useful treatises that have been furnished on this important subject It is distin- guished by a close and logical style, coupled with an accuracy of detail which will, in a great measure, render it a text-book." Times, Jan. 22, 1851. " Tin's book will go far to forestall the inquiries to be instituted by Mr. Alexander Mackay for the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. . . . Mr. Chapman examines the subject in detail and gives ample rea- sons for his deductions. . . . His work is marked, too, by sound good sense, akin to the highest wisdom of the statesman. 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Most of the best German editions of the Greek and Latin classics seem to be per- fectly familiar to the author, who knows well how to wield such ponderous mate- rials The account of the theosophy of Aristotle, given in the first volume, is evidently the production of a master of the subject." A thenieum. '"The Progress of the Intellect' is in- comparably the most important contribu- tion yet made by any English writer to views first broadly put forth by rationalistic German theologians. He has widened their basis given them freer scope and larger aims supported them by stores of as various and accumulated learning, and imparted to them all the dignity which can be derived from a sober and weighty style of writing, and from processes of thought to which imagination and reason contribute in almost equal degrees. This is unusual praise ; but it is due to unusual powers ; and to be offered to Mr. Mackay quite apart from any agreement in the tendency or ohject of his treatise. We will not even say that we have read it with sufficient care or critical guidance to be entitled to offer an opinion on the soundness of its criticism or reasoning, or on the truth or falsehood of its particular conclusions, or, indeed, on anything but its manifest labour and patience, the rare and indisputable monu- ments or knowledge which we find in it, and the surprising range of method it in- cludes logical, philosophical, and imagi- native. Not many books have at any time been published with such irresistible claims to attention in these respects ; in our own day we remember none." Examiner. " Over the vast area of cloud-land, bounded on one side by the wars of the Christians, and on the other by the last boo* of the Odyssey, he has thrown the penetrating electric hghtof modern science, and found a meaning for every fable and every phantom by which the mysterious region is haunted.' Atlas. All the views are justified by authorities. The work embraces many important sub- jects included in and suggested by the reli- gious theories of the Greeks and Hebrews : and from this minute accuracy will le a storehouse for arguments ana facts for those disposed to attack the theories, if not for those who have an interest in defending n - dustry of research which reminds us of pre-eminent beauty gems into which are are aamiraoie, optn irom tneir panor breadth and their richness in illustr details. We can only recommend jrative details. We can only recommend the reader to resort himself to this treasury of mingled thought and learning." West- minster Review, Jan. 1, 1851. LOCAL SELF-GOVEENMENT AND CENTRALIZATION: The characteristics of each, and its Practical Tendencies as affect- ing social, moral, and political welfare and progress: including com- prehensive outlines of the English Constitution. By J. TOULMIN SMITH. Post 8vo, cloth, 8s. 6d. chapters of the soundest practical philo- sophy ; every page bearing the marks of profound and practical thought." " The chapters on the crown, and on common law, and statute law, display a thorough knowledge of constitutional law and history, and a vast body of learning is brought forward for popular information without the least parade or pedantry." " Mr. Toulinin Smith has made a most valuable contribution to English literature; for he has given the people a true account of their once glorious constitution ; more than that, he has given them a book replete with the soundest and most practical views of political philosophy." TIY<>A7i/ Neirs. " There is much research, sound princi- ple, and good logic in this book ; and we can recommend it to the perusal of all \vho wish to attain a competent knowledge of the broad and lasting basis of English con- stitutional law and practice." Morning Ailfcrtiser. " This is a valuable, because a thought- ful, treatise upon one of the general sub- jects of theoretical and practical politics. No one in all probability will give an abso- lute assent to all its conclusions, but the reader of Mr. Smith's volume will in any case be induced to give more weight to the important principle insisted on." Tail's Magazine. " Embracing, with a vast range of con- stitutional learning, used in a singularly attractive form, an elaborate review of all the leading questions of our day." Eclec- tic Kerit'ir. " This is a book, therefore, of immediate interest, and one well worthy of the most studious consideration of every reformer ; but it is also the only complete and correct exposition we have of our political system ; and we mistake much if it does not take its in literature as our standard text-book constitution." The special chapters on local self-go- ment and centralization will be found MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT ART AMONG THE GREEKS. By JOHN WINCKEI.MANTT. From the German, by G. H. LODGE. Demy 8vo, cloth, with illustrations, price 12s. " That Winckelmann was well fitted for ' or less indebted. He possessed extensive the task of writing a History of Ancient ' information, a refined taste, and great zeal. Art, no one can deny who is acquainted with His style is plain, direct, and specific, so his profound learning and genius. . . . that you are never at a loss for his meaning. He undoubtedly possessed in the highest Some very good outlines, representing fine degree the power of appreciating artistic types of Ancient Greek Art, illustrate the skill wherever it was met with, but never text, and the volume is got up in a style more so than when seen in the garb of an- , worthy of its subject." Spectator. tiquity The work is of ' no ; " To all lovers of art this volume will common order,' and a careful study of the furnish the most necessary and safe guide great principles embodied in it must neces- . in studying the pure principles of nature sarily tend to form a pure, correct, and ( and beauty in creative art We elevated taste." Eclectic Keviem. cannot wish better to English art than for " The work is throughout lucid, and free a wide circulation of this invaluable work." from the pedantry of technicality. Its , Standard of Freedom. clearness constitutes its great charm. It | " The mixture of the philosopher and does not discuss any one subject at great artist in Winckelman's mind gave it at length, but aims at a general view of Art, once an elegance, penetration, and know- with attention to its minute developments, ledge, which fitted mm to a marvel for the It is, if we may use the phrase, a Grammar task he undertook. . . . Such a work ought of Greek Art, a sine quA -non to all who to be in the library of every artist and man would thoroughly investigate its language , of taste, and even the most general reader of form." Literary World. will find in it much to instruct, and much " Winckelman is a standard writer to i to interest him." Atlas. whom most students of art have been more I THE ARTIST'S MARRIED LIFE: BEING THAT OF ALBERT DURER. For devont Disciples of the Arts, Prudent Maidens, as well as for the Profit and Instruction of all Christendom, given to the light. Translated from the German of LEOPOLD SCHEFEB, by Mrs. J. R. STODART. 1 vol. fcp. 8vo, ornamental binding, 6*. " It is the worthy aim of the novelist to show that even the trials of genius are part of its education that its very wounds are furrows for its harvest. . . . J< o one, indeed, would have a right to expect from the author of the 'Laienbrevier' (see Ath. No. 437) such astern and forcible picture of old times and trials as a Meinhold can give still less the wire-drawn sentimentalities of a Hahn-Hahn; but pure thoughts high morals tender feelings might be looked for The merits of this story consist in its fine purpose, and its thoughtful, and for the most part just, exposition of man's inner life. To those who, chiefly appre- ciating such qualities, can dispense with the stimulants of incident and passion, the book before us will not be unaccept- able." Atheiueum. HEARTS IN MORTMAIN, AND 8vo, price 10s. 6d. "To come to such writings as 'Hearts in Mortmain, and Cornelia' after the anxieties and roughness of our worldly struggle, is like bathing in fresh waters after the dust and heat or bodily exertion To a peculiar and attractive grace they join con- siderable dramatic power, and one or two of the characters are conceived and exe- cuted with real genius." Prospective Keriem. " Both stories contain matter of thought and reflection which would set up a dozen common-place circulating library produc- tions." Examiner. "It is not often now-a-days that two works of such a rare degree of excellence in their class are to be found in one volume ; The work reminds us of the happiest efforts of Tieck The design is to show how, in spite of every obstacle, genius will manifest itself to the world, and give shape and substance to its beautiful dreams ana fancies It is a very pure and delightful composition, is tastefully pro- duced in an antique style, and retains in the translation all the peculiarities (without which the book would lose half its merit) of German thought and idiom." Bri- tannia. " Simply then we assure our readers that we have been much pleased with this work. The narrative portion is well conceived, and completely illustrates the author's moral ; while it is interspersed with many passages which are full of beauty and pathos." Inquirer. CORNELIA. A Novel, in 1 vol. post it is rarer still to find two works, each of which contains matter for two volumes, bound up in these times in one cover." Observer. "The above is an extremely pleasing book. The first story is written in the anti- quated form of letters, but its simplicity and good taste redeem it from the tedious- ness and appearance of egotism which gene- rally attend that style of composition." Economist. " Well written and interesting." Daily tfemt. " Two very pleasing and elegant novels. Some passages display descriptive powers of a high order." Britannia. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. PHASES OF FAITH, OR PASSAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF MY CREED. By FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, Author of " The History of the Hebrew Monarchy," " The Soul : her Sorrows and her Aspirations." Post 8vo, cloth, 6s. "Besides a style of remarkable fascina- tion, from its perfect simplicity and the absence of all thought of writing, the lite- rary character of this book arises from its display of the writer's mind, and the narra- tive of his struggles In addition to the religious and metaphysical interest, it contains some more tangible biographical matter, in incidental pictures 9f the writer's career, and glimpses of the alienations and social persecutions he underwent in conse- quence of his opinions." Spectator. " The book altogether is a most remark- able book, and is destined, we think, to acquire all the notoriety which was attained a few years since by the ' Vestiges of Crea- tion,' and to produce a more lasting effect." Weekly Nervs. " No work in our experience has yet been published so capable of grasping the mind of the reader and carrying him through the tortuous labyrinth of religious contro- versy; no work so energetically clearing the subject of all its ambiguities and sophis- tications; no work so capable of making a path for the new reformation to tread se- curely on. In this history of the conflicts of a deeply religious mind, courageously seeking the truth, and conquering for itself, bit by oit, the right to pronounce dogmati- cally on that which it had heretofore ac- cepted traditionally, we see reflected, as in a mirror, the history of the last few centu- ries. Modern spiritualism has reason to be deeply grateful to Mr. Newman : his learn- ing, his piety, his courage, his candour, and his thorough mastery of his subject, render his alliance doubly precious to the cause." The Leader. " Mr. Newman is a master of style, and his book, written in plain and nervous English, treats of too important a subject to fail in commanding the attention of all thinking men, and particularly of all the ministers of religion." Economist. "As a narrative of the various doubts and misgivings that beset a religious mind when compelled by conviction to deviate from the orthodox views, and as a history of the conclusions arrived at by an intelli- gent and educated mind, with the reasons and steps by which such conclusions were gained, this work is most interesting and of great importance." Morning Adver- tiser. NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. THE SOUL: HER SORROWS AM) HER ASPIRATIONS. An Essay towards the Natural History of the Soul, as the basis of Theo- logy. By FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, formerly Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and Author of " A History of the Hebrew Monarchy." Post 8vo, cloth, Gs. " The spirit throughout has our warmest sympathy. It contains more of the genuine life of Christianity, than half the books that are coldly elaborated in its defence. The charm of the volume is the tone of faithful- ness and sincerity which it breathes the evidences which it affords in every page, of being drawn direct from the fountains of conviction." Prospective Itevieiv. "On the great ability of the author we need not comment. The force with which he puts his arguments, whether for good or for evil, is obvious on every page." Literary Gazette. " We have seldom met with so much preg- nant and suggestive matter in a small com- Sass, as in this remarkable volume. It is istinguished by a force of thought and freshness of feeling, rare in the treatment of religious subjects." Inquirer. HISTORY OF THE HEBREW MONARCHY, from the Administra- tion of Samuel to the Babylonish Captivity. By FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, formerly Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and Author of " The Soul : her Sorrows and her Aspirations," &c. 8vo, cloth, 10s. Gd. "It is truly refreshing to find Jewish history treated, as in the volume before us, according to the rules of sound criticism, and good sense The publication of such a work will form an epoch in biblical literature in this country." Inquirer. "The Author has brought a very acute mind, familiar with knowledge that is beyond the range of ordinary scholarship, to the task of combining and Interpreting the antique and fragmentary records which contain the only materials for his work." Prospective Revieiv. " This book must be regarded, we think, as the most valuable contribution ever made in the English Language to our means of un- derstanding that portion of Hebrew History to which it relates The Author has not the common superstitious reverence for the Bible, but he shows everywhere a large, humane, and Christian spirit." Massa- chusetts Quarterly Itecicic. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE LIFE OF JESUS, CKITICALLY EXAMINED. By Dr. DAVID FEIEDEICH STRAUSS. 3 vols. 8vo, 11 16s., cloth. "The extraordinary merit of this book Strauss's dialectic dexterity, his forensic coolness, the even polish of his style, present him to us as the accomplished pleader, too completely master of his work to feel the temptation to unfair advantage or unseemly temper We can testify that the translator has achieved a very tough work with remarkable spirit and fidelity. The author, though indeed a good writer, could hardly have spoken better had his country and language been English. The work has evidently fallen into the hands of one who has not only effective command of both languages, but a familiarity with the subject-matter of theological criticism, and an initiation into its technical phraseo- logy." Westminster and Foreign Quar- terly Review, 1847. " Whoever reads these volumes without any reference to the German, must be pleased with the easy, perspicuous, idiom- atic, and harmonious force of the English style. But he will be still more satisfied when, on turning to the original, he finds that the rendering is word for word, thought for thought, and sentence for sentence. In preparing so beautiful a rendering as the present, the difficulties can have been neither few nor small in the way of pre- serving, in various parts of the work, the exactness of the translation, combined with that uniform harmony and clearness of style, which impart to the volumes before us the air and spirit of an original. A modest and kindly care for his reader's con- venience has induced the translator often to supply the rendering into English of a Greek quotation, where there was no cor- responding rendering into German in the original. Indeed, Strauss may well say, as he does in the notice, which he writes for this English edition, that as far as he has examined it, the translation is, "et accu- rataet perspicua.' " Prospective Reviem. "In regard to learning, acuteness, and sagacious conjectures, the work resembles Niebuhr's ' History of Rome.' The general manner of treating the subject and ar- ranging the chapters, sections, and parts of the argument, indicates consummate dia- lectical skill; while the style is clear, the expression direct, and the author's open- ness in referring 19 his sources of informa- tion, and stating his conclusions in all their simplicity, is candid and exemplary .... It not only surpasses all its predecessors of its kind in learning, acuteness, and thorough investigation, but it is marked by a serious and earnest spirit." Christian Examiner. " I found in M. Strauss a young man full of candour, gentleness, and modesty one possessed of a soul that was almost myste- rious, and, as it were, saddened by the reputation he had gained. He scarcely seems to be the author of the work under con- sideration." Quinet, Revue des Mondes. ENDEAVOURS AFTER THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. FIRST SERIES. By JAMES MARTINEAU. Second Edition. 12mo, 7s. 6d., cloth. tiKii stimulus, moral polish, moods religious edification." ENDEAVOURS AFTER THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. SECOND SERIES. By JAMES MARTUJEAU. 12mo, 7s. 6d., cloth. " Heartily do we welcome a second volume of * Endeavours after the Christian Life,' because when all that suits not our taste is omitted, we have still left more to instruct, interest, improve, and elevate, than in almost any other volume with which we are acquainted Whatever may be its defects, we regard it as one of the most precious gifts to the religious world in modern times." Inquirer. 'Mr. Martineau is known, much beyond the limits of his own denomination, as a man of great gifts and accomplishments, and his publications have been all marked by subtle and vigorous thought, much beauty of imagination, and certain charms we may safely say that many of the ortho- dox in all departments might receive from them intellect! and in some m Nonconformist. " One of the most interesting, attractive, and most valuable series of essays which the literature of Christianity has received from priest or layman for many a year. " Volumes that have in them both intel- lect and true eloquence, and which satisfy the understanding while they please the taste and improve the heart. " When we say that these Discourses are eminently practical, we mean that they are adapted, not only for man in the abstract of composition, which are sure to find to teach the duties of Christianity every- admirers There is a delicacy and where but also with reference to the cir- ethereality of ethical sentiment in these discourses which must commend them, and cumstances of society of the age and country in which our lot is cast." Critic. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. ITALY : PAST AND PRESENT. Or, General Views of its History, Religion, Politics, Literature, and Art. By L. MARIOTTI. 2 vols. post 8vo, cloth, 10*. 6rf. does not merely possess an interest similar to that of contemporary works; it supplies a desideratum, and is well adapted to aid the English reader in forming a just esti- mate of the great events now in progress in Italy. Not the least wonderful part of the book i "This is a useful book, informed with lively feeling and sound Judgment. It contains an exhibition of Italian views of matters, social and political, by an Italian who lias learned to speak through English thoughts as well as English words. Par- ticularly valuable are the sketches of recent Italian history; for the prominent charac- ters are delineated in a cordial and sympa- thetic spirit, yet free from enthusiastic ideas, and with unsparing discrimination The criticisms on 'The Past' will richly repay perusal : it is, however, in 'The Present 'of Italy that the main in- terest of the book resides. This volume . is the entire mastery the author has acquired of our language." Examiner, April. " Our author has an earnest, nay, enthu- siastic, love and admiration of his native country ; with the ability and eloquence to render his subject very interesting and at- tractive." Morning Advertiser. The following notices refer to the first volume of the work : "The work is admirable, useful, instruc- tive. I am delighted to find an Italian coming forward with so much noble en- thusiasm, to vindicate his country and obtain for it its proper interest in the eyes of Europe. The English is wonderful. . . . I never saw any approach to such a style in a foreigner before as full of beauty in diction as in thought." Sir E. Bulieer Lytton, Bart. "I recognise the rare characteristics of genius a large conception of the topic, a picturesque diction founded on profound thought, and that passionate sensibility which becomes thesuliject a subject beau- tiful as its climate, and inexhaustible as its soil." li. Disraeli, E*rj., M.P. "A very rapid and summary rfxumf of the fortune* of Italy from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present moment. A work of industry and labour, written with a stood purpose. A bird's-eye view of the subject that will revive the recollections of the scholar, and seduce the tyro into a longer course of reading." Athen&tlfa, " This work contains more information on the suliject, and more references to the present position of Italy, than we have seen in any recent production." Foreign Quarterly lieeieiv. " In reference to style, the work before us is altogether extraordinary, as that of a foreigner, and in the higher quality of thought we may commend the author for his acute, and often original, criticism, and his quick perception of the grand and beautiful in his native literature." Pres- cott, in the North American Review. "The work before us consists of a con- tiguous parallel of the political and literary history of Italy from the earliest period of the middle ages to the present time. The author not only penetrates the inner rela- tions of those dunl appearances of national life, but possesses the power of displaying them to the reader with great clearness and effect. \Ve remember no other work in which the civil conditions and literary achievements of a people have been blended in such a series of living pictures, repre- senting successive periods of history." Algemeine Zeitung. " An earnest and eloquent work." Ex- aminer. "A work ranking distinctly in the class of belles-lettres, and well deserving of a library place in England." Literary Qa- zette. "A work warmly admired by excellent judges." Tait's Mayuzine. " An admirable work written with great power and beauty." Prof. LongJ'Mmv. Poets and Poetry of Europe. HISTORICAL SKETCHES OP THE OLD PAINTERS. By the Author of the " Log Cabin." 2s. 6d., paper cover ; -3*., cloth. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. A DISCOURSE OF MATTERS PERTAINING TO RELIGION. By THEODORE PARKER. Post 8vo, la., cloth. CONTENTS. Book 1. Of Religion in General ; or, a Discourse of the Sentiment and its Manifestations. Book 2. The Relation of the Reli- gious Sentiment to God ; or, a Dis- course of Inspiration. Book 3. The Relation of the Reli- gious Sentiment to Jesus of Naza- reth ; or,aDiscourse of Christianity. Book 4. The Relation of the Reli- gious Sentiment to the Greatest of Books; or, a Discourse of the Bible. Book 5. The Relation of the Reli- gious Sentiment to the Greatest of Human Institutions ; or, a Discourse of the Church. HEBEEW EECOEDS : An Historical Enquiry concerning the Age, Authorship, and Authenticity of the Old Testament. By the REV. DK. GILES. Demy 8vo, cloth, price 10*. Gd. " There are evidences of extensive read- I talent and scholarship in Rabbinical lore." ing, of long .and severe study, of much | Weekly Dispatch. LECTURES ON SOCIAL SCIENCE, and the Organization of Labour. By JAMES HOLE. Demy 8vo, stiff cover, price 2s. 6d. " An able and excellent exposition of the | opinions of the Socialists." Economist. THE DECAY OF TRADITIONAL FAITH, AND RE-ESTABLISH- MENT OF FAITH UPON PHILOSOPHY. Two Lectures delivered at Finsbury Chapel, South Place. By HENRY IERSON, M.A. Post 8vo, paper cover, price 1*. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. RATIONAL FAITH. Three Lectures delivered at Finsbury Chapel, South Place. Post 8vo, paper cover, price Is. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE RELIGION OF NATURE. Being the above Five Lectures delivered at Finsbury Chapel, South Place. By HENRY IERSON, M.A. Post 8vo, paper cover, price 2s. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE SIEGE OF DAMASCUS: A Historical Novel. NISBET. In 3 vols. post 8vo, 11. lls. &d. By JAMES " A romance of very unusual power, such as must arrest attention by its quali- ties as a work of fiction, and help the good cause of liberty of thought." Leader. " There is an occasional inequality of style in the writing, but, on the whole, it may be pronounced beyond the average of modern novelists hilst descriptive passages might be selected that betray a very nigh order of merit." Mane/tester THE BISHOP'S WIFE : A Tale of the Papacy. Translated from the German of LEOPOLD SCHEFER. With a Historical Notice of the Life and Times of Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII.), to which it relates. By Mrs. J. R. STODART. Fcap. 8vo, 4s. CATHOLICITY, SPIRITUAL AND INTELLECTUAL. An Attempt at Vindicating the Harmony of Faith and Knowledge. A Series of Discourses. By THOMAS WILSON, M.A., late Minister of St. Peter's, Mancroft, Norwich, Author of " Travels in Egypt and Syria," etc. 8vo, cloth, 5*. May be had separately, 1*. each, paper cover. No. I. RELATIVE RANK OF OUR EARTH AMONG STELLAR WORLDS. No. II. THE INNER KINGDOM. No. III. SALVATION. No. IV. SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY. A HISTOKICAL ANALYSIS OF CHEISTIAN CIYILI- ZATION. By L. RAYMOND DE VERICOUR. In 1 vol. post 8vo, clothj price 10s. 6d. " It is succinct, clearly-written, and may be called a manual of European his- tory." Economist. " A useful book of historical reference, being well filled with facts and dates." Westminster Review. THE BEAUTIES OF CHANGING. With an Essay prefixed. By WILLIAM MOUNTFORD. 12mo, cloth, 2*. Gd. "This is really a book of beauties. It is no collection of shreds and patches, but a faithful representative of a mind which deserves to have its image reproduced in a thousand forms. It is such a selection from Channing asChanning himself might have made. It is as though we had the choicest passages of those divine discourses read to us by a kindred spirit Those who have read Martyria will feel that no man can be better qualified than its author, to bring together those passages which are at once most characteristic, and most rich in matter tending to the moral and religious elevation of human beings." Inquirer. CHRISTIANITY: THE DELIVERANCE OF THE SOUL, AND ITS LIFE. By WILLIAM MOUNTFORD, M.A. Fcp. 8vo, cloth, 2. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. A RETROSPECT OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF ENGLAND; or, the Church, Puritanism, and Free Inquiry. By JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A. Post 8vo, 10s. 6d. cloth. sees honesty. Nay, he openly asserts that the religion of mere reason is not the reli- gion to produce a practical eflect on a people; and therefore regards his own class only as one element in a better principle church. The clear and comprehensive grasp with which he marshals his facts, is even less admirable than the impartiality, nay, more than that, the general kindliness with which he reflects upon them. Ex- aminer. "The writer of this volume has all the calmness belonging to one who feels him- self not mixed up with the struggle he de- scribes. There is about it a tone of great moderation and candour: and we cannot but feel confident that we have here, at least, the product of a thoroughly honest mind." Lowe's Edinburgh Magazine. " This work is written in a chastely beau- tiful style, manifests extensive reading and careful research; is full of thought, and decidedly original in its character. It is marked also by the modesty which usually characterises true merit." Inquirer. " Mr. Tayler is actuated by no sectarian bias, and we heartily thank him for this addition to our religious literature." West- minster Review. " It is not often our good fortune to meet with a book so well conceived, so well written, and so instructive as this. The various phases of the national mind, de- scribed with the clearness and force of Mr. Tayler, furnish inexhaustible material for reflection. Mr. Tayler regards all parties in turn from an equitable point of view, is tolerant towards intolerance, and admires zeal and excuses fanaticism, wherever he THE ELEMENTS OF INDIVIDUALISM. Post 8vo, 7s. 6d., cloth. By WILLIAM MACCALL. "It is a book worthy of perusal. Even those who can find no sympathy with its philosophy, will derive pleasure and im- provement from the many exquisite touches of feeling, and the many pictures of beauty which mark its pages. "The expansive philosophy, the penetra- tive intellect, and the general humanity of the author, have rendered The Elements of\ THE EDUCATION OF TASTE. MACCALL. 12mo, 2s. Qd. Individualism a book of strong and gene- ral interest." Critic. " We have been singularly interested by this book Here is a speaker and thinker whom we may securely feel to be a lorer of truth, exhibiting in his work a form and temper of mind very rare and peculiar in our time." Manchester Ex- aminer. A Series of Lectures. By WILLIAM THE AGENTS OF CIVILIZATION. A Series of Lectures. By WIL- LIAM MACCALL. 12mo, 3*. Gd., cloth. AN INQUIRY CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. By CHARLES C. HENNELL. Second Edition, 8vo, 12*., cloth. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. A SECOND EDITION, WITH EXPLANATORY PREFACE. THE NEMESIS OF FAITH. By J. A. FROUDE, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Post 8vo, cloth, 6a. "'The Nemesis of Faith' possesses the first requisites of a book. It has power, matter, and mastery of subject, with that largeness which must arise from the writer's mind, and that individual character those truths of detail which spring from expe- rience or observation. The pictures of an English home in childhood, youth, and early manhood, as well as the thoughts and feelings of the student at Oxford, are painted with feeling pervaded by a current of thought : the remarks on the humbug of the three learned professions, more espe- cially on the worldiiness of the church, are not mere declamation, but the outpouring of an earnest conviction : the Picture of Anglican Protestantism, dead to faith, to love, and to almost everything but wealth- worship, with the statement of the objects that Newman first proposed to himself, form the best defence of Tractarianism that has appeared, though defence does not seem to be the object of the author As the main literary object is to display the struggles of a mind with the growth and grounds of opinion, incidents are subordi- nate to the intellectual results that spring from them : but there is no paucity of inci- dent if the work be judged by its own standard." Spectator. "The most striking quality in Mr. Froude's writings is his descriptive elo- quence. His characters are all living before us, and have no sameness. His quickness of eye is manifest equally in his insight into human minds, and in his per- ceptions of natural beauty The style of the letters is everywhere charming. The confessions of a Sceptic are often bril- liant, and always touching. The closing narrative is fluent, graphic, and only too highly wrought in painful beauty." Pro- spective Review, May, 1849. "The book becomes in its soul-burning truthfulness, a quite invaluable record of the fiery struggles and temptations through which the youth of this nineteenth century has to force its way in religious matters Especially is it a great warning and protest against three great falsehoods. Against self-deluded word orthodoxy and bibliolatry, setting up the Bible for a mere dead idol instead of a living witness to Christ. Against frothy philosophic Infi- delity, merely changing the chaft' of old systems for the chair of new, addressing men's intellects and ignoring; their spirits. Against Tractarianism. trying to m;>ke men all belief, as Strasburgers make geese all liver, by darkness and cramming : manufacturing state folly as the infidel state wisdom: deliberately giving the lie to God, who has made man in his own image, body, soul, and spirit, by making the two first decrepit for the sake of pampering the last Against these three falsehoods, we say, does the hook before us protest: after its own mournful fashion, most strongly when most unconsciously." Frazcr's Mag., May, 1&19. THE PURPOSE OF EXISTENCE. Popularly considered, in relation to the ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, and DESTINY of the HUMAN MIND. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. "This singularly thoughtful essay em- much learning, and an eloquence and braces a wide range of topics, but without elevation of style, peculiarly appropriate ever departing from its proper theme. In to the loftiness of the subject-matter." the performance of his task, the author Critic. has displayed great power of reflection, I GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. With an Outline of some of its recent developments among tlu Ger- mans, embracing the Philosophical Systems of Schelling and Hegel, and Oken's System of Nature, by J. B. STALLO, A.M. Post 8vo, cloth, 6*. THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURE, HER DIVINE REVELATIONS, AND A VOICE TO MANKIND. By and through ANDREW JACK- SON DAVIS, the " Poughkeepsie Seer," and " Clairvoyant." 2 vols. large 8vo, cloth, 18s. ** The work consists of 800 pages, including a history of its production, with a Biographical Sketch, aud Portrait (engraved on Steel) of the Author. ME. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE LITE OF THE REV. JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE. Written by Himself. With Portions of his Correspondence. Edited by JOHN HAMILTON THOM. 3 vols. post 8vo, 11. 4s., cloth. "This is a book which rivets the atten- tion, and makes the heart bleed. It has, indeed, with regard to himself, in its sub- stance, though not in its arrangement, an almost dramatic character; so clearly and strongly is the living, thinking, active man projected from the face of the records which he has left. "His spirit was a battle-field, upon which, with, fluctuating fortune and sin- gular intensity, the powers of belief and scepticism waged, from first to last, their unceasing war; and within the compass of his experience are presented to our view most of the great moral and spiritual problems that attach to the condition of our race. Quarterly Review. "This book will improve his (Blanco White's) reputation. There is much in the peculiar construction of his mind, in its close union of the moral with the intellec- tual faculties, and in its restless desire for truth, which may remind the reader of Dr. Arnold." Examiner. "There is a depth and force in this book which tells." Christian Remembrancer. " These volumes have an interest beyond the character of Blanco White. And beside the intrinsic interest of his self-portraiture, whose character is indicated in some of our extracts, the correspondence, in the letters of Lord Holland, Southey, Coleridge, Channing, Norton, Mill, Professor Powell, Dr. Hawkins, and othernames of celebrity, has considerable attractions in itself, with- out any relation to the biographical pur- pose with which it was published." Spec- tator. LIFE OF GODFREY W. VON LEIBNITZ. 12mo, 3*. Gd., cloth. By j. M. MACKIE. "We commend this book, not only to scholars and men of science, but to all our readers who love to contemplate the life and labours of a great and good man. It merits the special notice of all who are in- terested in the business of education, and deserves a place, by the side of firewater's Life of Newton, in all the libraries of pur schools, academies, and literary institu- tions." Chrittian Watchman. THE EDUCATION OF THE FEELINGS. Second Edition. Post 8vo, cloth, 2. Gd. By CHARLES BRAY. THREE EXPERIMENTS OF LIVING : Within the Means. u p to the Means. Beyond the Means. Fcp. 8vo, ornamental cover and gilt edges, 1*. STORIES FOR SUNDAY AFTERNOONS. From the Creation to the Advent of the Messiah. For the use of Children from 5 to 11 years of age. By Mrs. GEORGE DAWSON (late Miss SUSAN FANNY CROMPTON). 16mo, Is. Gd., cloth. " This is a very pleasing little volume, which we can confidently recommend. It is designed and admirably adapted for the use of children from five to eleven years of age. It purposes to infuse into that tender age some acquaintance with the facts, and tagte for the study of the Old Testament. The style is simple, easy, and for the most part correct. The stories are told in a spirited and graphic manner. "Those who are engaged in teaching the young, and in laying the foundation of Hood character by early religious and moral impressions, will be thankful for additional resources of a kind so judicious as this volume." Inquirer. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. HYMNS FOR THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND HOME. Edited by JAMES MAKTINEAU. Sixth Edition, 12mo, 3s. Gd., cloth. REVERBERATIONS. PART I. Fcp. 8vo, paper cover, 1,. REVERBERATIONS. PART II Fcp. 8vo, paper cover, "In this little verse-pamphlet of some sixty or seventy pages, we think we see evidences of a true poet; of a fresh and natural fount of genuine song; and of a purpose and sympathy admirably suited to the times The purchaser of it will find himself richer in possessing it by many wise and charitable thoughts, many gene- rous emotions, and much calm and quiet, yet deep reflection." Examiner. "Remarkable for earnestness of thought and strength of diction." Morning Herald. "The author of these rhymed brochures has much of the true poetic spirit. He is always in earnest. He writes from the full heart. There is a manliness, too, in all his utterances that especially recommends them to us As long as we have such 'Reverberations' as these we shall never grow weary of them." Weekly tfetvs. TWO ORATIONS AGAINST TAKING AWAY HUMAN LIFE, Under any Circumstances ; and in explanation and defence of the misrepresented doctrine of Non-resistance. By THOMAS COOPER, Author of " The Purgatory of Suicides." Post 8vo, 1*., in paper cover. " Mr. Cooper possesses undeniable abili- ties of no mean order, and moral courage beyond many The manliness with which he avows, and the boldness and zeal with which he urges, the doctrines of peace and love, respect for human rights, and moral power, in these lectures, are worthy of all honour." Nonconformist. " Mr. Cooper's style is intensely clear and forcible, and displays great earnest- ness and fine human sympathy ; it is in the highest degree manly, plain, and vigor- ous." Morning Advertiser. " These two orations are thoroughly im- bued with the peace doctrines which have lately been making rapid progress in many unexpected quarters. To all who take an interest in that great movement, we would recommend this book, on account of the fervid eloquence and earnest truthfulness which pervades every line of it." Man- chester Examiner. THE CHRISTIAN'S KEY TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIALISM; Being Hints and Aids towards an Analytical Enquiry into the Prin- ciples of Social Progress, with a View to the Elucidation of the great practical problem of the present day, the Improvement of the Con- dition of the Working Classes. In Ten Propositions, by UPSILON. Post 8vo, paper cover, la. y 8 MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE DUTY OF ENGLAND: a Protestant Layman's Reply to Cardinal Wiseman's Appeal. 8vo, Is. " The ' Protestant Layman ' argues the question in the right spirit. He would meet the 'Papal aggression' solely by logical argument, free inquiry, and free thought, unbiassed by authority." Man- chester Spectator. BRIEF EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW. By the Rev. R. E. B. MACLELLAN. 12mo, cloth, price 3*. ECCLESIASTICAL PRETENSIONS, ROMISH AND ENGLISH; with the Antidote which a Catholic Protestantism Supplies. A Tract for the Times, being A SERMON, preached in Renshaw Street Chapel, Liverpool, Sunday, November 17, 1850. By JOHN HAMILTON TIIOM. RELIGION, THE CHURCH, AND THE PEOPLE. A SERMON, preached in Lewin's Mead Chapel, Bristol, September 23rd, 1849, on behalf of The Ministry to the Poor in Bristol. By JOHN HAMILTON THOM. Published by Request. 12mo, paper cover, price Is. THE PEOSPECTIVE EEYIEW. A Quarterly Journal of Theology and Literature, price 2s. Gd. that 'the exercise of the reasoning and reflective powers, increasing insight, and enlarging views, are requisite to keep alive the substantial faith of the heart,' witli a grateful appreciation of the labours of faithful predecessors of all Churches, it esteems it the part of a true reverence not to rest in their conclusions, but to think and live in their spirit. By the name ' PROSPECTUS REVIEW,' it is intended to lay no claim to Discovery, but simply to express the desire and the attitude of Progress ; to suggest continually the Duty of using Past and Present as a trust for the Future; and openly to disown the idolatrous Conservatism, of whatever sect, which makes Christianity but a lifeless formula." Extractfrunt the Prospectus. " The PROSPECTIVE REVIEW is devoted to a free THEOLOGY, and the moral aspects of LITERATURE. Under the conviction that lingering influences from the doctrine of verbal inspiration are not only depriving the primitive records of the Gospel of their true interpretation, but even destroying faith in Christianity itself, the Work is conducted in the confidence that only a living mind and heart, not in bondage to any letter, can receive the living spirit of Revelation ; and in the fervent belief that for all such there is a true Gospel of God, which no critical or historical speculation can discredit or destroy. It aims to inter- pret and represent Spiritual Christianity, in its character of the Universal Religion. Fully adopting the sentiment of Coleridge, THE NOKTH AMERICAN BEVIEW. Published quarterly, price Gs. THE AMERICAN CHRISTIAN EXAMINER AND RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY. Edited by the Rev. GEORGE PUTNAM and GEORGE E. ELLIS. Published every alternate month, price 3*. 6d. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. Cutjinltr UNIFORM POST 8vo. ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE COEINTHIANS: An Attempt to convey then- Spirit and Significance, by the Rev. JOHN HAMILTON THOM. In 1 vol., cloth, 9s. " A volume of singularly free, suggestive, and beautiful commentary." Inquirer. EELIGIOUS MYSTEEY CONSIDERED, ciotn, price 2s. "The author treats his subject both learnedly and philosophically, and the little work is worthy tne attention both of the philosopher and the learned.' Economist. GOD IN CHEIST. cloth, 6s. Discourses by HORACE BUSHNELL. In 1 vol., CONTENTS. I. Preliminary dissertation on the nature of language as related to thought and spirit. II. A discourse on the divinity of Christ. " Mr. Bushnell's dissertation is valuable as giving us a perfect theoretical founda- tion for those practical efforts to secure peace and extend toleration which are now making in the world." Economist. " The author of the discourses before us III. A discourse on the Atonement. IV. A discourse on Dogma and Spirit ; or the true reviving of Religion. is original in that sense in which no faith- ful follower of Christ ever need fear to be thought so. He is original in having gone himself to the fountain-head of truth, in spite of all imposing creeds and customs." Inquirer, POPULAE CHRISTIANITY : Its Transition State and probable Development. By FREDERICK FOXTON, A.B., formerly of Pembroke College, Oxford, and perpetual Curate of Stoke Prior and Docklow, Herefordshire. Cloth, 6s. " Few writers are bolder, but his manner is singularly considerate towards the very opinions that he combats his language singularly calm and measured. He is evidently a man who has his purpose sincerely at heart, and indulges in no writing for effect. But what most distin- guishes him from many witli whom he may be compared is, the positiveness of his doctrine. A prototype for his volume may be found in that of the American, Theodore Parker the 'Discourse of Reli- gion.' There is a great coincidence in the train of ideas. Parker is more copious and eloquent, but Foxton is far more explicit, definite, and comprehensible in his meaning." Spectator. " He has a penetration into the spiritual desires and wants of the acre possible only to one who partakes of them, and he has uttered the most prophetic fact of our religious condition, with a force of convic- tion which itself gives confidence, that the fact is as he sees it. His book appears to us to contain many just and profound views of the religious character of the .present age, and its indications of pro- gress. He often touches a deep and fruit- ful truth with a power and tulness that leave nothing to be desired." Prospective lirri/'it; Nm\ 1849. " It contains many passages that show a warm appreciation of the moral beauty of Christianity, written with considerable power." Inquirer. " . . . . with earnestness and eloquence." Critic. " We must refer our readers to the work itself, which is most ably written, and evinces a spirit at once earnest, enlight- ened, and liberal ; in a small compass he presents a most lucid exposition of views, many of them original, and supported by arguments which cannot fail to create a deep sensation in the religious world." Observer. ME. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. EEPEESENTATIVE MEN. WALDO EMERSON. Cloth, 5s. "Mr. Emerson's book is for us rather strange than pleasing. Like Mr. Carlyle, he strains after effect by quaint phrase- ology the novelty will gain him admirers and readers. At the same time there is good sterling stuff in him; already pos- sessing a great name in his own country, and being well known to the reading world of Europe, his present work, speaking of men and things with which we are familiar, will extend his fame. It is more real and material than his former volumes; more pointedly written, more terse and pithy, contains many new views, and is on the whole both a good and a readable book." Economist. "There are many sentences that glitter and sparkle like crystals in the sunlight; and many thoughts, which seem invoked MEMOIE OF JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. SEVEN LECTURES. By RALPH by a stern philosophy from the depths of the heart." Weekly News. "There is more practical sense and wisdom to be found in it (this Book) than in any of the Books he has given to the world, since his first When Emer- son keeps within his depth, he scatters about him a great deal of true wisdom, mingled with much genuine poetry. There is also a merit in him which it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge; he has made others think; he has directed the minds of thousands to loftier exercises than they had known before; he has stimulated the reflective faculties of mul- titudes, and thus led to inquiry, and inquiry certainly will conduct to truth." Critic. LIAM SMITH. Second Edition, enlarged. Cloth, 4s. 6d. in philosophical discussion since the time of Luther Fichte's opinions may be true or false: but his character as a thinker can be slightly valued only by such as know it ill ; and as a man, approved by action and suffering, in his life and in his death, he ranks with a class of men who were common only in better ages than ours." State of German Literature, by T/wmas Carlyle. " A Life of Fichte, full of noble- ness and instruction, of grand purpose, tender feeling, and brave effort! the compilation of which is executed with .t judgment and fidelity." Prospec- Beviem. "We state Fichte's character as it is known and admitted by men of all parties among the Germans, when we say that so robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so lofty, massive, and immoveable, has not mingled THE WAY TOWAEDS THE BLESSED LIFE ; or, The Doctrine of Religion. By JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Translated by WILLIAM SMITH. Cloth, 6s. WILLIAM VON HUMBOLDT'S LETTEES TO A FE- MALE FRIEND. A Complete Edition. Translated from the Second German Edition. By CATHERINE M. A. COUPER, Author of " Visits to Beechwood Farm," " Lucy's Half-Crown," &c. 2 vols., cloth, Ids. 6d. only high intrinsic interest, but an interest " We cordially recommend these volumes to the attention of our readers The work is In every way worthy of the character and experience of its distin- guished author." Daily ffeirs. " These admirable letters were, we believe, first introduced to notice in England by the ' Athenaeum ; ' and perhaps no greater boon was ever conferred upon the English reader than in the publication of the two volumes which contain this excellent trans- lation of William Humboldt'g portion of a lengthened correspondence with his female friend." Westminster and Fo- reign Quarterly Review. "The beautiful series of W. Von Hum- boldt's letters, now for the first time trans- lated and published complete, possess not arising from the very striking circum- stances in which they originated We wish we had space to verify our re- marks. But we should not know where to begin, or where to end ; we have therefore no alternative but to recommend the entire book to careful perusal, and to promise a continuance of occasional extracts into our columns from the beauties of thought and feeling with which it abounds." Man- e/tester Examiner and Times. It is the only complete collection of tion is singularly pertect; we nave semom read such a rendering of German thoughts into the English tongue." Critic. ME. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. THE VOCATION OF MAN. By JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Translated from the German, by WILLIAM SMITH. Cloth, 4s. 6d. " In the progress of my present work, I have taken a deeper glance into religion than ever I did before. In me the emotions of the heart proceed only from perfect in- tellectual clearness; it cannot be but that the clearness I have now attained on this subject shall also take possession of my heart." Fichte's Correspondence. " ' The Vocation of Man ' is. as Fichte truly says, intelligible to all readers who are really able to understand a book at all ; and as the history of the mind in its various phases of doubt, knowledge, and faith, it is of interest to all. A book of this stamp is THE CHAEACTEEISTICS By JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. LIAM SMITH. Cloth, 7s. "A noble and most notable acquisition to the literature of England." Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Paper. " We accept these lectures as a true and most admirable delineation of the present age; and on this ground alone we should bestow on them our heartiest recommend- ation ; but it is because they teach us how we may rise above the age that we bestow on them our most emphatic praise. sure to teach you much, because it excites thought. ch y If it rouses you to combat his conclusions, it has done a good work ; for in that very effort you are stirred to a con- sideration of points which have hitherto escaped your indolent acquiescence." Fornirin Quarterly. "This is Fichte's most popular work, and is every way remarkable." Atlas. "It appears to us the boldest and most emphatic attempt that has yet been made to explain to man his restless and uncon- querable desire to win the True and the Eternal." Sentinel. OF THE PKESENT AGE. Translated from the German, by WIL- " He makes us think, and perhaps more suhlimely than we have ever formerly thought, but it is only in order that we may the more nobly act. " As a majestic and most stirring utter- ance from the lips of the greatest German prophet, we trust that the oook will find a response in many an English soul, and potently help to regenerate Englishsociety." The Critic. ' The Vocation of the Scholar ' THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAE. By JOHANN G OTT - LIEB FICHTE. Translated from the German, by WILLIAM SMITH. Cloth, 2s. ; paper cover, 1*. 6d. presented to the public in a very neat form. .... No class needs an earnest and sincere spirit more than the literary class : and therefore the ' Vocation of the Scholar,' the 'Guide of the Human Race,' written in Fichte's most earnest, most commanding temper, will be welcomed in its English dress by public writers, and be beneficial to the cause of truth." Economist. is distinguished by the same high moral tone, ana manly, vigorous expression which characterize all Ficnte's works in the Ger- man, and is nothing lost in Mr. Smith's clear, unembarrassed, and thoroughly Eng- lish translation." Douglas Jer Keicspaper " Eng- rold's e are glad to see this excellent trans- lation of one of the best of Fichte's works ON THE NATUEE OF THE SCHOLAE, AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS. By JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Translated from the German, by WILLIAM SMITH. Second Edition. Cloth, 3*. Gd. " With great satisfaction we welcome this first English translation of an author who occupies the most exalted position as a profound and original thinker; as an irresistible orator in the cause of what he believed to be truth ; as a thoroughly honest and heroic man The appear- ance of any of his works in our language is, we believe, a perfect novelty. . . . These orations are admirably fitted for their pur- pose ; so grand is the position taken by the lecturer, and so irresistible their eloquence.' ' Examiner. "This work must inevitably arrest the attention of the scientific physician, by the grand spirituality of its doctrines, and the pure morality it teaches Shall we be presumptuous if we recommend these views to our professional brethren? or if we say to the enlightened, the thoughtful, the serious. This if you be true scholars is i/nur Vocation? We know not a higher morality than this, or more noble principles than these : they are full of truth." British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES continued. THE POPULAK WOEKS OF JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. Cloth, 12*. per volume. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 1. MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, by WILLIAM SMITH. 2. THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAR. 3. THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR. 4. THE VOCATION OF MAN. CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 1. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 2. THE WAY TOWARDS THE BLESSED LIFE; OR, THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION. SEEMONS OF CONSOLATION. By F. W. P. GREEXWOOD, D.D. 3*. cloth. " This a really delightful volume, which , ould gladly see producing its purify- nd elevating influences in all our families." Inquirer. " This beautiful volume we are sure will we would ing a meet with a grateful reception from all who seek instruction on the topics most interest- ing to a thoughtful mind. There are twenty-seven sermons in the volume." Christian Examiner. SELF-CULTUEE. By WILLIAM ELLERY CHANGING. 6d. paper cover ; Is. cloth. THE CE1TICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WEITINGS OF THEODORE PARKER. Cloth, 6*. His language is almost entirely figurative : the glories of nature are pressed into his service, and convey his most careless " It will be seen from these extracts that Theodore Parker is a writer of considerable power and freshness, if not originality. Of the school of Carlyle, or rather taking the same German originals for his models, Parker has a more sober style and a less theatric taste. His composition wants the grotesque animation and richness of Car- lyle, but it is vivid, strong, and frequently picturesque, with a tenderness that the great Scotchman does not possess." Spec- tator. " Viewing him as a most useful, as well as highly-gifted man, we cordially welcome the appearance of an English reprint of some of his best productions. The -M isccl- ] a neons' Pieces are characterised by the peculiar eloquence which is without a parallel in the works of English writers. thought. This is the principal charm of his writings; his eloquence is altogether unlike that of the English orator or essayist; it partakes of the grandeur of the forests in his native land ; and we seem, when listening to his speech, to hear the music of the woods, the rustling of the pine-trees, and the ringing of the wood- man'* axe. In this respect he resembles Emerson ; but, unlike that celebrated man, he never discourses audibly with himself, in a language unknown to the world he is never obscure ; the stream, though deep, reveals the glittering gems which cluster so thickly on its bed. Inquirer. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES-continued. THE LIFE OF JEAN PAUL FE. EICHTEE. compiled from various sources. Together with his Autobiography, translated from the German. Second Edition. Illustrated with a Portrait en- graved on Steel. Cloth, 7s. 6d. "The autobiography of Richter, which extends only to his twelfth year, is one of the most interesting studies of a true poet's childhood ever given to the world." Lome's Edinburgh Magazine. " Kichter has an intellect vehement, rugged, irresistible, crushing in pieces the hardest problems ; piercing into the most hidden combinations of things, and grasp- ing the most distant ; an imagination vague, sombre, splendid, or appalling, brooding over the abysses of being.wandenng through infinitude, and summoning before us, in its dim religious light, shapes of brilliancy, solemnity, or terror; a fancy of exube- rance literally unexampled, for it pours its treasures with a lavishness which knows no limit, hanging, like the sun, a jewel on every g t, hangi rass-bla de, and sowing the earth at large with orient pearls. But deeper than all these lies humour, the ruling quality of Richter as it were the ce Lilmg qu ntral fi re that pervades and vivifies his whole being. He is a humourist from his inmost soul; he thinks as a humourist; he imagines, acts, feels as a humourist : sport is the element in which his nature lives and works." Thomas Carlyle. "With such a writer it is no common treat to be intimately acquainted. In the proximity of great and virtuous minds we imbibe a portion of their nature-^-feel, as mesmerists say, a healthful contagion, are braced with the same spirit of faith, hope, and patient endurance are furnished with women, of the most refined and exalted natures, and of princely rank. It is full of passages so attractive and valuable that it is difficult to make a selection as ex- amples of its character." Inquirer. "The work is a useful exhibition of a great and amiable man, who, possessed of the kindliest feelings, and the most bril- liant fantasy, turned to a high purpose that humour of which Rabelais is trie great grandfather, and Sterne one of the line of ancestors, and contrasted it with an exalta- tion of feeling and a rhapsodical poetry which are entirely his own. Let us hope that it will complete the work begun by Mr. Carlyle's Essays, and cause Jean Paul to be really read in this country." Ex- aminer. " Richter is exhibited in a most amiable light in this biography industrious, frugal, benevolent, with a child-like sim- plicity of character, and a heart overflow- ing with the purest love. His letters to his wife are beautiful memorials of true affection, and the way in which he perpe- tually speaks of his children shows that he was the most attached and indulgent of fathers. Whoever came within the sphere of his companionship appears to have con- tracted an affection lor him that death only dissolved : and while his name was re- sounding through Germany, he remained as meek and humble as if he had still been an unknown adventurer on Parnassus." The Apprentice. "The life of Jean Paul is a charming data for clearing up and working out the intricate problem of life, and are inspired, piece or biography which draws am like them, with the prospect of immortality. 1 the attention. The aft'ections of the reader piece of biography which draws and rivets No reader of sensibility can rise from the are fixed on the hero with an intensity perusal of these volumes without becoming j rarely bestowed on an historical character, both wiser and better." Atlas. '. It is impossible to read this biography " Apart from the interest of the work, as ! without a conviction of its integrity and the life of Jean Paul, the reader learns '. truth ; and though Richter's style is more something of German life and German difficult of translation than that of any thought, and is introduced to Weimar other German, yet we feel that his golden during its most distinguished period j thoughts have reached us pure from the when Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wie- mine, to which he has given that impress land, the great fixed stars of Germany, in ! of genius which makes them current in all conjunction with Jean Paul, were there, countries." Christian Reformer. THE RATIONALE OF EELIGIOUS INQUIRY; or, the Question stated, of Reason, the Bible, and the Church. By JAMES MARTINEAU. Third Edition. With a Critical Lecture on Rationalism, Miracles, and the Authority of Scripture, by the late Rev. JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE. 4s. paper cover ; 4s. 6d. cloth. MR. CHAPMAN'S PUBLICATIONS. THE CATHOLIC SERIES-connuerf. THE PHILOSOPHY OF AKT. An Oration on the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature. Translated from the German of F. W. J. VON SCHELLJNG, by A. JOHNSON. 1. paper cover ; 1. 6d. cloth. "This excellent oration is an application to art of Schelling's general philosophic principles. Schelling takes the bold course, and declares that what is ordinarily called nature is not the summit of perfection, but is only the inadequate manifestation of a high idea, which it is the office of man to penetrate. The true astronomer is not he who notes down laws and causes which were never revealed to sensuous organs, and which are often opposed to the prima facie influences of sensuous observers. The true artist is not he who merely imi- tates an isolated object in nature, but he who can penetrate into the unseen essence that lurks behind the visible crust, and afterwards reproduce it in a visible form. In the surrounding world means and ends are clashed and jarred together; in the work of art the heterogeneous is excluded, and a unity is attained not to be found elsewhere. Schelling, in his oration, chiefly, not exclusively, regards the arts of painting and sculpture ; but his remarks will equally apply to others, such as poetry and music. This oration of Schelling's deserves an extensive perusal. The translation, with the exception of a few trifling inaccuracies, is admirably done by Mr. Johnson; ana we know of no work in our language better suited to give a notion of the turn which German philosophy took after it abandoned the subjectivity of Kant and Fichte. The notion will, of course, be a faint one; but it is something to know the latitude and longitude of a mental posi- tion." Examiner. ESSAYS. BY B. W. EMEBSON. (Second Series.) With a Notice by THOMAS CARLTLE. 3s. paper cover ; 3*. 6d. cloth. have not a feeling or an interest In the great question of mind and matter, eternity and nature, will disregard him as unintelligible and uninteresting, as they do Bacon and I Plato, and, indeed, philosophy itself." j Doualas Jcrrold's Magazine. " Beyond social science, because beyond and outside social existence, there lies the science of self, the development of man in his individual existence, within himself and for himself. Of this latter science, which may perhaps be called the philo- sophy of individuality, Mr. Emerson is an able apostle and interpreter." League. " As regards the particular volume of EMERSON before us, we think it an im- provement upon the first series of essays. The subjects are better chosen. They come home more to the experience of the mass of mankind, and are consequently more i interesting. Their treatment also indicates ' an artistic improvement in the composi- tion." Spectator. "All lovers of literature will read Mr. Emerson's new volume, as the most of them have read his former one; and if correct taste, and sober views of life, and i such ideas on the higher subjectsof thought as we have been accustomed to account as truths, are sometimes outraged, we at least meet at every stfp with originality, imagi- nation, and eloquence." Inquirer. " The difficulty we find in giving a proper "notice of this volume arises from the per- vadingness of its excellence, and the com- pression of its matter. With more learning than Hazlitt, more perspicuity than Car- lyle, more vigour and depth of thought than Addison, and with as much originality am I fascination as any of them, this volume is a brilliant addition to the Table Talk of intellectual men, be they who or where they may." Protppetirr ];, "Mr. Emerson is not a common man, and everything he writes contains sugges- tive matter of much thought and earnest- ness." Examiner. "That Emerson is, in a high degree, possessed of the faculty and vision of the seer, none can doubt who will earnestly and with a kind und reverential spirit peruse these nine Es>ay. He deals only with the true and the eternal. His piercing gaze at once shoots swiftly, surely, through pie outward and the superficial, to the inmost causes and workings. Any one can it'll the time who looks on the face of the clock, but he loves to lay bare the machinery and show its moving principle. His words and his thoughts are a fresh spring, that invigorates the soul that is steeped therein. II is mind is ever dealing with the eternal ; and those who only live to exercise their lower intellectual faculties, and desire only new facts and new images, and those who P a- iBB nf tjj* Cntjjnlir BY THE PRESS. " The various works composing the ' Catholic Series,' should be known to all lovers of literature, and may be recommended as calculated to in- struct and elevate by the proposition of noble aims and the inculcation of noble truths, furnishing reflective and cultivated minds with more whole- some food than the nauseous trash which the popular tale-writers of the day set before their readers." Morning Chronicle. " Too much encouragement cannot be given to enterprising publications like the present. They are directly in the teeth of popular prejudice and popular trash. They are addressed to the higher class of readers those who think as well as read. They are works at which ordinary publishers shudder as ' unsaleable,' but which are really capable of finding a very large public." Foreign Quarterly. " The works already published embrace a great variety of subjects, and display a great variety of talent. They are not exclusively, nor even chiefly, religious ; and they are from the pens of German, French, American, as well as English authors. Without reference to the opinion which they contain, we may safely say that they are generally such as all men of free and philosophical minds would do well to know and ponder." Noncon- formist. " This series deserves attention, both for what it has already given, and for what it promises." Tail's Magazine. " A series not intended to represent or maintain a form of opinion, but to bring together some of the works which do honour to our common nature, by the genius they display, or by their ennobling tendency and lofty aspirations." Inquirer. " It is highly creditable to Mr. Chapman to find his name in connexion with so much well-directed enterprise in the cause of German literature and philosophy. He is the first publisher who seems to have proposed to himself the worthy object of introducing the English reader to the philo- sophic mind of Germany, uninfluenced by the tradesman's distrust of the marketable nature of the article. It is a very praiseworthy ambition ; and we trust the public will justify his confidence. Nothing could be more un- worthy than the attempt to discourage, and indeed punish, such unselfish enterprise, by attaching a bad reputation for orthodoxy to everything con- nected with German philosophy and theology. This is especially unworthy in the ' student,' or the ' scholar,' to borrow Fichte's names, who should dis- dain to set themselves the task of exciting, by their friction, a popular pre- judice and clamour on matters on which the populace are no competent judges, and have, indeed, no judgment of their own, and who should feel, as men themselves devoted to thought, that what makes a good book is not that it should gain its reader's acquiescence, but that it should multiply his mental experience ; that it should acquaint him with the ideas which philosophers and scholars, reared by a training dirt'erent from their own, have laboriously reached and devoutly entertain ; that, in a word, it should enlarge his materials and his sympathies as a man and a thinker." Pro- spective Review. " A series of serious and manly publications." Economist. NOW READY, No. I. 'SKETCHES OF EUEOPEAN CAPITALS," BY WILLIAM WAEE, M.D., AUTHOR OP " ZENOBIA ; OR. LETTERS FROM PALMYRA," " AURELIAN," BTC. Post 8vo, ornamental cover, price Is. In the press, and will be published Nov. 1st, NO. n. "LITEBATUBE AND LIFE," LECTURES BY EDWIN P. WHIPPLE, CONTENfS. Lecture I. Authors in their Eelations to Life. II. Novels and Novelists Charles Dickens. III. Wit and Humor. Lecture IV. The Ludicrous Side of Life. V. Genius. VI. Intellectual Health and Disease. LONDON: JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STRAND. MDCCCLI. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. Qt APR i 9 1999 10m-6.'62( /. A 001 084 138 5