■1 |i;i! fl^. nV LIFE Jean Paul Frederic Richter, COMPILED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. PRECEDED BY HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY. By ELIZA BUCKMINSTER LEE. " I would gladly, after my death, have that, which has never yet happened to any author, all ray thoughts given to the world, — not one should be con- cealed."— Jean Paul. THIRD ariTK'N. BOSTON : TICKNOR AND FIELDS 1864. m J. /^^j.^6C. 2j^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICK NOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. University Press: Welch, Bigelow, and Company, Cambridge. To The beloved and ever-present memory of her whose last gift of a German Bible first led to the study of the German tongue, I dedicate this imperfect proof of that study and inadequate expres- sion of that love. is^^V^^^e.f PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. T is now twenty-two years since the First Edition of the " Life of Jean Paul " was pubhshed, and in the altered condition of our country it seems almost an intrusion and an impertinence to expect such a book to be received with favor ; for what is nearest touches us most, and our hearts beat more painfully at domestic tragedies, of which we have had so many, than at the crowded anguish of distant, though kindred cities. But in giving our hearts to the great, to the altogether absorbing and tremendous interests of the passing time, we may not neglect the way- side flowers, the little gems of nature which are scattered in such profusion at our feet. Carlyle says of Jean Paul : " To old English, alike with new, such a man as this, in such days as these, cannot be too generally known. Let who- VI PREFACE. ever has a sense for him worship him as he will, — ^^'ithout fear of excess in that direction ! Amid the clang of our steam-machinery and money-get- ting, in our toiling and slaving great, but dumb and deaf, most tragic English " industrial world," Jean Paul, wherever found, will be a blessed element ; like a Httle pot of violets in the window-sill of some huge workhouse and cyclops-smithy, reminding this man and that of many sweet forgotten tilings, and very well worth its room there." Boston, March 17, 1864. f^%?il PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. HE following pages are presented to the reader as containing 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 unreserved of authors, and that he has inter- woven, 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 Mar- graf^ or Poetry from the Life of an Apothecary^ he undertook, at the same time, as a parallel or companion piece, his Autobiography, or Truth from my oivn Life, intending to interweave the tivo, as the romance and reality of one life. Hence re- sults the comic tone, and the apparent affectation of speaking in the third person in his Autobiogra- vm PREFACE. phy, whicli was continued only to his thirteenth yeai'. 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 as accurate a translation of Richter's oivn bi- ography as I am able to make ; tlie mystification, already mentioned, has added obscurity to the " be- wildering conceits " with which he usually illus- trates his "wdt and his wisdom. My desire to preserve, as much as possible, the peculiarity of the original has perhaps given to the English a German dress, which, I trust, is thrown oif in the remaining parts of the work. The Life is continued from Wahrheit aus Jean PauVs Lehen^ — " 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 too;etlier 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 fhe difficulty of selection, where I wished the reader should enjoy the whole. But as the whole PREFACE. ix 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 con- cerns, and explain the peculiarities of his char- acter. Should German scholars find any discrepancy in the extracts from the letters, the reason may be, that I have translated, as happened to be con- venient, from three different versions ; from Otto's and Spazier's selections, and from Jean Paul's cor- respondence with Otto. August 12, 1842. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. Sketch of the Fichtelgebirge, the Birthplace of Rich- TER 1 PART I. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. WuNSiEDEL. — Birth. — Grandparents 9 CHAPTER II. Which includes the Time from August, 1775, to January, 1776. — Joditz, — Village Idyls 23 CHAPTER III. Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale. — First Kiss. — Rector. — The Lord's Supper 71 CONTENTS. PAKT 11. FROM JEAN PAUL'8 ENTRANCE INTO THE HOF GYMNASIUM, TILL AFTER HIS FIRST VISIT IN WEIMAR. CHAPTER I. Remarks upon the Autobiography. — Removal to Schwar- ZEKBACH. — Self-Education. — Loss of Childish Faith 89 CHAPTER II. HoF Gymnasium. — School Anecdotes. — Death of the Father. — Domestic Troubles 101 CHAPTER III. Youthful Friendships. — Werther Period. — First Book- making. — "On the Practice of Thinking" . . . 110 CHAPTER IV. Richter enters the University of Leipzig. — Letters from Leipzig. — Change of Studies. — Letters to his Mother 119 CHAPTER V. Extracts from .Journal. — First Literary Effort. — Greenland Lawsuits 136 CHAPTER VI. Extreme Poverty. — First Success. — Costume Contro- versy 149 CHAPTER VII. Love Passage. — Second Volume of GREENLA]|n> Law- suits. — Pressing Poverty. — Flight from Leipzig. — Domestic Circumstances in Hof. — Book of Devotion 166 CONTENTS. xiij CHAPTER VIII. Christian Otto. — Studies. — Herman. — His Death . 171 CHAPTER IX. Adam von Oerthel. — Residence at Topen. — Death of HIS Friend. — Change of Views 181 CHAPTER X. RiCHTER TAKES A SCHOOL AT SCHWARZENBACH. — METHOD OF Instruction. — Female Pupils and Friends . . 192 CHAPTER XI. Richter's first Serious Work. — " The Little School- master Wuz." — "The Invisible Lodge." — First Suc- cess. — Sabbath Weeks of Life. — " Hesperus " . . 207 CHAPTER XII. Richter visits Bayreuth. — The Jew Emanuel. — The Original of Clotilda. — " Siebenkas." — Letter from Septimus Fixlein 225 CHAPTER XIII. Letters from Weimar. — Letter from Madam von Kalb. — Richter prepares to go to Weimar .... 234 CHAPTER XIV. First Visit in Weimar. — Letters from Weimar. — Goe- the. — Herder. — Schiller. — Wieland .... 239 CHAPTER XV. Madam von Kalb. — Letters. — Close of Richteb's Inti- macy with Madam von Kalb 262 Alv CONTENTS. PART III. FROM JEAN Paul's first visit in weimar to his FINAL RESIDENCE IN BAYREUTH. CHAPTER I. Prince Hohenlohe. — Madam von Krudener. — Letters. — " Jubelsenior." — " Campanek Thal " .... 261 CHAPTER II. RiCHTER VISITS THE FrAUZENBATH IN EgER. — DeATH OF HIS JIother. — Emilie von Beklespsh. — Removal from HoF TO Leipzig 270 CHAPTER III. Residence in Leipzig. — Letters. — Emilie von Berlespsh. — Visits Dresden 279 CHAPTER IV. Richter returns to Weimar. — Wieland. — Goethe. — Herder. — His Attachment to Jean Paul. — Philoso- phy. — Madam von Kalb 292 CHAPTER V. Richter visits the Court op Hildburghausen. — Mademoi- selle von F. — The four Sister Princesses. — Dedica- tion of Titan. — Visits Berlin 306 CHAPTER VI. Richter removes to Berlin. — Introduction to Caroline Meyer. — The Meyer Family. — The " Verlobung " , 317 CHAPTER VII. Eichter's Petition to the King of Prussia. — Marriage. — Caroline's Letters from Weimar .... 830 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER VIII. Residence in Meiningen. — Letters. — Birth of Richter's FIRST Child. — Dog's Petition 338 CHAPTER IX. Titan 346 CHAPTER X. Richter leaves Meiningen. — Removes to Coburg. — Birth of his Son. — Death of Herder. — " Flegel- JAHKE." — Bayreuth . 856 PART IV. FROM JEAN Paul's residence in bayreuth to his DEATH. N CHAPTER I. Richter removes to Bayreuth. — Social Position. — Personal Appearance and Habits. — Family. — Letter FROM his Eldest Daughter 367 CHAPTER II. "Introduction to ^Esthetics." — "Freedom Pamphlet." — "Lev'^ana." — Richter's View of Napoleon. — Comic Works. — Letter to General Bebnadotte . . . 377 CHAPTER III. Pecuniary Embarrassments. — Prince Dalberg. — Paul receives a small Pension. — Extract from Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs 890 CHAPTER IV. Domestic Letters. — Journey to Erlangen. — Journey TO Nurnberq. — Jacobi 401 ■^ xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. KiCHTER IX Relation with the Unhappy. — Letters. — Maria Forster 413 CHAPTER VI. Eichtek's Love of Travelling. — Visits Prince DaI/- berg. — Visits Heidelberg. — Receives his Doctor's Diploma. — Henry Voss. — Animal Magnetism . . 430 CHAPTER VII. Visits MuNCHEN. — Richter. — His Son Max. — His Melan- choly and Death 445 CHAPTER VIII. Richter visits Dresden. — The Impression he made upon his Relatives 454 CHAPTER IX. The purely Comic Works of Jean Paul. — The Life of FiBEL. — Nicholas Margraf, or the Comet . . . 462 CHAPTER X. '^ Richter visits Nurnburg on Account of his Eyes. — Kanne. — His Blindness. — Last Letters. — "Selina" 471 CONCLUSIOl^ 489 APPENDIX 603 INTRODUCTION Sketch of the Fichtelgebirge, the Birthplace OF Richter. IjIN the very centre of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, rises that mountain region called the " Fichtelgebirge " or Pine Mountain, which takes its 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 surrounded by mountains, and only divided from them by mountain plains. He speaks of it thus : " The Fichtelgebirge, spite of its wonderful pecu- liarities, is an unknown and unvisited part of Germany. To a great portion of the cultivated as well as the igno- rant world its name is scarcely known. The trains of travelling carriages, on the road from Munich and Nu- remberg 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 l)y. The troops of travelling German youth, with their staves and sketch- books, turn away from its threshold, frightened at its gloomy aspect." c^.-f'^: L'li*£ OF'JftAN PAUL. Tq ;he bc-soui of thja mysterious mountain island Jean Paul Frederic Riclitei" leceived his birth ; and, if eountiy and climate and early circumstances exert a powerful in- fluence on the character of the Poet, it seems a proper introduction to his biography to give a slight sketch of the region where 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 frosts begin so early that the potatoes are sometimes dug from the snow, and the harvest gathered when the hands must be cov- ered with gloves. Cut off^ as they are, from the sur- rounding country, and pressed together within a small compass, so that they can. embrace each other with the eye as well as the heart, the inhabitants are joined to- gether 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 spe- cies of romance that belongs to no otlier country. In the Fichtelgebirge, gold, that object of intense de- sire in the INIiddle 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 ver- dure, the smoke of the smelting-furnaces for iron, vitriol, and tin. The beautiful fountains and fresh streams, that INTRODUCTION. 3 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. Indeed, that which gives its peculiar character to this region are the numerous springs which everywhere freshen the soil and impart that vivid green to the hills whose summits are crowned with the darkest and most beautiful firs. 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 re- ligious seriousness to their manners, although they are often excited and heated like the element in which they work. The most numei-ous and contented class are the wood-cut- ters. Many young men leave a mechanical employment, irresistibly drawn, by the singing of birds and tlie 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 manufac- tures are carried on, like Hof, have lost somewhat of the simplicity of their manners. Many are engaged in manu- factures, who live, indeed, like country people, uniting some handicraft or agricultural occupation with their manufacturing 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 citi- zens. The higher classes, who possess estates in the mountain, the nobles, also retain the peculiarities of the country. In their domestic arrangements a pure sim- plicity prevails, and the inhabitants of the whole region live in confidential intercourse with each other. 4 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 implements of agriculture. On the wall hang the scythes, sickles, and cart and sled harnesses. 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 ii'on vessels, built in, for holding warm water ; benches are around the walls, and a soi-t of movable 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 stoves-pots. Near the window, in a corner, stands a large wooden table, used for all purposes, and suiTounded with wooden stools ; shelves near the door contain the w^ooden, iron, and tin implements for cooking, dining, &c., and above the door is a shelf on which the great, well-worn Bible, and the sermon and psalm-book are laid. Every Satur- day, table, benches, and all other utensils, are rubbed and polished with white, shining sand. INTRODUCTION. 5 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 de- scends from father to son as an heirloom 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 documents. The background 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 peculiar 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." Ai'ound are great piles of firewood ready split for the stove, necessary both winter and summer, in a climate so severe as that of the Fichtelgebirge. An orchard near the house, with a little corner appropriated to 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 flow- eiing 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. Otlier ornaments are the flower- ing maples and weeping birch-trees, and the decorated May-pole, that stands in the midst of every village, and ai'ound which, on Sundays and festivals, the dance is led. 6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Not all the mountain villages are thus ornamented. In some, the presence of only clumps of mountain pine give them a sombre and melancholy aspect. The dress of the people who are not engaged in manu- factui'es 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 woollen petticoat with a leathern girdle around the waist, through which, in working hours, the petticoat is tucked. Their stockings reach only to the ancle, 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. Indeed, 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 labors, 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 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 will recollect how large a space these festivals occupy in his novels. Plain and simple as are tlie inhabitants of this region, the charm of romance and the poetry of the ancient superstitions are thickly spread over it. INTRODUCTION. 7 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 wood- women, who nourish and protect those who have lost their way, and, for a piece of money, give them good counsels. Everywhere around in the deep solitudes tlie horn of the "wild hunter" and the anvil-blows of the " man of the mountains " are heard. The atmospheric phenomena of these regions are stiU another source of excitement to the imagination of the poet. Sometimes the whole mountain-tops are covered •with vapor, where the sun is reflected in infinitely beau- tiful hues long after it is below the horizon. Sometimes the mountain-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 descrip- tions of atmospheric changes, will find their source in the rare and beautiful 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 sus- ceptibility 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 authoi-s. The fact that he never could climb the heights of his birthplace was the mother of that infinite longing with which he every moment, even in the most cheerful cir- cumstances of his life, fell back upon liis youth. "When easier circumstances permitted him to travel, he would 8 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. not ascend the romantic heights of the Fichtelgebirge, lest the reality should break the enchanting dream of memory, and the illusions of his youth, that embellished the evening of his hfe 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 \asitor 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 I, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. FIRST LECTURE. CHAPTER I. WuNsiEDEL. — Birth. — Grandpaeents. r was in tlie year 1763,* about the same time with the Peace of Hubertsburg, that the pres- ent 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 mo- ment. This last circumstance, that the Professor and the spring were born together, I have mentioned in conver- sation at least a hundred times ; but I fire it off here, as a salute of honor, the hundred and first time, that, by print- • Just a hiindred years from the date of this third American edition. 1* lO LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. ing it, I may place it out of my power to offer again as a bon-mot what through the press has gone the rounds of the whole world. [So poor had fortune left his outward hfe, that he delighted to invest the accident of his hirth, that came with the spring, with a poetic meaning ; and this, through his whole life, was a source of joy, and threw a romantic light over his whole being.] 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 Hfe long, and strives to bring something out of it. Thus, I knew a barber and a coachman, who both, at the ques- tion, " Wliat is your name ? " answered with simplicity, and without any appearance of wit, " Your obedient servant," 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 dii-ec- tion. Let us not hope, my honored friends, who bear at the same time a common and a proper name, such as Ochs or Rapinat (both, indeed, Swiss), "Wolf, Scldegel,* Ilichter,t to surprise such a double-named man with any consequent play of wit, however brilliant ; tor he has lived too long with his own name to find any allusion to it, which may occur to the novice, either new or sur- prising or witty, but all to his ear is quite worn out. Mullner made a more witty play u})on words, with Schot- ten and Sckatten (Scotsman, shadow), for no Scotsman ever considered himself a shadow, and no shadow can be a Scotsman, for two vowels separate them eternally. But I return to our history, and place myself among * A beater. t A judge. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. II tlic dead, for all are out of the world who saw me come into it. My father was called John Christian Christopher Eit'hter, and was Tertius * and organist in Wunsiedel. My mother, who was tlie daughter of the cloth-weaver, John Paul Kuhn, in Hof, was named Sopliia 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 spon- sors was the name John Paul Frederic shot together ; the grandfatherly half I have translated into Jean Paid, 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 my grandfather, but that he Avas in the highest degree poor and pious ; and, should one of his two remaining grand- sons come to Neustadt, 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, * Tertiu? is master of the third class in a Gymnasium. A German Gymnasium has eight classes. The classes are an-anged in an in- verse order: thus, the first is taught by the rector; the second, by the conrector; the third, by the subrector; the fourth, by th^ qaintus, &c. — Tr. 12 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 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 in- deed 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 f and organist. But notwith- standing the fellowship of united ofhces, it produced only, one hundred and fifty florins annually. At this common hunger-fountain for Bayreutish schoolmasters the man who had been chanter in Rehau 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 nour- ishment ; so that such a man, by increasing his labors, may so increase his salary as to be inferior only to a statesman with expectancies or gratuities ; or, in general, * The Culmberg, near Neustadt, is a solitary conical hill, on the southeastern entrance to the Fichtelgebirge. 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 ■ turned to this, his pious grandfather's altar, when near his cot- ~ wrote in the open air. — Tr. often ,„ .„ tage study tie f Director of the ni.. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 13 to some high functionary in i-etirement, whose staflf of emoluments is carried through the whole score of the chamber, and that even during all the pauses of the instrument. In the mean time, 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 Gth 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 numbered seventy-six years, four months, and eight days, he was actually promoted to the station above mentioned in the Neustadt chiu-chyard. 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 in 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 bi'ighter hours ; and I needed to hold fast my faith in thy blessing, in this world, pene- trated, governed, and animated by wonders and spirits. My father was born in Neustadt, December IGth, 1727 ; — more, I should say, to tlie winter of life than, like my- self, 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 14 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. bj 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 yeai', was divided among many brothers and sisters* his part was exactly nothing, or at most alumnus-bread ; therefore he went to the Gym- nasium at Ratisbon, not only to hunger in a larger city, but to cultivate the peculiar floiver 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. Forty years later piano-pla}'ing and general bass made him a favorite composer of church music in the principality of Bayreuth. On the evening of Good Friday, he often de- lighted himself and us, his cliildren, 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 lately in Kat- isbon, among the antiques and forgotten relics of that place, the oppressed life of my father was the most pre- cious of all ; and, when I was in the palace of Thurn and Taxis, and in the nari-ow streets where two portly persons could scarcely pass each other, I thought of his small means, and the narrow passages of his youthful life. In- stead of the delightful science of music, he studied theol- ogy, both in Jena and Erlangen ; perhaps for no better reason than tljis, 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 17G0, 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 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 15 I have read, who, at seventy years old, had received no better place in the church than what the churchyard 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 families of Brandenburg and Schopf as the most agree- able of companions, always full of wit and jests and amus- ing anecdotes. The faculty of social wit accompanied him through life ; even when in his office he passed for a very severe pastor, and as it was called, in the jjulpit, for a preacher of the Law. In his native city he won his relations by his exciting preaching, and in Hof, in Voigt- land, something yet more important, — a bride, and, 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 daugh- ters, 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, tliis Tertius could only with the reputation of great desert and shining pulpit gifts, and agreeable personal appearance, gain both daughter and parents. The elevated soul of the cloth-weaver must have raised him 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. 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 l6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Tertius' shell room enougli 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 Thiimmel's Travels, or tea-drinking in Richardson'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 pov- erty. Under gold mountains and thrones lie buried many spiritual giants. When to the flame that the nat- ural 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 forbearance not to singe his phoenix wings at the sun of Fortune. For much gold, the poor historical Professor would not have had much 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 fi'ora 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 present and a little of the future, for the future does not reflect 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, lialf-asleep, open his eyes once more upon the ancient stars and fields of his youth ; and I have no objection, — since he has al- AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Xf ready made his best preparation for the other world, — if now in the evening, he should rejoice over his breakfast, and in the morning take comfort in his bed, and now, when he is a second time a child, the world should appear again under the mnocent form of delight in which it first came before him. Only one false resolution of my lather's could we place perhaps to the account of liis 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 grandparents, was then the provision-ship, and the needy son of the Muses sought to run into the quiet haven of the pulpit. But whoever, is not forced by ne- cessity, 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 " Universal 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 tlie solitary, silent parsonage of Joditz, the sweetest church music ? And, on the other hand, another art dwelt with that of music, and sought its playroom in the pulpit of Joditz ; for, in my father the master of the chapel and the master of the altar l8 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL.' were united. Eloquence, the prosaic but near neighbor to Poetry, dwelt in my father's heart ; and the same sun- beam 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 immedi- ately 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 im- portant to him as it is empty to me. If I placed myself before him in eternity 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, 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 revered hearers, would I ten times rather hold historical lectures over my ancestors than over myself How altered would be tlie appearance of that distant and foreign time, if our relations did not pass through it, stamp it with our presence, and make it fra- ternal 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 only able to paint the time in which our ancestors lived, and themselves also in the splendor and freshness of youth, then we should connect our posterity with ourselves, and paint them, not as youths, but more properly as old men. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 19 I return at last to the hero and subject of our historical lectures, and select especially the fact that he was born in Wunsiedel, a city of the Fichtelgebii'ge. . That Fichtel- gebirge, almost the highest region of Germany, gives to its inhabitants 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 ui 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 Avarlike bravery that I must win for myself, for it has been constantly known from history how they withstood the Hussites and were vic- torious ; 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 Plussite Nikolai to the Hussite Merkel.* In former times, Wunsiedel Avas 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 embel- lished by the steps tliat lead to it, and thy fountains of health give the sick man strength to ascend to the wide * Nikolai and Merkel, editors and printers of Reviews that had severely criticised the works of Jean Pa«l. — Tk. 20 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. throne above him, and to send liis glance over distant villages and mountain plains. I am glad to have been born in thee, little, but good, city of my affections.* 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 w^as 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 discovered the light of this. Men who have a firm hold on nothing else delight in deep, far-reaching recollections of their days of child- hood, and, in this billowy existence, they anchor on that far more than on the thought of later difficulties. Per- haps for tw^o reasons, — that in this retrospection they press nearer to the gate of life guarded by spritual exist- ences, and, secondly, that they hope, in the spiritual power of an earlier consciousness, to make themselves independent of the little, contemjDtible annoyances that surround humanity. To my great joy, I am able to bring from my tAvelfth, or, at furthest, my fourteenth month, one pale, little remembrance, like the earliest and most frail of snow-drops, 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 carried me about in his arms, and, later, took me more agreeably to the large, dark apartment of the alumni, 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 re- * Wunsiedel is a pleasant little town of about three thousand in- habitants. It lies between Bayreuth and Egar, the two extremities of the Fichtelgebirge, and higher on the mountain than eithei\ AUTOBIOGllAPHY. 21 member Ms name. If it were possible tbat he lives yet, far in his sixtieth year, and that, as a learned and well- informed man, tliese 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 my earlier life I remembered everything clearly. [A characteristic of Jean Paul is the transparency in which his earliest years lay mirrored in his mind to his latest age. The beginning of his Autobiography is not the least original in this, which divides him from so many others. In this he is remarkably the opposite of Goethe, whose active and agitated life had erased from his mem- ory the traces of the unfolding of his childish soul.] As in the year 1765 my father was called to be pas- tor in Joditz, I can separate my Wunsiedler relics more easily from my childish recollections of Joditz. Under the parsonage-roof of Joditz is now the second act of our little historical monodrama, where the hero of the piece has entered into a wholly different unfolding of character, for every division of my lectures is in a different dwell- ing-place. It is especially in the liistory of these lec- tures, or the lecture on this history, so skilfully and happily arranged, that, of the three unities of an histor- ical 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 tlie entrance into life to the entrance into his ProfessorsWp;. be -mu^it. pais«'.from one period of time into another. But he hopes, in the repre- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Bentation of the piece, that he shall scarcely offend the unity of time by growing older, although the great diffi- culty will be to preserve throughout the unity of interest. Our hero has ah-eady risen one step, and we have the satisfaction to meet him, whom we left in the first divis- ion 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 Bodenhausen, 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 Regens- burg. CHAPTER II. WinCH INCLUDES THE TiME FROM AuGUST, 1775, TO JANUAET, 1776. — JoDiTZ. — Village Idyls. E now find the Professor of his self-biography in the parsonage in Joclitz, which, in a female's cap and a girl's 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 afterward 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 wei*e a little hill. The little place itself is traversed by a small brook that is crossed by a board for pedestrians. An ordinary castle and the pastor's house are the only distinguished buildings. The envi- rons upon a level are not more than twice as large as the village itself. And yet is this village to the Profes- sor 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 honor of giving birth to Homer ; as little for the different Dutch cities, that (according to Bayle) would have produced Erasmus. 24 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. What can the first day after nine months signify more than any day before ? And can the place of the grave confer dishonor or advantage on its inhabitant more than the place where his cradle stood ? Altliough so many princes, on the whole, have been born in their own cities, yet London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, do not glory in them, otherwise 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 honors of birthplace, if, through the predominance of good bii'ths, anything could be decided as to the climate of the place or the character of the inhabitants ; but a Pindar in Boeotia does not make there a swallow-sum- mer.* The first and longest place of education is, indeed, the spiritual birthplace ; 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 mediocre celebrities ; men like my hero, who has gained so much through nurture and education, in connection, with reading, which is only a more important instruction, that he has become what he is, a Ilildburghausen Coun- sellor, a Heidelberg Doctor of Philosophy, a threefold member of different societies, and the present unworthy possessor of the Professorship) of this autobiography. 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 the fascinations of a great city are to the excitable, weak soul of a child, like sip- ping at a midnight table a draught of burnt waters, or * The meaning 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. AUTOBIOGKArilY. 2$ 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, fi-om a village to a city. I am thinking of that which is most important to the poet, — Love ! He must, in the city, draw about the Avarm zone of the friends and ac- quaintance 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 com- pany on the great ocean meet and pass another ship, freighted with those they do not love. But in a village 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 them- selves to dwell in each other ; and this heartfelt sym- pathy 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 bi-ings to every one he meets a piece of his lieart, and he must journey far before the whole heart is expended upon the streets and lanes. There is yet a greater misfortune than that of being educated 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, 2 26 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. these clouds of my childhood were rich in instrnction, although this was first gathered at the end of ten years. My life consisted in learning everything. 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 rouffe 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 al- ready in breeches (for the schoolmistress had established my weak claims to enter), the high school, namely, the one whose school-house was opposite the parsonage. As usual, all in the school were dear to me, especially the lean, consumptive, but animated schoolmaster, with whom I shared his patient anxiety, when he lay in am- bush behind his bird-cage, placed in the window to allure some tmwary passing goldfinch, or when he spread his net without in the snow, and caught a yellow-hammer from tlie host of birds. In the midst of the winter sul- triness of the crowded school-room, I remember the de- light 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 without. Every new copy-book from the master delighted me as others are delighted with pic- tures. I envied every one who said his lesson well, and I enjoyed reading together with my class, as singers enjoy the blessed liarmony of tl)eir music. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 27 Was it twelve o'clock, and the dinner not ready ; I and my deceased brother Adam (although a bird's-nest was dearer to him than the wliole 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 ajiartment 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 chil- dren 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 apart- ments, or moving into another house, or through the arrival of many guests, we httle fools could think of nothing finer ! Alas ! I closed forever 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 henceforth have the mortifica- tion to see every winter the children running into that haven that was shut to me. In the mean time, the rival joy remained foi- me to carry frequently to the school- master the bulls and decrees of his village Pope, which, instead of the Romish Agnus Dei and consecrated Christ- mas-box, consisted of a butcher's joint, or a little dish with his dinner. Four hours in the forenoon, and three hours in the afternoon, our father gave to our instruction, which con- sisted of merely learning by heart sentences, catechisms, * The reader will recollect the Fichtelgebirge houses were white- washed every spring. — Tr. z8 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Latin words, and long gi\ammatical lessons. We were obliged to learn the long rules of the genders, every de- clension, together with the exceptions, and the accom- panying examples in Latin verses, without understanding one word of them. Did my father on a beautiful sum- mer's day go into the country, such cursed examples as pants, 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 child- ishness, not an eighth part remained in his head, for rarely had lie the good fortune to have such precious declensions as scamnum or cornu among the number, of which he cer- tainly knew how to recite the Latin half Besides, you will easily believe that it was not an easy thing, in a clear, blue, June day, when the omnipotent father was not at home, to make one's self a fast prisoner in a corner of the apai'tment, 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. Tlie Professor of his own liistory ventures to make tliis 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 fatlier, wlio sacrificed the whole day to writing out and committing to memory the weekly sermon for the country people, merely out of extreme pastoral conscientiousness, although he liad many times proved the power of liis extemporaneous eloquence. In his weekly visit to the school, and in doubling his public exercises with the children, yes, in everything, he went beyond liis duty by his voluntary AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 29 and gratuitous services. And how he hung with a wann, tender, parental heart on me, and easily, with every lit- tle sign of talents or improvement, bui'st out into joyful tears ! This fjither committed no 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 recommended, since so much toil and trouble is never saved as where the pupil relies on the book as a vicarius or adjunct of the teacher, and his curator absentis, and, like a powerful clairvoyant, feels himself magnetized. This intellectual 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 school-boys what they have to learn by heart every day, and I will 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 the dialogues in Langen's Grammar, I guessed at the German from longing to understand 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 thirsting, the alphabet of that language, and at last wrote tolerable Greek, at least as far as belongs to the handwriting. How easily and Avillingly could I have learnt more ! The spirit, if not the substance, of a language entered easily 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 30 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. eight or nine years old, — my father brought me a little Latin dictionary that I was to learn by heart, l)ut first I was to read him a page. I read lingua, notwitlistanding his frequent coiTection, not ling-wa, but always lin-gua, and repeated the same fault, in s])ite of his repeated corrections, so often, that, Avith angry impatience, he took the book from me, and deprived me forever of leai'iiing it. I cannot, even now, discover the source of this obsti- nate stupidity ; but my heart tells me that through my whole life I have never been self-mlled, even in play, and never to my father, who at this very time had given me a school-boy's pleasure through a new book. This historical feature is purjjosely exliibited in our lecture- room, that the impartiality of our historical investigator and Professor 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. Be- sides, how often in life, either with or without under- standing, do poor, innocent men say Kn-gua, instead of the more correct ling-wa, and even with the tongue (lin- gua) 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 orthograj)hy, — all these sciences I became sufficiently acquainted with, but not in Joditz, where I was, indeed, twelve years old witliout knowing a word of them, but many years later at ditrc-rent intervals and by fi'agments, from the Uni- versal Library. So craving was my thii'st for books in this intellectual Sahara Desert, that every book was to me a fresh, green oasis, — particularly tlie Orbis Pictus,* * Goethe mentions the " Orbis Pictus" of Amos Comenius as one of the books that delighted his childhood. — Tk. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 31 and the " Dialogues in the 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 lat- tice-bedstead (like a great cage for animals),* and crept to the books to obtain one for myself. We may well consider that, in a thinly peopled village and a solitary parsonage, a man speaking in a book must be, to such a thirsting soul, as precious as the richest foreign guest, a INItEcenas, a travelHng prince, a firet 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 geo- graphical work, and I could relate 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 Roxelane for the Turkish Emperor. I was led to this by newspaper extracts received from an ancient noble lady. He had, from his patroness Plotho in Zedwitz, a present of the Bayi'euth newspaper, month- ly 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 pohtical news- paper, read, not in sheets, but in volumes, communicates real instruction, as there is room enough in a whole vol- ume of leaves to correct previous impressions and get the true one, and like the air, whose true color is not to be seen in parts and portions, but in the whole circum- ference, as only in its whole mass it obtains its heavenly * In the houses of the Fichtelgebirge, as the bed often stood in the common room, it was enclosed in a sort of wooden wicker-work. — Tb. 32 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. blue. Every morning I bore my news atlas to the castle of the old Lady von Reitzenstein, and, at the morning coffee, prophesied one event and another from the news I brought, and allowed them to praise me. I remember yet the noun of multitude, at that time often repeated, — confederacy (it is highly probable it was the Polan'd con- federacy) ; 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 affaii-s considered in our village, as well by myself as by the old Lady Reitzenstein, my hearer. The intellectual fibres of our hero, thirsting for learn- ing, penetrated and wound themselves around everything from which they could extract their aliment. He pre- pared clocks, whose dial-plates were good counsellors, with pendulums and wheel and weights, which 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 ribbon cuttings of his father's octavo sermons, sewed together and neatly trimmed. The contents were theological 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 Fred- eric von Schlegel, who in the same manner in his selec- tions, " Lessing's Geist," gives his opinion upon passages in certain writers, without the passages themselves. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 33 In the same manner, our hero threw himself upon pauiting. Many ruling potentates sat, or rather lay to him, when, with a fox'k, he pricked through their features upon a thick sooty sheet of paper, placed under the en- graving, and afterwards pressed it upon a sheet of white paper. Whether he might not, under sunny influences, have attained the fame of Raphael Mengs, remains to be guessed, for, unlike this ai'tist, they had to beat him from, not to painting, and, -when he afterwards received a box of colors, he colored the whole Orbus Pictus after the life. I could not, at this time, believe all that was in the box of colors, everything is so painted in memoiy, — the pale red leather ball, the four-cornered red tile, the rounded palette, the splendid colored shells, and the green and gold beetle yet shimmering in that box. It were yet something less judicious, from his art of making herrings in winter, to conclude that he could have been a great financial correspondent. His artifice for collecting her- rings 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 the precursor of sur- rogate 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 * Richter means here to ridicule those biographers who infer an original genius for their heroes from the nature of their sports. 2* 34 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. appear extremely ridiculous to me, if, out of the broken and scattei-ed fragments of any other childhood, he should collect and read something wonderful. The foolish man would appeal- to me like that Paris barber, who, Avith tlie help of a Jesuit, placed together many of the bones of an elephant, and sold them as the true skeleton of the Ger- man giant, Teutobach. The beard does not make a phi- losopher, for 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 mtellectual than in physical experiments, but he followed all with inexpressible delight. Thus he invent- ed, instead of a new language, a new wi'iting character. He took the calendar signs from the Almanac, or geomet- rical out of an old book, or chemical, 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 wi'iter, and his concealed play was with himself. Without peeping into Biittner'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 in- vestigator, if, out of this ciphering and deciphering, which even at this early time was less valuable for its contents than its form, he should have seen himself the incipient Counsellor of the Embassy, or even the Ambassador him- self ; for I have in fact, gained the character of legations- counsellor, and could to-day decipher many things. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 35 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 be- ing laughed and leaped as in a spring morning ; or, when the morning after the night dance of the Kii-chioeihe,* (at which my father the next Sunday sent loud, thundering anathemas,) when the foreign musicians with their haut- boys 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 tuning-master were the winds and the weather, to thun- dering out my fantasies, 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 mel- ody or harmony of three or six strings, I was like a man in an ecstasy, 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 ap- plause. He acts, at least, in a more fi'iendly manner than Ileliogabalus, who condemned liis cook to continue eating a bad soup until he had discovered a better ; on the con- * The annual commemoration of the consecration of the church. 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. — Tk. 36 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. trarj, the Leipzig book-fair has entertained the reading 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 Avill 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 forever. Deceptions of memory are here scarcely imag- inable, for no exterior occurrence could mingle with a consciousness so concealed in the holy sanctuary of man, whose novelty alone has given permanence to the every- day circumstances that accompanied it. It appears to me best, in order to represent the Joditz life of our Jack 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 jiarsonage. 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 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 37 the wide wood under the broad heaven. Is not the human spirit, with all its mfinite, heavenly expansion, enfolded in a body of six feet high, with a covering of Malpighian * 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 witli which of the Idylline quarters to begin, for each is a little heavenly introduction to tlie next ; however, the climax of joys will be most ajiparent, if we 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 tlie 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 umnelted remains of the sugar-candy, which he took against a cough, from the bot- tom. Out of doors, the sky covered all things with si- lence, — til* brook with ice, the village with snow ; but in our room there was truly life ; under the stove, a pig- eon-house, on the windows green and goldfinch cages ; on the floor the invincible bull-dog, our Bonne, the night- guardian of the courtyard, 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 * Malpighi was a celebrated physician who decomposed the skin. — Tk. 38 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. possible noises ; * the tkresliers also with their flails might be heard in the court of the parsonage. lu tins way, suiTounded by society, the male portion of the house- hold spent their forenoons in tasks of memory, while the female portion were as busily employed in cooking. No occupation whatever excludes holidays. I also had my ailing festivals, equivalent to a holiday upon the water, when I could travel out in the snow of the courtyard, and to the threshing in the barn. Nay, was there a difficult embassy to be transacted in the 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 my- self in the new snow. At noon also, before our own din- ner, we chikken 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 childi-en 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 ^nstre Nacht hricht 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 beau- ty, and are indeed the swan-song of the day ; the evenmg 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 tumult into the land of silence and of dreams. After watching for the moonlight of the candle-lighting to ap- * The reader will recollect that in the Fichtelgebirge houses all the domestic animals were under the same roof with the family. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 39 pear under the kitelien door, we saw the wide room at once iUuminated and secured ; namely, the window siiut- ters were closed and bolted ; behind these window breast- works and bastions the children felt secure, and closely nested against Knecht Ruprecht, who could not entex", but only gi-umbled and gi-owled from without.* About this time also, we children might undress and skip up and down in long traiUng 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 childi-en, was com- posing 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 chil- dren's noise. The children sat playing on that long writing and eat- ing table, and even under it. Among the joys that be- longed to tliis sweet time of childhood was this ; that during the severe winter's frosty weather, the long table, on account of the warmth, was shoved to the stove-bench,t and our gain consisted in tliis, that we could sit or run upon it * Knecht Ruprechl is the hobgoblin or Raw-head-and-bloody-bones of German children. — Tr. t 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 shoved to the bench that surrounded the stove, must have formed the coacli-like domesticity that Richter loved. — Tk. 40 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Then how did tlie winter evening rise in value when, 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 of 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 shephei'd and his wolf-fight with wolves, with whom at one time his own danger, and at another that of his provision, was the gi-eat- est. 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 their 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. * " Aschenbrodel " is probably the name of a popular German tale, with which the translator is unacquainted. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 41 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 nine o'clock were sent tq bed in the guest's chamber, in the second story ; my brother in a bed in the common apartment, 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 suifered 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 not so much created as nour- ished by my father himself. He spared us not one of all the spiritual appearances of which he had heard, and even told us som& which he believed himself to have experi- enced ; 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 a want of imagination. On the contrary, a child like myself trembles before the invisible world, which his fancy forms and peoples, but arms himself easily against the visible, 42 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. as this never reaches the depth and greatness 'of the in- visible. Thus an eminent physical danger, such as a furi- ous horse, a clap of thunder, war, or an alarm of fire, made me tranquil and self-possessed, as I was susceptible of fear only through the itoagination, and not by the senses. A ghost, could I have survived the first shudder, would have restored me again to common life, if it did not, through gesture or sound, precipitate me into the endless kingdom of Fantasie. But how are we now to be preserved by education from the tragical over mastery of the spirit-invoking imagination ? Not through contra- diction, 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 famil- iarity with places and times, where formerly the imagi- nation kindled its enchanted vapor, and pai'tly through means by which the imagination is armed against the imagination, and spirits are opposed to spirits ; to the Devil — God ! It happened, througli peculiar circumstances, that I was sometimes afraid of ghosts in tlie daytime. 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- yai'd, passing through the village, where it was joined by the singers, I was obliged to carry my father's great Bible through the clmrch 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 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 43 could be described, who would not laUgh ? Nevertheless I always undertook, without opposition, the office of car- rj'ing the Bible to the sacristy, and concealed my terror in my own breast. We come now to the gi-eat 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 lieart ; out upon the earth, it is mei'ely 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 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, wliich sometimes enclose whole fields, but from the walls of a court, and to flee away over a whole village, into the unenclosed 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 laborers as an * 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. — Tk. 44 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. overseer or taskmaster (although they wore feudal ten- ants), but as a friendly shepherd of souls that would take part at the same time with nature, and with his spiritual children. Wliile I see ecclesiastics and proprietoi-s and avaricious men so richly furnished from head to foot with suckers, so that they draw everytliing 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 scai'cely 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 under a pure heaven. Tlie morning sparkled with the undried dew, when I carried his coffee to my father, to the pastor's garden, lying out- side the village, where, in a small pleasure-house open on every side, he committed his sermon to memory. In the evening, our mother bi'ought us, for our second meal, the salad prepared by hei'self, and currants and raspberries from the garden. It belongs to the unacknowledged country pleasures, that of being able to sup in tlie even- ings without kindling a liglit. 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 nightgowns in the fresh evening air, as freely as the crossing swallows above us. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 45 "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 sea- son fluttered about our hei-o, and was his first-love. This was a blue-eyed peasant-girl of his own age, with a slen- der 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 Romer, a delicate youth, who was known as a good ac- countant, 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 man- ner, from a distance, as he sat in the pastor's pew in the church, and she in the seat appropriated to women, ap- parently near enough to look at each other without being satisfied. And yet this was only the beginning ; for when, at evening, 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 monk within, to thrust his liand 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 ! he did not arrive in many summers three times to such happi- ness as this. But he was obliged to devour all the pleas- ures, and almost all the sorrows within his own heart. His almonds, indeed, did not all fall upon stony ground, 46 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. for there grew out of them a whole hanging garden in his imagination, blooming, and full of fragi'ance, and he walked in it whole Aveeks long. For pure love will only bestow, and through making the beloved happy, is happy ! And, could it give an eternity of ever-increasing happi- ness, what were more blessed than love ? The sound of this cow-bell remained for him a long time the Ranz des Vaches from the high, distant Alps of childhood, and yet will liis 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 eveji the slightest sound ; be it only a cow-bell, its Oii^hic enchant- ment is doubled, and the distant, invisible waves of har- mony 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 Augus- tina, and lived Avhole years, witliout so mucli 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 to- gether in that kiss, — but the lips of a beloved, which, at a distance, shone w^armly down like the sun upon the most inward sj^iritual love, would have immersed him in the 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. In his thirteenth year, when his father received a much richer AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 47 parsonage, he, ov 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 color-box had colored 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 notlting 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 ap- pearance, 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 heav- enly annihilation 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 parsonage boy, he had passed from heaven to heaven. Nevertheless, 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 connection with this discussion of beauty, that every female face whose so-called ugliness has no moral cause, 48 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. he can without cosmetic artifice, Avithout paint or poma- tum-box, witliout snow or soap-water, and without night- masks,* make in the highest degree charming and en- chanting ; — if she will only sing to him some evening a song composed of heart-words, no one shall be more beau- tiful 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 scai'S 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 obtain a more powerful hold of us in representation, had it not been so often described ; but for tliis reason only are so many thousand books endured, that only paint it. Take from a man who, in the enclianting time of love, looks upon the landscape, the stars, flowers, and moun- tains, 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 splendor. 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 Sun- day came into the world and the cluirch than in other years. * Ladies sometimes slept in medicated masks in order to procure a delicate complexion, or to defend a delicate one from the severe air of a northern climate. AUTOBIOGRArilY. 49 In cities, there are birthdays of princes and great men, and fair-time, the true Trinitatis. Paul began, on splen- did, shining Sunday mornings, his enjoyment in this way: Before church, he went through the village with a bunch of 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 win- dows 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, whicii he, together with his brothers in office, felt, when, after church, and before dinner, they carried to the feudal peas- ants 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 chil- dren, Paul particularly, love to cany 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 ves- per hour is enjoyed by the children of a pastor, wlien both church services are over, especially of one who lias him- self preached. How they, together with their father, re- joice when the labors of the church are linished, and he 3 D 50 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. can exchange his priest's mantle for the lifi^ht eveiy-tlay frock, and enjoy the calm repose of the Sabbath evening, while, at the same time, the whole village visit, and enjoy the sight of each other. 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 sermon, and Paul's playmate, the pastor's little son, suffered himself to be 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 fluttering and dancing, heart-beating and sign-greeting, — and as to hearing the sermon, had the Propaganda, the ten first court preachers, 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 fourchette 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 pos- sible 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 ex- tension of bliss, by the parents and by the little curate's sons, 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 * It must be remembered that Paul at tliis time was under ten years of a";e. AUTOBIwG.RAJ'M* .5^ that were enjoyed by P-aul -mthout. uoqrs,;in,4]ie village, and may conveniently he, clividcd into those wfi-in Le v^f.!^ not at home himself, and those when his father was ab- sent. 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 childi-en is conferred on the mother. Paul and his brothers were able, e\en under the eyes of the business-entangled mother, to leap over the door of the courtyard, 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 new playmate in the schoolmasters Fritz, or help 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 courtyard, except that Paul jnight 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 ex- tended over the bridge, but he could not get much har- mony there. The Joditz summer Idyls were naturally much richer, when we left our village wholly, and went to another, or rz^ HF5S', OF JE'AN PAUL. touthe .city., . "Was there a-beautiful summer day, after the lessaa had" befciiv 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 father ; but at the end of an hour he had his little Pastor's son 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 har- monica-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 repeat the same again before the pastor's family, — and the little one, I may safely say, went on without fear or faltering. In a boy who, during his whole life, had seen notliing great, — neither count, nor general, not even a superintendent, and rarely a nobleman, — perhaps twice in a year the Ilerr von Reitzenstein, — 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 some- thing yet more bold one afternoon when his father was absent. He took the psalm-book and went to visit an ex- tremely aged woman, old as tlie hills, who had been bed- ridden 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 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 53 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 Zedwitz, 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 even- ing, the utmost rustic astonishment, both in his wife and children, by telling about the exalted personages, and their court ceremonial, the court entertainments, the ice- houses, and Swiss cows, — and how he was very soon invited from the domestics' apartment to the Herr von Plotho, or even to the Frjaulein, to whom he gave exer- cises and imitations upon the piano, and at last was intro- duced 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 ditFerence if the most distinguished noblemen of Voigtland sat there and dined, — Init, like an old Lutheran court preacher, he knew how to look at the illimitable greatness of rank, as at the appearance of spectres, without trembling at either. And yet I would say, how much happier are the chil- dren of the present day, who are justly educated to no prostration before exalted rank, and are strengthened fi-om within against outward splendor ! Wliile the Joditz pastor's sons were waiting, expecting in one short hour to prosti'ate themselves before the Zedwitz throne, the inter- est of the occasion was heightened by the ornamented coach, which was sent the Thursday preceding Good- Friday, before the evening solenmity, to carry the father as Confessor to the whole household. The sons can speak of the coach, for, before the evening they were 54 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. carried round a little, with infinite delight, in the village. Picture to yourself our hero going to Zedwitz, 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 Legationsrathy immediately after such formal etiquette in his reception, 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, wlio wandered with widely-expanded breast, for the first time, in the midst of all these splendors. But the elevated Paul was drawn again into reality by a wooden bird, suspended by a cord, whose iron bill he was permitted 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 aftertaste re- mains' uneffaced in the reUquiarium of our hero. Oh ! splendid solitary hours and walks for the indigent village child, who.-?e heart so delighted to be filled, were it only with longing, in the outward world ! Among the summer Idyls of little court splendor, were AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 55 the frequent errands that Paul, with a sack across his back, must make to the grandparents 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 these things 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. Tlie 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 towel's, and the Saale in its level plain, overpow- ered the little traveller with excessive satisfaction. Be- fore an excavated chasm, near the suburbs, through wliich, according to report, the Hofers fled in the Thirty Yeai's' War, he passed with that shudder at all war and martyr times that belongs to cliildhood ; and the adjoining cloth- fulling mill, with its perpetually thundering strokes, and apparently unmanageable machinery, expanded his vil- lage 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 let- ter (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 al- monds 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 S6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. mountain-side, with its waving cornfields, traversed by the coursing shadows of the clouds ; and when a till now unexperienced, undefined longing came over him, of min- gled pain and pleasure, and unremembered wishes. Ah, it was his whole nature awaking and tliirsting after the heavenly gifts of life, that lay as yet concealed, unde^ned, and colorless in the deep folds of the heart ; but an acci- dental 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 painful, bound- less 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 runner, when money was wanted, to nego- tiate a loan at his grandfather's ; so too in the coldest weather he would follow his father to the neighboi-ing parsonage. He may thank these weekly excursions 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 wannth and carefulness, did not arm one against, but prepared the way for, un unhealthy future. But this is the blessed fortune of poor and village children, that the summer, witli its spring and autunm 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 bareheaded and barefoot, grow and strengthen upon uncooked nourishment. It is only the dear little delicate Princesses who flourish in no season. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 57 The good people meanwhile will not believe that the summer repairs the ravai^es of whiter ; but, on the con- trary, that this domestic Avinter season is tlie 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 Mon- day after St. James's day, when the grandparents 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 splendor 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 honor, 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 with- out by means of lieated irons and sharp screwing of the curled locks ; but Paul came so much fresher, newer, and whiter with liis curls and tonsure from the powder-puff back to dinnei", which could not indeed be very consider- able, as the grandfather must hasten back to the Rath- house, 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 deafened 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 everything ; he would secretly purchase something to 3* 58 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. carry to the solitary house, but as all were absent and it was gloomily lonely, he mingled again with the throng- ing multitude. The most respectable and beautiful ladies sat at the windows in the second stories of the houses. As he passed, Paul fell in love with them, and as they were ignorant of his existence, from the street below lie fell in imagination upon their necks. Yet none was so distinguished, through the elevation of the apartment, or the ornaments upon her head, as his favorite sultana the little country girl, Augustina, in Joditz, for wliom 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 gi-andfather, having completed his sales, supped at this hour, and aU 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 enclianted and inspired. During the fair, Turkish music was heard in the princii)al streets; deafened and silent, the people and children followed tlie sounds, and the village boy heard for the first time drums and fifes, and the Turkish cymbals. " In me," these are his own woi'ds, " wlio never ceased to tliirst after musical sounds, they produced a music-intoxication, and I heard, as the drunken see, the world doubled and in fiight. The fife carried me away most powcrfidly through the high notes of the musical scale. How often did I seek before AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 59 falling to sleep, when fancy was the finger-boai'd that came easiest to hand, to hear again those echoing sounds ; and how am I blessed when I liear them again, as deeply- blest as if my childhood had become immortal, merely through the power of sound, and with it spake to me again ! Ah ! faint, thin, invisible sounds bear and harbor whole worlds for the heart, and are in themselves soids for the soul." Perhaps the tones of the higher octave penetrate deep- est 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 contrary, 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 fifcing of the little fifes in the Russian field music is fearful to me, and sounds like a herald calling to battle, like a mel- ancholy early Te Deiim 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-sketch- ing. In the mean time, the approaching spring has melted into summer, and the summer — which, in 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 oflp in other years, he sees snow-mountains all covered with flowers, and goes to them, in fancy, like a bee intoxicated 6o LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. with honey ; but when he approaches them they melt away. The widely-extended plans of summer journeys and summer 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 nar- rowest recesses of his house. Only he will sometimes open his 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 satellites 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 appeal* 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 safe througli 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 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 tlian a man's hand. The whole house was red, striped with ink, and AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 6l 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 witli glass, that the flies might not pass out instead of the smoke. In no part were windows spared, and I dare assert that the palace consisted far more of windows than of walls. "When Paul saw innu- merable flies in this wide palace, up stairs and down stairs, and running into all the great apaitments, and from them into the balconies and projections, he represented to him- self 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 parson- age appeared to him ! He has later, as an author, described this domestic, comer-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 flow- ers 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-pi'oof 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 ^tna, where all is adapted and fitting environment ; lor 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. 62 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The Joditz autumn Idyl is painted by what I have already said. Autumn leads people to tlieir 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, Avhose long processions he followed with infinite delight, because they were the prelude to that intimate domestic winter in-nesling^ — and it pains me now, on his account, to think how he could enjoy the shrieks of the geese, flying over in 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 that is taken from the length of the day in autumn, I would ascribe to his love for superlatives, even of oppo- site kinds ; in short, for everything infinitely great or infinitely small, for the maxima and minima of every- thing, lie 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 everywhere observe with what innumerable 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 a double instinct is given him both for land and water, that he may neither drown nor thirst. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 63 These are merely autobiogi*aphical touches, which a future biographer may conveniently work into a portrait, and for which he will perhaps thank me. I must refer to this contented winter predilection, 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 liis shoul- der, the other a hand-basket ; and while the father dug as many new potatoes as were necessary 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, preserAjed in the chambers of his memory, and both are indeed trees. One w^as a full-branched muscatel pear-tree in the pastor's courtyard, the fall of whose splen- did hanging fruit the children sought through the whole autumn to hasten ; but at last, upon one of the most im- portant days 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 palates 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, 64 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 orna- mented leaves ; every one of which indicates a cherished pleasure, and shows that every child under tliis May- tree of winter may celebrate his tabernacle feast of hope.* My hearers will suffer me to describe Paul's Christ- mas festival, for in his works we meet with pictures of the same that far exceed mine, and merely two circum- stances may be added as features of the picture. When Paul on Christmas morning stood before the lighted tree and the lighted table, and saw this new world of gold and splendor and gifts lying around, and discovered and took possession of one rich gift after another ; the first emo- tion that arose in him was not a tear, not even a tear of joy, but a deep sigh over life, — in one word, the transi- tion, 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 extinguished the moonlight of fancy. 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 consent- * We have become so familiar with the beautiful German custom of the Christkind tree, that it is unnecessary to add any explanation to the text. — Tr. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 65 ing to every gift, came on Christmas morning, as with a mourning veil on his face, from his own room into the splendidly lighted common apartment. The mother her- self 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 liis wife to prepare for the chil- dren, if he did not himself do the whole. In fact, he had earlier. — when they were simpletons, months before the representation of this enchanting opera, — lying upon the sofa, played the part of pretended ticket-bearer {Lugen- Zettel-Trdger) or 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 presefits for the maid aside, upon a near table. In short, all upon the tables and the tree were so advantageously arranged, and so perfectly or- dered, that the whole shone with splendor, and his eyes with delight. Nevertheless, 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 joyfulness 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 befoi-e them, where luxuriantly from the very trunk of reality the blos- soms 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 brousht 66 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. them ; for as soon as lie had accidentally observed, by the witness of his senses, that only human and not spir- itual hands had broken off and laid upon the table the flowers and fruits of joy, the Eden splendor and Eden perfume went out, and were extinguished, and there re- mained only the common earth of the garden-bed. But it is incredible how he, like all children, anned himself against the heaven-disturbers of this divine faith, and how long he held fast his supernatural revelations against all the discoveries of his growing 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 re- ligions, to descend to the men, who up in tlie 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 expenses for four sons were always increasing, and for these sons tbe prospect of 'better schools was neces- sary. 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-Saale, a little city or a great market-town.* Death is the only theatre-director and machinery-master on the earth. He takes a man as a cipher from a row of num- bers, from the left, the middle, or the right, and behold, the whole collection changes its value and order. The right of presentation, which the Baron von Schonburg- "Waldenburg and tlie Frau von Plotho possessed alter- nately, came at this time into the hands of Richter's * Markt-Jlecken, a borough town that has the privilege of holding one or more annual fairs, and is tho medium between a city and a village. — Tk. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 6-J patroness, who rejoiced long and undisguisedly at the op- portunity of serving and rewarding the good, disinterested, 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 impure simony ; thus the {)ride of l)irth 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 impart 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 him 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 apart- ment, 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 grati- 68 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. tude), and running with his bull-dog to his home, to im- part as early as possible liis 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 haj-vest- 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 the quiet, calm, unrestrained, simple, still life of the village would in futux-e hang as a distant picture in his memory. Indeed, the country life is like life at sea, of a uniform color, without the interchange of little and great events ; but it affords a species of unifonn tranquillity, which works healthily, as the equal and uniform sea favorably, upon the consumptive, while no clouds of dust are breathed, and no insects torment. I believe I have now fulfilled my obligations as Pro- fessor 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 sometliiiig more of the principal actors than, as hitlierto, 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 Ileinrich Ileineke von Lubeck (who after his examination returned again to the bosom of his nurse),* * The biographer of this miraculous child, in his " Lehen, Thaten, Beisen, und Tod," tells us that at five years old he understood the Latin AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 69 without knowledge of nature, country, or world-histoiy, except the little part which was himself; without French or music ; in Latin, only a little bit of Lange and Spec- chis ; in short, such an empty transparent skeleton with- out 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 mth him that unknown village ; and, although it has not gained a laurel-crown through a bat- tle, as many other villages, yet he dares, I believe, hold it high in liis 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 con- tented 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, hke 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." [Here ends the Idyllic life of Jean Paul. In this little village of Joditz, too insignificant to be mentioned in any Gazetteer, lie went as a little child of two years old, and remained till his thirteenth year. Here he received those impressions, and his genius that direction wliich followed him through life and influenced all his works. He greets this village as his spiritual birthplace, the first and long- est place of his education, and where he lived the most important, the boys' Olympiad. Never is he so much at and French language?, had read history, geography, and the Institu- tions of the Roman Laws, had a good knowledge of anatomy and the- ology, was witty and penetrating in conversation, but lived altogether upon the milk of his nurse. 7° LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. home in his descriptions 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 religious spirit ; and his grandfather's altar, the Culmberg, was the spot he had always before him.] CHAPTER III. Schwabzenbach-on-tiie-Saale. — First Kiss. — Rector. — The Lord's Supper. ILL my hearers believe that Paul, a.d. 1773 through the whole packing and mov- '^'- 1^. ing, going forth and going in, thought of noth- ing, took no leave of jiarents or children, ob- served nothing 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 childhood and boyhood, — tliey 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 relations, than transient ones ; and first in manhood, exactly the contrary disposition appears. For children there is no leave-taking, for they acknowl- edge no past, only the present, 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, — * Scliwarzenbach-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. — Tr. 72 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. a parsonage full of liltle apartments, and two large ones. These were opposite the two great bridges, with the thereto belonging* Saale, and immediately beside it a school-house, that was as large, if not larger, than the whole Joditz parsonage. 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 en- tered 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 without any depth either in conver- sation 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 conjugations, and then skip at once to the reading of an author. Paul must immediately make the leap, high over Langen's Gollo- quia, into Cornelius, — and he went. The school-room, or rather the school-ark, contained alphabetiers, latin- ers, 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 whipping. 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 |)raised himself so much, tliat lie was aston- ished at his own greatness, looked upon his faulty method AUTOBIOGRAPUY. 73 of teaching as wholly origintil, although it was that of Basedow ; and Paul's fljnng progress was to him a new proof of its excellence. About a year afterwards, some few declensions and verbs fi-om Danzen's Hebrew gram- mar, 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 i-ead by the uncultivated Jews. I shall immediately proceed chronologically with the 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 a printed 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 collected from all the Schwarzenbach corners all the Hebrew grammars he could find, so that he might possess upon critical })oints, vowels, accents, and the like, all tliat had been brought upon the table, at the analyzing of any particular word. For this purpose he stitched to- gether a quarto book, and began at tlie first word, of the first verse, in the first book of IVIoses, 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 jFi^Iein's self-impelled hunting in the 4 74 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Hebrew folio Bible after great and small and reversed let- ters, described in the " first letter-box," may be compared exactly with the circumstance 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 all the pieces that could be collected in the place, and to improvise (phmitasieren) upon the piano. He learnt the grammar of music, and general bass, through perpetual improvising and note-playing, as we learn German through speaking. At the same time he began to read the belle-lettre literature of Germany. But in Schwarzenbach there was only the romantic to be found, and of this, the worst romances from the first half of tlie last century ; but of these materials he formed a little Babylonian Tower, al- though he could only draw out one at a time for reading. Among all the histories upon the book-shelves, none (for Schiller's Armenian 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 oc- curred. A second romance, " Veil Rosenstoch von Otto" (the father read and forbade it,) repeated only half of the former excitement; but only as a plagiary and book-thief * There is an admirable translation of this work of Jean Paul by Carlyle, which has been reprinterl in this cc mtry. — Tr. AUTOBIOGKAI'IIY. 75 could lie enjoy it, wliilc the father was absent from his stu(l3^ 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 tlie present childi-en, from whom the first impression of the child's, and the child-like Robinson is withdrawn in favor 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 leach him geography and philosophy. What excited him, who had 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, refreshed me like fresh water, by its novelty. After- wards he pointed out upon a map, I believe of Germany, many cities and boundaries. What I saw upon tlie map 1 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 endeavor to carry them in my head, be- comes, instead of a mythological heaven, a hell to me. If any description of city or country remains in my head, it is tlie little T liave acquired in geographical courses, of 76 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. which part is the statistics of the post-wagon, part what the post-jockey has cursorily 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 leaf upon which the propositions were barely hinted, and the proofs and indications from Nosselt and Jerusalem in the same rnanner. These cii)hei'ed indications were explained to me, and from this leaf, like Goethe's botany,* my leaves wei*e 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 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 ex< iting 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 be- yond the limits of their circle of ideas, such as in the note,! * See that exquisite poem of Goethe's, tlie 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. t From such common, cohl, empty, all and nothing-demanding AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 77 of wliicli T could mention a thousand, — so that I earnestly wish a man, who understands-youth t\'ell, would set him- self to write (notwithstanding the good thoughts and in- vestigations 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 time and its themes, as older Avriters require, and he will speak out, undisturbed by your touch ; otherwise he is like a bell tliat 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 high- est. They find higher renown in forming fi'om free spirits merely servile machines, and proving thereby their creative mastery and business powers. They be- lieve 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 mai-ionette daughter, who on her themes as " the praise of industry," " the importance of youth," &c., could scarcely the ripest and richest mind draw anything lively or original. Other themes, such as "comparison of heroes and poets," weighing of " forms of government," &c., are ostrich eggs, upon which the poor pupil sits and broods with his too short wings, and makes nothing warm but himself. Between both, histori- cal themes are the best, such as the description of a fire, a plague, a flood, and proofs that they are not common, &c., &c. 78 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Bide is able to raise a little dog on liigli. All accom- plished by one ho(^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 modem ones. These may do much to educate the world; but the old way was best for me, as it ex- panded the limits of my philosophical impulse, and suf- fered it to outrun itself, — an impulse tliat found its way out from my own head into a small octavo book, in which I sought logically to establish the pliilosophy of seeing and hearing. I related some of it to my father, wlio blamed and misunderstood 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 writuig 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 wtli their original wateriness ? And yet some improvement might be expected to result from the repeated readings of a work, by wliich its deli- cacy and peculiarities are better understood ; and every translator of a gonial work understands and enjoys it bet- ter than a mere reader. Reading may be called gather- ing 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.* In England, language is formed by the court and by people of the world, and is rarely helped by reading. * Kllngelbeulel, a purse or bag with a long handle and bell attached to it, used iu the church to collect alms during divine service, or the mass. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 79 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, notwithstand- ing the headache, 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 fa- ther never by a single word induced me to stay away, but suffered it in silence. I was a fool to run away from the chaplain, while I still continued to love him. Indeed, I joj'fuUy remained the little foot-post messenger between him and my father ; 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 gossiped away the half or the whole evening ; but I had, as I have said, the chess-board in my head and remained at a distance. 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 jeal- ousy, 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 under- standing : — I knew of nothing but the warmest love ; and so the sweet soon settled down to acid lees and sediment. A MY FIRST KISS. S earlier in life, on the opposite church bench, so I could but fall in love with Catharine Barin, as she 80 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. sat always above me on the school bench, with 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 suc- ceeding 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, " Hoio does your neighbor 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 accoUades 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 al- ways forbid me the court, and I always called her to the court, was managed. All these malicious occurrences (desertiones malitioscB) 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 her 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 tmmpet. 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. In the mean time I have the satisfaction to draw all AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 8l 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, wlien mj Princess's collection of sweet gifts was prepared, and 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 venture, which I had never done, into the house where the beloved dwelt with her poor grandmother up in a little comer chamber. We entered a little alehouse un- derneath. Whether Catharine happened to be there, or whether the rascal, under the pretence of a message, al- lured her down upon the middle of the steps, or, in short, how it happened that I found her there, has become only a di'eamy recollection ; for the sudden lightning of tho present darkened all that went behind. As violently as if I had been a robber, I first pressed upon her my pres- ent of sweetmeats, and then I, who in Joditz never could reach the heaven of a first kiss, and never even dai'ed to touch the beloved hand, I, for the first time, held a be- loved being upon my heart and lips. I have nothing fur- ther to say, but that it was the one pearl of a minute, that was never repeated ; a whole longing past and a dream- ing future were united in one moment, and in the dark- ness behind my closed eyes tlie 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 Cliristmas festival Ruprecht * did not precede, but followed it, for * Ruprecht may be called the Father Nicholas, who comes on Christmas eve, and plays all sorts of tricks. 4* S- 82 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 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 telegram. 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 attrac- tive outward appearance ; all corporeal charms must be placed over the foil of the spiritual, before they can sufii- ciently shine and kindle and dazzle. But this was the cause of failure in my innocent love-time, that without any intercourse with the beloved, without conversation or introduction, I displayed my whole love bursting from the dry exterior, and stood before her like the Judas-tree, in full blossom, but without branch or leaf. A JOKE WITH THE RECTOR. S the Joking companions* knew that the rector read the newspapers in his school, and that in liis school- * " Schrauhgenossenschaft " may be translated mystifi/iny society, that consisted of the acquaintance of the rector, who permitted among each other such practical jokes as the one related. — Tr. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 83 room sennons he made use of every passing occurrence, they sent him, from the Erlangen commercial newspaper, 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 rec- tor, kindled by the veracious sheet, could scarcely wait for the retreat of the chanter, to break out into explana- tions ; and as with glowing colors (the Erlangen news- paper-writer had used only water-colors) 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. Every one may imagine througli what triumphal arch, or upon what bed of honor, 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 questioned the school children : — 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 thy dove chancel, — the sacred dove has already with warm out- spread 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. 84 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 fii'st 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 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 pecu- liar conditions of this religious act, — that the impenitent, partaking of the holy supper, like a perjured soul, instead of enjoying lieaven was swallowing hell, and that if a Redeemer and Holy One drew near to an imjjure 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 pro- duced 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 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 85 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 gen- tler, lighter, purer heaven of peace into the soul ; an in- expressible and never again to be repeated bliss, namely, that of feeling one's self 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 morning 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 cliildhood 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 time of life, when it 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 woman by then' 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 colorless ; then is he one of the second water, and many and various colors play in its beams, imtil finally he becomes as dark as the stone which grinds the colors. 86 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Sunday moruing the boys and girls, already adorned for the altar, collected in the court of the parsonage to form the festival jarocession to the church, amid the sound of ringing bells and hymns sung by tliemselves. 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 impair, which I felt for every human being. The recollection 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 Chi'ist, not only beloved, but holy, and I enclosed them all in a love so pure and wide, that Catharine, as I recol- lect, was not at that moment dearer to me than all the others. AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 87 The wliole 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 -Siolian or wind harp, through which the breath of love was breathed. If misanthropy can find an artificial satisfaction 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, wliich sinks to the bottom. Life will allow of no ])ure 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 enmity, but from a blameless love of play. Every festival is followed by a Avorking day ; but we go from the one fresh-clad to the other, and the past leads us 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- 88 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 to- gether a whole sabbath year, or to have borne on with me what belonged to them.* * The Autobiography here abruptly terminates. PART II. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL CHAPTER I. Remarks xjpon the Autobiography. — Removal to Schwaezen- BACH. — Self-Education. — Loss of Childish Faith. 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 birthplace had less influence upon his character and writ- ings 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 tlierefore he never again would visit his birthplace. The beginning of his self-biograpliy furnishes the means for understanding how in this he is distinguished from so many other geniuses ; and before we proceed in liis Life, we would recall those peculiarities which caused him to be regarded by the Germans as " Jean Paul der Einzige" * * The only one. Unprecedented. 90 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. He is in this remarkably distinguished from Goethe, to whom the memory of his childhood presented only out- ward 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 observed. Jean Paul, on the contrary, traced to his boyhood all his poetic feelings, and those acquaint- ed 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 enjojTiient 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 aU who are familiar with his works will remember that they are an apotheosis of this deliglitful 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 nour- ished 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 birtli. It led him to observe all astronomical and meteorological signs and prognostics that could have any influence on the com- ing seasons. Sun, moon, and stars, and all the appear- ances in nature, touched him nearly, and were all dear to him. The ever-changing clouds upon the Fichtelgebirgo were not watched merely with the eye of a poet or paint- er ; he was the listener and interpreter of Nature in all her relations with man, and his acute and deep observa- tion and knowledge are expressed in many humorous and many serious aphorisms. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. . 91 Another circumstance of his infancy, as he says, breathed an ever-increasing breath of poetry through his hfe. It ■was the dying blessing of his ohl grandfather. The by- standers said, " Let the old Jacob lay his hand upon the child, and bless him," and he was placed in the bed be- side the dying man. The wondering and innocent babe remembered the cold, blessing hand, and in after life the man recalled it, " when Destiny led him from dark into brighter hours." An incident also in his fourteenth month resembles the pale blossom of the snow-drop out of the dark wintry eai'th. 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 signifi- cant 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, ex- cited also the imagination of the son. But I will men- tion 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 mourn- 92 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. ing. But he entered into all the joys of the children, and distributed 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 re- peated 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, de- prived of the village school, and cut off from so many childish joys, was the fountain of that deep, continued, unappeased longing for fellowship, that runs through his life and all his works ; the reason that he embraced every man Avith equal love, for every man seemed to him worthy of equal love, and no deception in his boyish yeai'S had laid the foundation for tlie conflicting emotions of love and hatred. His exclusion from the village school and the society of his equals was his severest boyish afflic- tion ; therefore this village school remained through his whole life in the rose-light of memory. The thin, con- sumptive 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 be- fore his death he said, " The good domestic simpleton can LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 93 sit completely contented in a coach, and, looking out of the side windows at the villages and gardens, say, ' A pretty, quiet, fire-pi'oof apartment.' " 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. " AVlien I think," he says, " that I never saw in my father a trace of selfish- ness, 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 school- master, spite of his own poverty, a part of everything he had." When he went from the little village of Joditz to Schwarzenbach, he was followed by the tears of the whole jjai'ish, 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 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- bell, which, he says, was to him through Hfe, " the Jcuh- reigen* 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 a.d. 1776, Schwarzenbach-on-the-Saale, to a larger and more respectable parsonage, and a not less agreeable parish. For some time, Paul's life was without shad- ows. He says in his journal, " no season liad trouble * The song of the cow-keeper. 94- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. for me ; I remember only the bright side of every- thing." 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 im- provement in his father's situation did not contintie long. Paul allows us a glance into tlie 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, impi'ovement 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 de- spondency spread over the whole family, and Paul him- self did not escape. Although with the same filial piety he touches lightly on the faults of his parents, he yet ex- presses 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 thmk only of himself, or he rode alone to the neighboring parislies ; all our joyful pedes- 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 95 was clistingijished only for beautiful penmanship." From him Paul learned that exquisite handwriting, like print, in which he wi'ote his immense extract and manuscript books, that gave him the sobnquet of the Dr. Faustus of the Parish. The want of that highest hap|)iness of a sensitive youth, the sympathy of a friend, which thrust all expan- sion 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 colors 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 childi-en, the real and actual Christ- kind gift at Christmas. Pie 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 thirteenth bii'thday, he became too indifferent to the return of such seasons. But from tliis time he also dates the beginning of his self-instruction. He began to understand the inefficiency of Ills 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 a Gei'man printed translation, when hearing his lessons from the Hebrew Bible. The chaplain V'olkel,* whose instructions have already * The reader will recollect Volkcl was the friend who proposed teaching Paul chess and philosopliy. 96 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. been mentioned in liis 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 witliout the Bible, a God and a Providence could be proved. Another young man, Vogel, a friend of Volkel, had perhaps more influence upon the formation of his charac- ter 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 extraordinaiy talent and the ripeness of his mind. By admitting him to an equality of intel- lectual 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 after- wards 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 enougli to make me indus- trious, and your censure will spur me on to improvement. I am much indebted to you ; yes, truly, I am much in- debted to you. It is my good fortune to have known you. Gratitude and love will never be extinguished in my heart." This friend possessed, and increased daily, an exten- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 97 sive library, that was equally valuable for the number and the importance of the books on many sciences. This was a I'are thing in a country parish, and an extraordinary happiness 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 knowl- edge, as the Germans call it, which, 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 the books must be returned ; therefore he adopted his plan of extract-books, that afterwards became a rich libraiy by itself. Before his seventeenth year he had made many thick volumes, each of more than three liundred quarto pages. In the beginning, his extracts were from philosophical theology ; then from books of natural history, medicine, ])oetry, 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 * 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 contrnvprsial divinity. 98 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. difficult to find words to express sufficient gratitude, and yet more difficult to be bold enough to ask for more. Shall I venture to ask for more books ? Your goodness gives me courage, and I pray for the third part of Semler's Investigatio7i of the Canon, Goethe s works, the second part of Lavater's Journal, Helvetius, and Lessing'sFrag- nieiits. I do not distrust your willingness to serve me, when I humbly pray a second time for a book, from which I promise 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 circumstance, what danger have I to fear, if I exchange a truth, of which I am not convinced from rea- son, but which is merely an opinion with me, if I exchange this, I say, for an error tliat 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 benevolence and love." The sophistry of the youth of sixteen, and the reluc- tance of his friend Vogel to lend him " Lessing's Frag- ments," will not permit us to pass over the change that had taken place in the poet since the celebration of that first communion, which in his autobiography he describes with such elevation of religious entliusiasm. 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 fervor with which the mysteries of religion take hold of these young hearts, do they pur- sue the painful doubts that afterwords arise, till they are LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 99 led back, tln'ough faith and love, to the clear atmosphere of truth. Jean Paul's Schwarzenbach life had at this time a jiowerful 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 filled his fancy, and all his efforts were directed to tlie cultivation of the reason and intel- lect. A perfect cultivation consists in the equal unfold- ing of the affections, the imagination, 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 Kichter 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 lie had not been created for a philosopher rather than a poet. AVe cannot follow our young Philosopher to another residence without remarking the change in his disposition, which appears in full contrast with the simple faith and warm religious enthusiasm of his first communion. Four years only had passed, and how far removed he is from tlie orthodox " law preaching " of his father ! Volkel and Vogel, who in Schwarzenbach were both his teachers, must have gained a very remarkable influence over the mind of the youth who made such giant footsteps in knowledge and in spiritual unfolding. We learn from the extracts made from the Library of Vogel, with wliat theological studies his mind was busied. The war lOO LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. against the old dogmas of theology, which was spreading from the universities over Germany, perhaps helped the timid village boy to assert his spiritual independence.* * A few of the subjects of the extracts from Vogel's Library are: — " Hutcheson's Livestigation of onr Ideas of Beauty and Virtue." " Connection of Natural Eeligion with the Christian Revelation." " Of the Existence of the Devil." " Of the Lifluence of tlie Devil." " How our Souls and our Bodies are linked to each other." " Of the Eternity of Hell Punishments," etc. CHAPTER II, HoF Gym>asium.- -ScHooL Anecdotes. — Death of the Father. — Domestic Troubles. T Easter, in 1779, the father of our j^j, j^^g Poet took an important step, and ^t- 16. placed him at the Gymnasium, or town school, in the little city of Hof. The examining rec- tor would have placed him in the Jirst division 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 class.* It de- pended on the talents and industry of the pupil to bring his place to honor, 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. Pie has left a humorous description of his ajtpearance when he entered the school, and the ridicule it excited in the city pupils. * To understand many partioulur^ ihat cccui* in tWe Life, it will be necessary to bear in mind that a gymnasium consists of eighty classes, and that tlie Primanjr, o- first chzs' i^ instru-.tf^d by tlio rector. 102 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The stuff aiid 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-pos- sessed 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 mentioned, which, although trifling in themselves, must not be omitted, as they threw a pure light on the youth of the poet. There was one among the boys, that took a malicious pleasure m tormenting him ; one, too, from whom Paul, in his warm-hearted and genierous confidence, looked for sympathy, as he had been a previous acquaintance, and belonged to a family connected with his own. The French master was an indifferent and poorly-paid in- structor, 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 wliich he sat, only one, of twenty or thirty pupils, could look over to translate a passage. The mischievous boy, al- ready 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 extraordi- nary, as in his own family it was an established expression of reverence from the young to the old, and Paul, when- ever he went to«his grandfather's, kissed his hand behind his loom. When he entered the French school, there- fore, he approached bashfully to the master, and, witli honest faith, oa.Tieil the bi-awny hand to his lips. The poor l^'rencnman, suspecting some mystification or insult, l/rokp, Ou,t:into the most violent, anger, and Paul LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I03 barely escaped a blow from the hand on which lie was imprinting his loyal homage. The mirth of the class was expressed in loud jubilee ; and, between them both, Paul stood confused, ashamed, and in the highest degree mor- tified. In tliis instance, he was taken by surprise, and betrayed by his loyal nature ; but in another attempt to impose 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 Pri- maners 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 forever that ascendency 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 acknowl- edged liis first rank in almost all branches of knowledge, it is impossible they could have ai)preciated the splendid gifts of his mind, or the extent of his already acquired knowledge. He overcame with his mighty power the difliculties of his school life, though he felt keenly the I04 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. want, of what he says in his notes Heaven had denied to his youth, — " teachers and love." Between the conrector and Paul no good understand- ing coukl exist. However judicious may be the arrange- ments of a school, and the prescribed method of teaching, everything 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 disposition, 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 resrions of knowledge and wisdom. This talent is alone able to excite pure scientific zeal, and to awake a grateful disposition in j^outh. Sometimes this honorable 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 tlie office as a passing resting-place, while they are waiting upon Providence for sometliing better, and their compelled and reluctant instruction can hardly fail to disgust an ingenuous youth. Neither of the instructors of Paul in the Hof school possessed tlie great and generous art of teacliing, and, from the conrector's method alone, the elevating science of history became absolutely disagreeable to Paul. One of the bi()grai)hers of Jean Paul remarks, tliat, dur- ing his school time in Hof, the sudden change in the circum- stances of his family appears not to have troubled him or even scarcely to have been considered by him, so intensely was he thirsting for learning, tlirown as he was upon his own resources by tlie deficiencies of the Hof school. In the first year of his residence he relied upon the Library LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 105 of Vogel, and occupied himself in adding to his extracts from theological works. Up to his second year he had held to the course his father pi-escribed for him, and con- tinued to prepare himself for the pulpit. The expanding independence of liis mind was aided by an incident which gave notoriety to his heterodox opinions. The brave conrector had adopted the well-meant but doubtful experiment of holding disputations, in which the leading and always victorious side was taken by him- self. The parts of respondent and opponent were di- vided among the Priraaners, or first class. Unfortu- nately a thesis was taken from the infallible dogmas of the Church, with the not unreasonable expectation that it would be only so far and so earnestly contended as to re-establish its truth and the triumph of tlie conrector. Paul was chosen the opponent, and entered upon this duty with the conviction that in this, as in all search after truth, one should be, not anxious about the issue, but find out and assert only what would establish that truth. Paul had now an opportunity to bring out the treasures of heterodox argument he had drawn from the Vogel Library, and this he did with so much zeal as to threaten danger to the symbolical church article, and that not so much from the contestible subject of dispute as that the President was not so well prepared mth arguments, as his opponent with weapons from the heterodox armory. Paul was silenced not by argument, but by the President alone becoming orthodox word-leader, and the disputa- tion was ended without the usual praise of the manner in which it had been conducted. This school occurrence had for Jean Paul opposing consequences. The unconsidered angry command to silence with which the President met the argument of Io6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL his opponent, in the eyes of the Primaners was a victory on their side, and gained for Paul an esteem which for- bade them to follow hun in future with ridicule. On the contrary, these heterodox opinions wei-e bitterly con- demned by the public voice in Hof. " The free-think- ing," remarks Otto, " who did not declare themselves or- thodox were called atheists." This fate had Paul in the most unfortunate period of his life ; and not he alone, but all those who were attached to him in confidential friend- ship. 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 philosopliy. History, 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 gen- eral 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 liistory. Nature reveals to our heart a Creator ; history, a Providence." "When Paul entered the Hof gymnasium, he was taken under the roof of the honest cloth-weaver, where a little " cliamber in the wall " was prepared for him, and where he was soon furnished with a complete suit of clothes LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 107 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 se- cretly laden with presents, and the retlection of the set- ting 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. With his father's death began that ten years' war with poverty which the eldest son had to carry on alone. 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 favorite daughter, Paul's mother, had the misfortune to be invidiously dis- tinguished 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, however tenderly loved by Paul, appears to have been a weak-minded and obstinate woman. She was, however, no less the favorite of the grandmother, and the presents she used to send to her under the pre- tence of payments gave offence to another daughter, who was less favored 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. Io8 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Envy and displeasure were now no longer silent, and a lawsuit was instituted by the other relations to break tlie will. Meantime, as the produce of the small family es- tate was contested, the ground was left uncultivated, and became every day less and less valuable ; so that Paul, when he was scarcely eighteen, was called upon to be the adviser 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 Schwar- zenbach and remove to Hof, where she was drawn by the possession of two small houses, and her love for the grave of the buried parents. In Hof she was Avholly isolated, \\dthout friends or advisers, as Paul had already gone to Leipzig. The successor of the painstaking cloth-weaver, whose whole life had been spent in gaining and saving, could hardly escape the charge of extra^'agance, if she only spent, in the most frugal manner, what had been so industriously 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 con- test with her nearest relations, while the house that she inherited was fast going to 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 reproaches of her neighbors, who did not fail to ascribe to her own unthriftiness and incapacity the decay of such a long-honored 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 109 widowed, deserted, and humiliating position seemed oidy 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 cai-es and sorrows of his mother, as well as by his own sharp contests with actual want. CHAPTER III. Youthful Fkiendships. — Werther Period. — First Book-mak- ing. — "On the Practice of Thinking." A.D. 1780, ^t. 17. HAVE anticipated the time of our narrative, to give the reader a glimpse into the domestic circumstances 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 Avould 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, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Ill not only his personal assistance, but the use of all his extract books and manuscripts. But Paul must have been irresistiljly drawn to a char- acter like Herman, who had the power of rising above the discouraging circumstances of his life, and of devoting himself to elevating pursuits ; and Hei-man's influence 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 berit 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 Her- man's must have had upon Jean Paul. We know only that his was the germ of a character often introduced in Richter's later works. The next, but perhaps the first friend in confidential intercourse, was Adam Lorenzo von Oerthel, the eldest son of a rich merchant, who possessed many estates in the neighborhood of Hof. Topen was his place of resi- dence, after he left off" business ; but for his son be 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- gi'ounds, 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 mooidight, and with harpsichord or singing, or listening to the music in the neighborhood (for all Germany is musical), to have ])assed their confidential hours. Had Paul continued liis autobiography to this time, how would he have delighted to describe this place, and to recall the friendship here knit so closely with Oerthel. 112 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. This was the remarkable Werther 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 symptoms were more from sympathy with his friend than from a real infection. One fragment only of a sentimental letter remains, which should be liter- ally translated. " Ah ! thy few lines have caused me tears, — me, who have so few joys ! and these also I shall soon miss, for I 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 the pupil be com- pleted ! 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 neighboring 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." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I13 One of Jean Paul's biographers cannot understand how he could so soon rise from the depression caused by a work like the " Sorrows of Werther," a book that for a time threw the whole youthful world into a state of mental intoxication. AYlien Paul went to Hof, the book had already been published four years. One Avriting of the time says : " It is but the cry of that dim-rooted pain under which all thouglitful men were languishing. It paints the misery, it passionately utters the complaint, and heart and voice all over Europe loudly and at once respond to it." How could a boy of twelve years old enter into or respond to the description of what Carlyle calls " the blind struggles of a soul in bondage, which every one felt and which drove Goethe almost to de- spair " ? 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 wiite of wliat interested him. He who at a later ])e- riod 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 char- acter. 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 armor of science in Jean Paul. But the deep fountain was in his breast, gathering fulness from every little rill, and from eveiy summer sliower, till the time was ripe for it to be un- sealed, and to pour its streams around. The reason that Werther, and the sensation which the publication of so remarkable a woi-k produced, made so 114 t'IFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 univer- sal in Physiognomy ? " " How are men, animals, plants, and still smaller beings, made perfect ? " Although Jean Paul had not at this time found tlie true direction of his genius, yet that spiritual activity was thoroughly awakened that never permitted him afterwards 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 liis own. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. II5 " The writer who produces many comparisons, who composes in an ornamented style, appears to me to have little depth ; at least, comparisons and figures can- not 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 contrary, 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 tliis 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 tlie world than with those who think nothing riglit. "With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment ? " In tlie 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 wisely distributed as storm and sunshine. TIiou rejectest certain dogmas that are false ; but canst thou substitute truths in their place that wiU be as useful as the errors ? Perhaps an error has more useful results than a truth in its place In God's best world is there no error without useful consequences. Il6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Wherever an error is, it is not in vain. It is, in its place, better than a truth !*,... " 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 mi:^-v»'ith the benefit of his faith tlie 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 pliilosophers, they liave nothing left " We do not discover our weaknesses to those whom we believe to have none themselves. For this cause ge- niuses appear to form fi'iendsliips 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 but 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 tliat the other has only faintly sketched in outline. Two words are often enough to place a soul in a situation that no ailded words can paint. But the better the skctcli 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 liim ? . . . . * The reader must bear in miiid that this was written by a youth of sixteen years. * LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 117 " 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 tliat 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. Wherefore should a man that feels his own greatness not acknowledge it ? Wherefore should a wise and en- lightened man appear before the public making a leg,* like a dunce ? Perhaps this is the cause : We allow such a 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, toe are little. But geniuses, in seeking to I'ecom- mend themselves, show too much humiliation. They can be just, but they need not on that account lower them- selves. Man is just, when he does not appropriate to liimself more merit than belongs to him, or rob another of what is his due." I have given these extracts, not so much for their intrinsic 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 pa.stor Vogel, to whom he had lent the manuscript, sent him the day before his departure for the University of Leipzig a letter, that would be injured without a literal translation. " Excellent young German ! from whom I promise the world much in future : My dear triend ; you go, then, in * Tlie German word is Bucklingen, which means literally to make a leg;. it8 life of jean PAUL. the morning, to Leipzig ? 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 goodness, imi)ressed 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 Leipzig was chosen for Jean Paul, instead of Erlangen in his native principality, in the mis- taken idea that a youth needed nothing in Leipzig but a certificate of his poverty, and free tables and free lectures would be open to him. The fame of the professors, especially in theology, to which Paul had been destined by his parents, offered another inducement ; and the gi'eat 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 means of support for himself and his indigent family. CHAPTER IV. richter enters the university of leipzig. — letters from Leipzig. — Change of Studies'. — Letters to his Mother. A.D. 17S1, JEt. 18. N" the 19th of May Richter entered the University of Leipzig, and was on the same day matriculated. 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 influence upon his mind, and the lectures he heard there were only aids and accessories to his own self-instruction. Yet he per- severingly attended, the first two years, the philosoi^hical lectures of Platner, the exegetical and dogmatical in- structions of Morus, and the lectures upon morals by Wie- land. He listened with the most anxious attention, and when the proposition of the teacher excited an idea, or awakened an objection, made a minute of it in his com- monplace-book. At this time, also, he began to learn English ; but his only instruction in tliat language was a two hours' public 120 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. lecture, once a week ; the rest he gamed by private reading. But his life at Leipzig may best be learnt by extracts from his letters, premising that the enthusiastic youth found himself alone, without friends, in a noisy and ex- pensive city, where he had gone with the mistaken jdea that he could live without money. In his first letter to the rector Werner he had not been wholly undeceived.* " Leipzig. " 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 ! Everywhere an eternal uniformity, — no valleys, no hills ; it is com- pletely without the charm that makes our native region so agreeable. In many tilings it is as you promised, in others not. I can dine for eighteen pfennige.^ Further, I have been presented by the rector Clodius to all the colleges. " For my beautiful room at the Three Roses, Peter- strass, No. 2 in the third story, precisely where Oerthel lives, (our chambers are together,) I have to pay only sixteen rix dollars ; J 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 in- formazions § are rare, or the number of those who inform^ is immensely great. In the great houses they take only * In these letters, as in all that I have translated, I have selected merely such passages as will throw light oa the biography, as they are too long for entire insertion. t About twopence English, equal to thirty-seven mills. I A rix dollar is sixty-seven cents. \ Informnzinn nppenrs to be giving private lessons. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I2r those wlio have a recommendation, and a good one is rare. From every one I have heard that not very con- soling provei'b, Lipsia vult expectari ; and that expectari is so undecided, that if one has lived fifty years in Leijizig, and all this time has received no oflice, 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. Tliis testimony has helped me also with Professor Platner, who loves philos- ophy so much." Paul wrote again soon after : " My conjecture of the 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 Lnti'oduction 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 ap- proach 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 particularly recommended to them, of the numbers of bad students who get the ear of the pro- fessor, and prejudice him against the better, the whole jihcnomenon is explained. But do not give up your hoi)es. 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 lui\e only darkly hintcnl it, ibr at present it has no solution ; only tliis will_ 1 say to you : it 122 LIFE OF J P: AN PAUL. is neither stipendium, noi* table, nor informazion, nor any- thing of the kind. It relates to something that you do not expect, and that I cannot speak of until my anticipa- tions 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 endeavor 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 brothei-s. 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 circumstances of my situation, the disposition of my mind, 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 ! Enougli " 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 sat/ my tlianks to you for * Paul no doubt hints at the scepticism under which his mind was now (iti'ng(2;ling. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I23 all tliat I owe you ; for the foundation of my mind and heart. In that for which u })upil can never repay his teacher, I can only shed a tear of gratitude, and offer up a wisli 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 fiiults, 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, w^e find Paul's views upon the present direction of his reading, and that he had already thouglit of relinquishing the study of the- ology as a profession. " The latest that I can tell you of sacred dogmas in Leipzig can be very shortly said. Most, or indeed all, the students incline towards heterodoxy. I have heard from a Professor, who is also a preacher continually of the mystical significance of the Bible, of its allegorical meaning; of its dependence upon doubtful evidence; of our ignorance of the Hebrew in the interpretation of the Old Testament, etc. Nevertheless, the Professor dares not deny a free belief. lie merely speaks of the difficul- ties of the same, and leaves the decision to his hearers." 124 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " In permitting me to answer with frankness and can- dor 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 meta- physics by Platncr ; 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 favorite 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 suspect 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 wliich is decidedly disagreeable to me. That for which I am unsuited I fnid already useless. I have sometimes deceived myself when I have followed this rule ; but I have never repented falling into an ei-ror 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 ci'cated 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. * There is something left unfinished. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 125 " But in this way can you earn your bread ? This is 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 pi-essing 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 one's self with the other sciences, only as they are acces- sories to the favorite. If, through adverse outward cir- cumstances, the insignificant reward of common inferior talent should be lost, it will be repaid tenfold by the ex- quisite enjoyment that springs from the pursuit of truth, the charm that is found in the exercise of a favorite talent, and perhaps the honor that sooner or later may be ac- quired. This is my defence. " Formerly 1 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 ornamented style of Helve- tius, and the ingenious remarks of Toussaint, all these impel me to the study of the French language. I do not believe that I leani much from them, but they ])lease me. With the impression of the finest passages, and the witty, the remembrance of the art with which they were com- posed remains also. 126 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " I read Pope — he delights me ; so does Young. There is undoubtedly nothing more splendid in the English language ! I learn it now chiefly to read that excellent weekly paper, the Spectator, of which we have in German but a miserable translation. " The eloquence of Rousseau enchants me. I find elo- quence 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 wath me it was ti-ue. To imitate an ancient author, to find him beautiful, to love him and occupy one's self 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 lettei-s upon the subject at this time. Paul's coiTcspondeut objected to liis 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 honored, 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 12/ 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, tlirough the idle pomp of his funeral, and the comparison of his former and present circumstances, ex- actly in the temper to assert an erroneous opinion. '' But perhaps they valued the depai'ted Ernesti more 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 in- debted for his reputation to his industry than to his genius, more to reflection than to penetration. He was a great philologist, but not a great philosopher. Even this made him perhaps not half as great as a Lessing, or even as a Platner. But wholly to paint the last, Platner, I must be himself, or more. One must hear, or read himj 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 leai'ning, so much knowledge of the ancient Grecian with the modern literature ; who is equally great as a philosopher, physi- cian, aesthetic, and learned man ; and who possesses as much virtue as wisdom, is as much endowed with sensi- bility as penetration, — even this man is not only the envy of every inferior mind, but the object of the perse- cution and secret slander of every blockhead. " He was once called before the consistory at Dres- den, to defend himself against the charge of Materialism. There is nothing of which he is less guilty. No one can * Ernesti was called the German Cicero. 128 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. have read bis Aphorisms without perceiving that he is the most enlightened enemy of Materialism " I have often made the remark, that a gi-eat 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. Tbey 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 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 Leipzig. A great spirit may only first attain that existence which unites him with the whole of humanity, Avhen he has laid down the present." From the above extract relating to Platner, we cannot avoid the inference, that he exerted a powerful and long- endui'ing influence upon Richter. He says, many years afterwards, that '' Platner's manner in reading the lines from Shakespeare, ' We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep,' created whole volumes within him." Platner thouglit and wrote in aphorisms ; and, as this bec:une Jean Paul's own manner, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the pupil imitated the master, osj)ecially 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. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 1 29 He appears to have approached no nearer to Plainer 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 Leipzig. But that he might not fail in everything, he then turned with renewed ardor, with more intense industry, upon books. His studies had taken a new direction ; foreign literature, the French as well as the English, particu- larly 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. It is remarkal)le that, in the copious extracts he made from Rousseau, he copied not the sentimental and impas- sioned passages, but rather rules of practical wisdom and directions for good mannere ; from the Neiv Heloise, a long description of social life in Paris ; — the reason is obvi- ous, — at this time he longed to become acquainted with the more refined forms of social life in Germany.* He could see little of life in Leipzig, except what he observed in the streets, at the theatres, and in the public gardens. So strong was his desire, that he^ays " he stood hours at the door of the hotel of l^avaria to see an ambassador enter, that he might be able to describe one." At this period, his intellectual activity alone was cher- ished, 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 * 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. 6* 1 130 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. his letters to her at this time will show. Speaking of her lawsuit, he writes to her, in November : " A ^ j, j^gj day will perhaps come when your enemies will -^t- 18. 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 I) truly then I cai>oot 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 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 ; wlien friend shall meet friend ; the wife the husband ; the child shall find tlie father that he has so long lost, and eternal happiness sliall stream through the heart of the blessed." Paul writes again, on the 1st 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 noth- ing 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 con- tinue 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 131 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 mel- ancholy. Take care of your health. Be steadfast, and bear the sorrows that you may yet expect in greater num- ber, with increased resignation. Keep my brother in- dustrious I " 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 col- lect it. 0, 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 tliink 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 contempti- 132 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. ble. Are not noblemen's, counts', and even princes' sons soldiei-s ? Is not the son of" the old Frau Pfarrarinn 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 contemptuous 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 suc- ceeds 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. Guten Mutter, trouble yourself not so much ; for with all your anxiety you cannot alter any- thing, and your cares Avill injure your health." Paul writes thus to her on the death of the relation who had contested the vAW 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 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 Ilof. She had flattered her imagination witli 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 woukl signify nothing. They are satirical or * This was his intention of becoming an author. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 133 droll books. Indeed, I cannot but smile when you make me the edifyinq; offei" to listen to my preacliing in the Spital Klrche in Ilof. Think you, then, it is so much honor to preach ? This honor, 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 Michael- miis, 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 washer- woman, who does not trust. I must drink some mUk every morning. I must have my boots soled by the cobbler, who does not trust ; my torn cap must be re- paired 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 be- lieve 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. * A gulden is forty cents. 134 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Good mother, you must not believe my project for gain- ing 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 con- fidence, imparts to his mother, was liis hope of emolu- ment 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 me^ns 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 fcAV 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 l)ooks. Yet more ; I am not in my old cham- bers, but in the summer-house of a beautiful garden. The garden belongs to the same gentleman to whom my former lodgings belonged." His poor motlier, whose character boi'e 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 noth- ing l)ut 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 tliat the {)astor in Rehau does not understand tlie thing tliat he praises so 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- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 135 weavei'S. 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 lausrh." CHAPTER V. Extracts feom Jouenal. — First Literary Effort. — Green- land Lawsuits. HAVE rather anticipated the course a.d. 1781, of events, in order to place the ex- ■^^' ^^' tracts from Paul's letters, 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 sincei'ity 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 j)roud 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. ATe see him as in a glass, that our warm breath renders opaque. An enemy is often the truest discoverer of our feults. Our bosom friend, who loves us, tells us of our virtues ; our enemy, who LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 137 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 liave more merit than the virtues of the cold and unexcitable, that cost tliem no trouble Our century is tolerant to opin- ions and intolerant to 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 tolerate 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 sympa- thy and fellowship with the beautiful and good that he afterwards desci'ibes 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 undnr- 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 indi- vidual ; 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, — * Literally, His talents made him a great man; his heart great men. 138 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. those from whom we expect, even receive, good with reluctance. We feel deeply humbled when another makes use of our misery as a staif to raise himself to higher honor. It is insupportable to be obliged to ac- knowledge good in wickedness, and through our gratitude encourage the vice of pride and vainglory - " The learned man is only useful to the learned ; the wise man alone is equally useful to the wise and the sim- ple. The merely learned man has not elevated his mind above that of others ; his judgments are not more pene- trating, his remarks not more delicate, nor his actions more beautiful than those of others. He merely uses other in- struments than his own ; his hands are employed in busi- ness 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 tlie common level " The great man is proud, for he would not have at- tained the perfections he possesses if he had not seen their worth and felt their value. But as he has acquired true advantages, as liis excellences compel his own ap- plause, sometimes even his own admiration, he feels it unnecessary to beg the miserable praise of fools, and to attain greatness through previous humiliation. He is in- different to the applause of others : his own is sufficient for him ; for this reason he appears humble when lie is entirely the opi)osite : lie 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 pref- ace ; in the book alone he sketches his image, and if he often speaks of his weakness and imperfection, it is LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 139 not to place those above him who have the perfections that he wants ; but in proportion 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 liis jjroject 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 laborers into the vineyard of the Church. He says : " At length, O 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." At length, after long struggles, Paul decided to give his thouglits to the public through the press rather than the pulpit, to write rather tlian to speak, and, his resolu- tion 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 Rich- ter's first works were not written to lighten the laboring mind of the riches that weighed upon it, as the Werther of Goethe is said to have been. Tbe pressure came from without ; the necessities of his mother prompted his in- vention, and sharp hunger impelled the industiy of his pen. This pressure from without solves also another enigma. It has appeared incomprehensible, that an au- thor of so much tenderness, and afterwards so full of 140 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. sentiment, should have begun with works of Siitire ; but Paul enhanced the splendid gifts of his genius by a dis- trustful humility. vSpeaking 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 {)Ositive, which is the power of creation. I possess only a lower order of imagination, — that of being pene- trated 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. Tn his French and English reading he had found a multitude of Essays, that, without charac- ters or action, enjoyed the highest celebrity. They de- manded only wit, satire, irony, and poetic illustration, and he felt himself capable of producing a book of this spe- cies. His studies of late had been almost wholly confined to works of this kind ; and although Rousseau was his favorite, yet with tlie \\\t of Voltaire, the satire of Pope and Young in his memory, he could play witli tlie pov- erty of his materials, and reproduce the same thought almost without end. The pressure of reality, the cliill and wet cold of outward life, liad closed, ami sequestered in the bud all that rich bloom of imagination, that after- wards, when opened by the sunbeams, became so beauti- ful and luxuriant. In a letter to his friend the pastor of Rehau, to wliom he sent the manuscript of his first book, Die Lob der LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 14I 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 favorable 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 Avill teach the public, (pardon the false expression for the sake of the antithesis,) to be able to learn at the University ; I wiU 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. Eras- mus's Encomium Morice gave me the notion of eulo- gizing prosing stupidity. I began, — I improved, — I found difliculties 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, ' Won- derful ! ' if you do not exclaim, ' Foolish ! ' " Here you have my expei-iment, — the experiment of a man of nineteen years. A professor, whom the manu- script reached through a third person, did not wholly deny me his applause. Dare I hope for yours ? Per- haps you will review it in the following manner : ' The author can easily substitute himself for the book, — cer- tainly the Divinity that he praises inspired Jiini.' 142 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " 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 fjiults. But enoagh ; or 1 shall write a bad letter over a bad book." Yogel answered with all the delight and pride 6f one who had discovered and prophesied Paul's future dis- tinction. " I praise not your folly, — but your splendid, wonder- ful 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 Loh 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 fantasy brightened my future plans. No one, thought I, is happier than myself; my Essay will bring me a hundred dollai'S. 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. Ilerr Pro- fessor Seidlltz will have already disposed of this satirical abortion, and at my next visit will undoubtedly hand me tlie author's reward. "But — Ilerr 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 patronized the book, by letting it lie on his desk, that the time when it should have been published, at Michaelmas LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 143 fair, was half over. Now I had the book, but no pub- lisher. I read it through to quiet my ill-humor, and thanked God that I had found no publisher. ' Lie there in the corner,' I said, with paternal expression to the little Richter, ' together with school exercises, for thou art thyself no better, /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 gray hair.' " From this fit of angry enthusiasm my right hand awoke me, that had accidentally come in contact with my empty purse in my l)reeches pocket. The hand after- wards 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 cre- ated 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 Laiosuits, he neglected to write to his friend Vogel. After answering his re- proaches, 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 144 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. press your hand, and that you read in my moist eyes the remembrance of your past benevolence, and I read in yours the forgetfuhiess of my past faults. But enough of letter-writing, and something of book-writing. " My book has a thousand faults. It is overladen witli comparisons, as the Eulogy of Stupidity was with antith- esis. I could collect out of it a regiment of six hundred comparisons. 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 liad 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 j^risoners, for fear of being hanged, hang themselves in prison, and instead of the gallows, use a nail, and for a rope, a garter ; or through previous criticism defend myself from every other, as the peasant, to secure himself from the thunder- bolt, carries one that he has picked up about with him in his pocket. " .... I acknowledge that an excess of comparisons is I'eally 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 canvas from Nature, and then gives it the features of his beloved. '' But how I radotire ! I cannot even lay aside my faults wliile I condemn them. A l)ook without beauties LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I45 is certainly a bad thing, but one without faults is not therefore good. Toussaint asserts that such, even if it could exist, would possess only moderate merit. Besides, it is of little consequence wliether my Kindhin 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 pi'otect his ears from the grating of his file ? The file shapes, but begets no beauties. Not the poet merely, but his poem is born, not made. Jupi- ter begets the gods, but those who are not immortal he makes ; these are the work of his hands, but IMinerva 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 Avould 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, per- haps, I am so selfish as not to requite your kindness, but to hope for more. In your criticisms, or, which is the same time, 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 witli 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 bit- terness ; but the bitterness sliould not \w. heightened, 7 J 146 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. like that of the Bohemian beer, by the mixture with the hops of soot and gall. Decide, finally, whether shimmer- ing, 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 cer- tain, 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 Martorelli over an ancient inkstand emptied 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. Paul had at this time gained sufficient courage to present himself personally, manuscript in hand, to the Leipzig booksellers. It was refused by all, and he sent it to the bookseller Voss, in Berlin. While he was wait- ing the answer from Voss, he learnt well the severest experience in physical existence, — that of a cold stovo and an empty stomach. But a sunbeam soon entered his cold and desolate apartment. On the last day of Decem- ber, as he sat shivering in his chamber, a knock at the door brought liim the joyful intelligence that Voss would receive and furnish out this his lii-st birth of love, so that it could appear with the other enfans perdus at the Eas- ter fair in Leipzig. 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. • A louis d'or is four dollars and fifty-seven cents. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I47 Vogel, to wliom he sent it, expressed the utmost de- light 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 stim- ulates the nose so agreeably brings clouds and tears into tlie eves ? Your judgment of my book needs the other half, the blame. You send the silver only earlier than the pill, and the vapor 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 professo, and all 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. 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. IJ." This last extract allows us a glimpse into the real feelings and dilficulties of Paul. He was writing face- tious 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 w^eep ; — like that poor comedian 148 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 writ- ing. It was not the spontaneous pouring out of an over- full mind ; but his antitheses, and comparisons, and illus- trations were souglit to embellish his ungrateful themes ; his sparkling crystals were distilled with much care and pains, and the poverty of his canvas thickly overlaid with jewels and ornaments. CHAPTER VI. Extreme Poverty. — First Success. — Costume Controversy. A.D. 1782, ^t. 19. jN the last extract I gave from Ricli ter's letters, the reader is made ac quainted with the real state of his finances, and liis 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 w^ith actual want." But at nineteen years of age, when he wrestled wath poverty single-handed, there were added to these outward difficulties also moral pains, partly over the melancholy fate, partly over the sad and reckless in- capacity of his brothers to take care of themselves. The most hopeful threw himself from despair into the Saale, and was drowned. Adam, tlie 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. "■ Pie 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 lodprinss to a summer-house in 150 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 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 de- termined 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 cues 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 prin- cipal building in this garden, which brought him into near neighborhood with Paul. Paul, with good reason, supposed that he had an equal right to enjoy all the walks in the garden, and felt no disposition to imprison himself in his little apartment. But the magister was not of this opinion ; he chose to lun'c the garden wholly to himself, and complained to tlie proprietor, requesting him to restrain Paul's walks, and, moreover, complaining * blaster of Arts, a title of dignity at the University. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. IJI of the oiFence against fashion and propriety in the bare throat of his plebeian neighbor. 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 gar- den, cover his thi-oat, and that he should not be annoyed by other students, as he had only one friend, who visited him, and not the garden." The magister was not satisfied with these four condi- tions, and soon complained that they had bi^en 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, be- fore 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 : " 1 will freely consent to leave the garden, where the satisfaction of one disturbs the en- joyment of another, on condition that I pay for an apart- ment 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 condi- 152 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL, tions." 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 fomily were not in great favor, and his appearance made the most astonish- ing impression, not only upon the inhabitants of the little city, but upon his own family. So important, indeed, was the matter considered, that bis firm friend, the pastor Vogel, remonstrated most earnestly in letters, that are yet preserved, against this singularity. Paul seems to have been partly sensible that it was affectation, and, mild-tempered as he was, lie would not yield in this par- ticular, but \*ent about a la Hamlet for seven years. Some extracts from letters of this period will shoAV the course of this costume controversy. Vogel wrote to him : " You value only the inward, not the outward, — the kernel, not tlie husk. But, with your permission, is not the lohole composed of the foi-m and the matter ? Is one disfigured, so is the other. You condemn probably the philosophy of Diogenes, that sep- arated 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-hUls, you live in tlie tumult of life " Would you not hold that painter unwise who sliould 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 proverbs, — 'Swim not against the tide'; 'Among wolves, learn to howl.' * Vulgar proverbs ! ' will you say. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 153 Yes, but elevated wisdom. The true philosopliy is, not for others to adapt themselves to us, but for us to adapt ourselves to others. Whoever forgets this groat axiom, advances few steps without stumbling. But what do you seek ? In the midst of Germany to become a Briton ? Do you not in tliis 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 answered : " I answer your letter willingly, for the sake of its argument, which your good heart, rather tliau 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 shipAvreck 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 sliell is injured, the kernel suffers also,' you say. But wherefore ? Let us decide what does injure the shell. You consider that an 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 judg- ments, freedom from tormenting wants, and the incapacity of being wounded ; and with this consciousness he could venture upon the punishment of every vice. Great man ! Thank God that thou wert born in a country where they wondered at 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 7* 154 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 am I designed for that ? Is it my destination, with my organized ugliness, to please ? Scarcely, — if I would. " But enough. I hold the constant regai'd 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 Hol- land, without either party saying check to the king. At last Paul consented, as he called it, to inJndl his person, and put an end to this tragi-comical affair, by the follow- ing circular, addressed to his friends. "ADVERTISEMENT. " The undersigned begs to give notice, that whereas cropt 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 respect Christian, since otherwise Christian persons would adopt it ; and whereas especially, the undersigned has suf- fered no less from liis 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 hi? grave, since the hair grows thei*e without scissors : he hereby gives notice that he will not willingly consent to LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 155 such extremities. He would, therefore, inform the noble, learned, and discerning ])ublic in general, that the under- signed proposes on Sunday next to appear in the various important streets of Hof with a false, short cue ; and with this cue, as with a magnet or magic rod, to possess him- self forcibly of the affection of all and sundry, be they who they may. "J. P. F. E." CHAPTER VII Love Passage. — Second Volume of Greenland Lawsuits Pressing Poverty. — Flight from Leipzig. — Domestic Cir- cumstances IN HoF. — Book of Devotion. A.D. 17S3, JEt. 20. X the summer of 1783, after the puljlication of the first part of the " Greenland Lawsuits," Paul went to Ilof to pass the vacation with his mother, and there occurred a little love adventure, which must not be omit- ted in an account of his life. Instead of a universal acknowledgment of the value of his book, it received only partial admiration, and from o?ie especially, who appears under the name of Sophia. This she expressed with so much enthusiasm, that Paul's susceptible heart was instantly warmed, although, instead of propitiating his beloved, as formerly, with sugared al- monds and drawings of kings, he sent her volumes of rare extracts, which he had made out of the latest literature. Some love billets were exchanged, and it went even so far that the young lady presented Paul witli a ring ; but he was too jjoor to offer her anything in return but his empty silhouette. Upon his return to Leipzig he waited nearly a month, and when he wrote the letter was fdled witli trivial ex- cuses for not writing sooner. The young lady remon- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 157 strated, and demanded back her ring. Paul answered : " Every sort of dissimulation is hateful to me, therefore it shall be Avhully removed from the answer to your late letter. The letter that punislies 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. 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 sum- mer ? Tills 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 colors, 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 an- swer my last letter " We will not part from each other with reproaches. I will 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 re- 158 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. peated. May he who has taken my place, oi' 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 silkoiietie for papillottes, 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 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 Ave 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 can- not 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 starva- tion to botli parties. But that the young lady still cher- ished 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 159 again : " Sly book in ITof 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 Avell I would also present myself" Paul returned to Leipzig after the summer vacation, with the most extraordinary hopes as to his literary suc- cess, and consequently his introduction into the elevated circles of Leipzig 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 Leipzig 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 public offices were gen- erally held by learned men created a rare esteem for literature in a mercantile city like Leipzig. 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 colors. The touching naivete with which he has described the longing for the enjoyment of these scenes, in one of hi8 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 employed upon the third. The singular infatuation of Richter, in imagining his genius adapted to satire, was not yet enlightened, al- * In the character of Walt, in tlie Flegeljakrt. l6o LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. though this second volume suffered more than the first from poverty of materials. Strange that Richter should believe, 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 personce, in order to give a local habitation in the memory to his beautiful satire of tlie 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 thouglit Vogel, and he had the honesty and candor 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 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 con- fessed, that the dearest lovers of Jean Paul, of the present day, who read these satires as the first spiritual embryo of their favorite, find them heavy and uninter- esting. For his third volume, which was now finished, Paul could find neither editor nor puljlislier. He presented it to booksellers' fairs and literai-y collectors in vain. Ne- cessity at length suggested the only alternative, to send it, with letters stating his necessities, to distinguished and learned men. But he had not the irood fortune that LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. l6l 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 reception. 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 singular 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 midday frugal meal, and she gave him not a moment's peace, but seasoned his small pittance with the daily demand, " Now, Herr Richter, has not your golden ship arrived ? " At last, in despair, he re- solved to fly. His friend Ocrthel bore his packed trunk to the spot where the post-wagon would pass ; and Paul, who imagined tliat, on account of his peculiar dress, and especially the manner of wearing his hair, he was known to the whole city, purchased, with liis last groschen, a false cue, which he attached carefully under his hat behind, and withdrew liiraself from the city, where he had been nearly lost, as, to use his own expression, Mun- chausen drew himself from the swamp. In the manner in which Paul left Leipzig, he created K l6l LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the only real adventure of his youth, and the simplicity of his proceedings shows the remarkable naivete of his character. 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 portman- teau. Even to his last days Richter loved to relat^ his flight, as he called it, out of Leipzig. 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 ac- count of the cold wind, of which in Leipzig 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 congealed, 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 wTiting 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. " Notliing can embellish a beautiful lace more than a narrow band, tliat indicates a small wound, drawn cross- wise over the brow. I saw this on a beautiful girl on the way. 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 tliis pretty ornament." Tliere is an amusing letter from Paul to his friend Oerthel, written directly after his flight from Leipzig. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 163 " Through negligence, not of my own, this letter and thy mantle comes to thee a post-day later than they should. My visit to thy dear parents could not be more welcome than at this time, for I relieved the anxiety that your last letter had caused, and which had been increased by certain noises, falls and blows, that for some time past had come from thy chamber. Would that through tliis spectre appearance thy fatal unbelief could be abated ; for I am persuaded that if you went so far as to believe in spirits and in the Devil, a few steps further would bring you to a belief in God. " By this occurrence, the suspicion came to me whether certain spirits do not foretell other tilings than bodUy calamities. Why should they not inform us of the indis- position of the soul ? I propose these two questions, as I am in fact of opinion that the noises and blows that came from thy chamber do not prophesy the sickness of thy body, but the bad state of thy soul. It is certain at least that they must mean something. " I close this letter with the hope that you will not treat me as usual in our correspondence, but that you will as seldom as possible send me a line." Its close proves the sportive and ironical sense of the whole letter. The darkest period of our hero's life was a.d. 1784, when he fled from Leipzig and went in disguise '^'" ^^' to Ilof. The lawsuit had stripped his mother of the Little property she inhei'ited from the doth-weaver, and she had been obliged to part with the respectable homestead where the honest man had carried on his labors. She was now living with one or more of Paul's brothers, in a small tenement, containing but one apartment, where 164 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. cooking, washing, cleaning, spinning, and all the beehive labors of domestic life must go on together. To this small and overcrowded apartment, whicli 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 Avrite a third, — a volume of satires, under the name of Selec- lections from the Papers of the Devil ; but for this we have seen he had strained every nerve in vain to find a publisher. This manuscript, therefore, formed part of the little luggage, whicli his friend Oerthel had smuggled out of Leipzig. It was winter, and from his window he looked out upon the cold, empty, frozen street of the lit- tle city of Hof, or he was obliged to be a prisoner, with- out, as he says, " the prisoners' 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 Car- lyle has said, — " Night it must be e'er Fricdland's star will beam." " Without was no help, no counsel, but there lay a giant force witliin ; and so from the depths of that sori-ow and abasement his lietter soul rose purified and invincible, like Hercules from his long labors." " "What is poverty," he said, at this time, " that a man should whine under it? It is but like the pain of piercing LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 165 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, liis 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 rea- son. 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 riglit early day- light, you step into the old apartment." The intercourse of the two friends was immediately established on the most familiar footing. Vogel was him- self an author, and his manuscripts were sent to Paul for his criticism and correction. In one of them Paul ac- cuses his friend of stealing five comparisons from him, — fifty would scarcely have been missed from Richter's, at tliis 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 w^as a continual sending back- wards and forwards of books, manuscripts, and letters, and Paul's younger brother was tlie INIercury. Paul was also a favorite 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. " You are the Pope from whom the destitute souls in l66 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Hof receive a dispensation from fasting. You go further than tlie Pope. You give yourself the food, that you per- mit. This time I pray for the Heercticorum Cntalogus ; Selisaire oberauch ; Lightfooti Horce Hebraicce, &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 fes- tival'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 favor ! 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 children. . . . " 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 Jiis. (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.) LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 167 " Having done with Locke, I must turn to some one else, and it is happy for me that the Saint Anna * comes to my help, who, according to the Catholic faith, can en- rich. Truly, Saint Anna, tell me thyself, is it suitable for me to pray again to the Ilerr 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 motlier, 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, a poor satire writer, and he can hardly deny thee. It is enough that thou art a woman ! " If, now, the ill-humored 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 hos6n and a morning gown, and furnish her with a good stock of heterodoxy, reason, and gayety. "P. S. Should the Saint Anna forget to say to you, that the wliole thing is on account of an extremely press- ing circumstance, tliat 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 Rehau ; and although there was an attempt to poison this mutually confidential intercourse by the slanders of some evil-minded persons in Ilof, Paul's noble character was too well appreciated by the pastor and his wife for them to succeed. * The sportive title of the Frau Vogel. l68 LIFE OF JP:AN PAUL. 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 Ilofer 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 interruption of his cheerfulness, to study and write, never giving up the hope, the trusting confidence, that what he so painfully 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 whidi they were produced, remain. The mother's 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-com- munion and humble resignation to the will of God. A few extracts will show the spirit of this book. OF PAIN. Every evU 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 ! * Of this hard-earned money twelve sliilliiigs, nearly half, went to pay for Samuel's new boots. t Andaclitsbticlikin. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 169 Vanity, insensibility, and custom, make one steadikst. Wherefore hot 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 GLORY. 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 othei-s because you deserve more, but reflect that they will expect still more merit in yourself. Do not seek to justify all thy actions. \'^alue nothing mci'ely 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 resison 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 accjuire tliat 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 tlie sorrow of our dreams ; where- fore should we in the dream of life ? 8 170 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. If thou wouldst 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 devo- tion, 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 immovable foundations of faith and truth. In this chapter I have scarcely given an idea of the hard necessities of Richter in this little over-crowded house in the midst of his poor family. In Leipzig he had to contend only with his own necessities ; but here he had at every moment the spectacle of his pain-suffer- ing mother, his sick brother, and of poverty so great, that he says of prisoners' fare, they sometimes had only the water. When, in later years, his love of salad was re- marked, he referred it to that time in Hof when the food of the family consisted of dry bread and salad ; and once he entreats from his friend, as of the utmost necessity, the loan of two or three gulden. In the midst of this irksome poverty, under the dark shutting out of hope, the youth of two and twenty had the strength of mind to persevere in his resolution to be- come an author. It was the point of time when to reach the ideal that filled his soul took such entii-e possession of him that he scarcely noticed his painful surroundings. As Otto said of him, " In this, which to another would have been the most unfortunate period of life, Paul pos- sessed a self-reliance, a peace and joy of soul, tliat only trust in God could have sustained in the highest and h()li«'.>Jt efforts." CHAPTER VIII Christian Otto. — Studies. — Herman. — His Death. MMEDIATELY after Richter's re- a.d. nss, turn to Hof, as mentioned in the last -^'- 22. chapter, he formed that 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 biog- raphy. In the midst of the hard necessities that had driven Richter from Leipzig, his victualler followed him to Hof, and presented her demand for the frugal repasts she had furnished. Paul was in the greatest perplexity. It was impossible to send the woman, 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 ; tliese 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 woman back with a con- 172 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. siderable 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 inex- orable creditor. Christian Otto was the son of the Vesper preacher* in Hof, who, from his ascetic character, and the severe earnestness of liis preaching, was called the Strafprediger. Christian had been sent to the University at Leipzig ; 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 circum- stances 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 witli severe integrity and steadfastness of purpose. The penetration and discrimination of his mind, together with his sympathy in all that was highest and noblest in litera- ture and in life, singularly fitted him for the ofl:ice of a critic, and in after years, when Kichter had found i)ub- lishers for his works, he never printed a line that liad not passed tmce 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 afternoon preacher in Protestant churches is called the Ve»per prediger. Strafprediger, — repentance-preacher. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 173 tlie 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-increas- ing interest on the present. The nourishment of his mind was drawn from three great sources, — living Na- ture, in connection with human life ; the world of books ; a,nd 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 gymna- sium, he had made many quarto volumes, containing hun- dreds of pages of closely written extracts from all the celebrated works he could borrow, and from the periodi- cals of the day. In this way he had formed a repertory of many of the sciences. For if, in the beginning, when he thought himself destined to the study of theology, liis extracts were from philosophical theology, the second volume contained natural history, poetry, and, in succes- sion, 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, comicjU occurrences, touch- ing incidents, &c. During this residence with his mother in her poor cottage, he also wrote almost daily to Oerthel in Leipzig. 174 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. He wrote letters as though they were books, and his books are written in the style of letters. He kept also a book in which he transcribed his letters, his thoughts, and a play of wit for future use in writing books. One writer says in German phrase, " that he was as thought-thrifty and thought-storing as he was thought-wealthy." At this time he says, Tlie trutli is more to him than its ornament, the thought more than its imagery, and he writes in a simple, unornamented style. At length, he passed from philosophy to poetry, not immediately, but in circuitous ways, through the thorny and stinging path of the satirist to the more common, the romantic poetry of the novelist. 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 adapta- tion 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 '' Qnamj for Ifesperics" " 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. Richtcr 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 syno- nymes. Add to this mass of writing, tliat he copied all his letters, and it is surprising how any time remained. He made it a rule to give but one half of the day to writ- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 175 ing, the other remained for the_ invention of his various works, which he accomplished 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 knowledge of 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 blond 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 ex- presses it, " a lovely lip-kissing mouth." He wore a loose green coat and straw hat, and was always accom- panied by his dog. As Richter from every walk returned to the little household apartment where his mother carried on her never-ceasing female labors, where half of every day he sat at his desk, he became acquainted vnth all the thoughts, all the conversation, the whole circle of the re- lations of the humble society in Hof. He saw the value and significance 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 purchase 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 176 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. it as other poets have clone from time to time, to study for purposes of art the liumbler classes ; he felt himself one of them, and in this school he learnt that sympathy with humanity Avhich has made liim emphatically in Ger- many the " poet of the poor." Paul's solitude was suddenly enlivened by the rfeturn of Herman from Leipzig. Herman is described as sin- gularly interesting. To the noble qualities of his mind was added a high degree of personal beauty. His trag- ical contest with an ever-increasing poverty, his eminent attainments, vainly opposed to an adverse destiny, seem to have given him a touching interest in Richter'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 Heraian had a sister he should certainly wish to marry her, provided that her face was like Herman's. The reader will pardon it, if I anticipate events a little, and place togetlier all I have been able to collect of the history of this favorite friend of Richter's. I have already mentioned, that the son of the poor tool-maker was always sheltered from blame by Paul's considerate kindness, when obliged by pressing work to come late to the gymnasium. He followed him to Leip- zig, and there his struggles with poverty must have been as severe as Paul's. Prepossessing as he was in ajipcar- ance 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 * Herman's person was so charming, that when Panl gave him a letter to the Pastor Vogel, he wrote on the margin " that he must take care of his wife and daughters." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. l'^^ his mind a tender, even a virgin purity, and an exalted sense of honor. 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. Her- man could not, like Eichter, withdraw into his hermitage, and there oppose to his discouragements a waiting and persevering 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 sougbt : he was, therefore, not master of his dejection ; and Richter, at the same time he was con- tending with his own hypochondria, saw with bleeding heart this fi'iend hastening to the abyss of despair. He now first learnt that deepest pain of the inward soul, — the tragical contest of a noble nature like that of Herman's with the difficulties that social and political institutions place in the way of success ; the dark riddle of the dis- crepancy between the mighty impulses of the soul and the trivial and low circumstances that follow its action, and weary out its effijrts in its 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 honor 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 movables and go to Gottingen, invited to give instructions there to a young Duke de Broglio, from Paris. This employment, although it had i^vi charms for Herman, who thirsted for occupation in his beloved science, yet saved him from actual want, and his 8 * L 178 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. letter to Paul, informing him of his plans, is written with much cheerfulness. 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 press- ure of fate. Does one call thee by name, thou wilt, open thy eyes, and instead of a crushing spectre the sun will ap- pear You are refreshed and charmed by the most pitiful fables as well as by the weightiest truths ; like the lark, now singing 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 understand how I can persuade my readers of the proba- bility of your cynical mania ; they will say I misunderstood the character, and compelled the inconsistencies to meet. " From excessive love for your doctor's hat, I send you Hallei''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 spirit- ually 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 Herman, you will be angry that you have ever been an anti- or pseudo-Herman, although never to " Your friend E." 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. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 179 " Dear Richter : Saturday evening, the 6th 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 necessary information about Gottingen, a pocket-handkerchief, and a pair of red gloves that Oerthel gave me when he read me the most touching passages out of ' Moritz's Soul Experi- ences.' In the left, a pair of slippers, a box with sealing- wax, penknife, and razor. Under my left arm an um- brella, carried more to conceal a handkerchief, in which were tied up two shirts, a neckcloth, a pair of stockings, and a nightcap, than to protect me from the rain. Omnia mea mecum. " As in the afternoon B., who had followed me to Bam- berg, parted from me, I first took a concentrated view of my destiny, present and past. Who would have believed that on that height, where the insupportably oppressive heat of the sun made every step difficult, the Catholic images planted on the way could have consoled me ? There I saw that exalted man, who sacrificed himself for the love of truth and mankind, represented under suffer- ing and bitter injuries, wounded with thorns, with stripes, and blows, and bowed down under the cross Found I not in this an echoing and an appeasing voice ? " In Gottingen Herman found sympathizing friends ; but the ardor with which he pursued his favorite sciences (he had begun a universal encyclopaedia of science) soon un- dennined his health. The letters of the friends are so filled with local and personal references, that even if the l8o LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. limits of this Life would permit the insertion of tliem, they would be hardly intelligible. In January, 1796, Herman wrote to his friend : — " This year must decide whether I remain a physician or a patient. Should you receive no more letters before Easter, think that I am already beyond all the mountains ! In spring one flies more freely ! 0, dear, good Richter, when I remember the time, those school years when I wandered with thee at midnight upon the Schlossplatz at Hof, what should I have suffered, if in the presage that assured me we should alwa}'S be the sincerest of friends I could have read and felt what I am now ; a mere human form, that through hypochondria and opposing fate the soul threatens, sometimes under one, sometimes under another appearance, to leave. Had I foreseen this, it had been no wonder if, through madness, I had antici- pated by a voluntary stroke the last consequences of so cruel a destiny. Only the hope of still for a few years pursuing my Elements yet retains me. I must now cease, but will continue the letter in a freer moment." The freer moment that csmie to poor Herman released him from the burden of life, and permits us to return to the little apartment in Hof, and to our hero. How deeply Richter, through the loss of this friend, was shaken a))pears from his letters. It cut dce{)cr into his soul than the death of Oerthel. Herman was far more genial, and the most beloved of all his friends. The almost feminine love that he felt for hira — as though Herman were tlie manly party in their iilliance — was strength- ened rather than diminished through their separation. Richter wrote to him, a short time before his death, that he coidd wish to marry his sister if her face Avere like his, were he not ashamed to marry from such a motive. CHAPTER IX. Adam von Oerthel. — Residence at Topen. — Death of his Fkiend. — Change of Views. T this time, Richter's other school and a. d. 1786, college friend, Adam von Oerthel, re- -^'- 23. turned from Leipzig 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 char- acteristic that it seems wrong to withhold it from the reader. " LiEBER Oerthel : J'y ai r^fleche. Enfin, j'ai dit h moi meme : ' En verit6, mon cher moi, je vois, que tu n'a pas encore les ailes, qui te doivent porter de Hof. Pen- dant quelles eroissent, tu te peux bein 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-merae. Aussi dois-tu comptu pour quelque chose que tu y es assure de ne mourir pas de faim. Ne crains point 182 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. de perdre ta liberie ; tu changes seulement des borncs 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 Counsellor von Oerthel, in Topen, not many hours' distance froin his mother's residence. In leaving his motlier's narrow apart- ment, the pressure of poverty was lightened, and he was reheved from the eternal din of female labors, 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 pleas- ure 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 unfold- ing of the spiritual and moral germs implanted there. Although Topen lay deeper than Hof, tlie place was colder, rougher, and more mountainous. Paul was also farther 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 instruc- tor who opened his whole heart to him. Richter was un- able 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 liim with motherly care. He had the good fortune in this, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 183 as in every other instance, to gain the affection of the mis- tress 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 Oerthelshen house seem at last to have broken down his almost superhuman cheer- fulness and elasticity of spirits, and to have attacked and injured his robust health. He became subject to hypo- chondria. His gayety deserted him. It became evident that under such circumstances he could never become at home in Topen. Herr Oerthel's law library did not fur- nish him with the 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 Richter 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. Paul's friendship with the spiritual and witty Pastor Vogel continued firm as in his Hofer years, and brought many bright Sundays into his life, and many good books into his study ; and, as Vogel's early prophecy about his young friend found confirmation, his esteem increased, deeply augmenting his regret at the loss of his society 184 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. •when Vogel, at the beginnmg of 1787, removed from Re- hau to Ai'zburg. Tlie distance, indeed, was not great, but the daily intercourse of the friends was interrupted. I have passed over, with great rapidity, the two years and nine months that Eichter was private instructor in the family at Topen. They were perhaps the most, un- happy of his life, rendered so by the stupidity and in- gratitude of his pupil, his dependence on a harsh and avaricious principal, flie death of one of liis most inti- mate friends, and the absence and despair of another. But these years of outward mortification and sorrow were rich in their spiritual influences upon the ge- nius 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 fac- ulty is augmented in power through self-denial. He has himself said : " The young poet should devoutly and in- wardly love, wonder, pray, and weep, but he should pass slowly from thought to expression. The emotions should shut themselves in their sanctuary ten long years from that corkscrew the poet's pen. Insealed, they are con- densed, and do not evaporate in the air of the market and tlic world." * The fact was, that his genius had as yet found no ade- quate expression ; but a succession of emotions on a mind like Richter's had the serious and deep effect of great epochs in life. The image of his suffering friend, contend- ing with the bitterest poverty and the deepest despair, • Preface to Satires. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 185 turned his inward eye to the whole of suffering human- ity ; and at the same time tliat he sought gi-ounds of con- solation for his friend, he looked deeper into his own soul, and there found, not satire for the imperfections of hu- manity, but a true understanding of the end of all suffer- ing, and poetical illustrations of the same. How could he avoid forming the resolution, which he soon ventured 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 sor- row 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 destroying hypochondria, beloved by nature, hated by fortune ! Then I read lOopstock'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 fr-iends ? ' and I could make no other than a grateful answer." We have frequent indications, through all Eichter's works, how deeply he was shaken by the death of these friends ; and, after representing the dying scene of one 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 l)leeding and softened heart a deeply sympathizing imagination; his spiritual nature made giant strides, and his feelings l86 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 fii-st poured out, without reserve or shame, the earnest and love-need- ing 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. His Uberal interpreta- tion of the Christian faith, which in the Hofer school drew upon him the suspicion of atheism, subjected hira in Topen to still heavier charges. Pastor Morg of To- pen, a zealous and severe servant of the loord, was not inclined to appreciate the bold assertions of this disciple of the spirit, and regarded him as a denier of God and a preacher of sin. This sufficed to light again in the soul of the self-conscious youth the flame that once before was kindled in Hof He wrote a letter to Pastor Morg, which is too long to insert any but the closing lines : — " Suffer me to go my own way in my search for the truth and in defence of it, not as an accidental thing, but as it is my duty. Suffer me to believe that this world is for the imitation of God and Christ, and the future for the exact knowledge of the same, and that one who would rather prove the Godhead of Christ than to obey his pre- cepts, is like the servant who spends his whole time in proving the nobility of his master, but gives him neither love nor obedience." Among all the authors of the time, Herder was the one to whom Richter turned with the strongest sympa- thies. Herder's great views of the world, were as if LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 187 ■written from the anticipations of his own soul, and to Hei'der 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, permitted her to open and read all his literary communications. She was deeply touched and interested by Richter's 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 are mitigated when brought to a king by a favorite or a beloved friend. As I have absolutely nothing, and hope by these productions, born in the midst of hypochondria, heart-sinkuig, 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 tlie 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 Richter : " As my hus- band is more in connection with the editor of the German Museum, I have to-day sent your essays to him ; and as l88 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. soon as I receive an answer, or money, I will immediately 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 2:)iece, 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 after- wards a stranger. Caroline Herder was the fu-st 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 volumes of witty satirical essays. As soon as Eichter had returned from To- a. d. irsg, pen to his mother's residence in Hof, he showed, -^t- 26. by very decided stei)S, the change that had taken place in his opinions and feelings. He made those changes in his costume, which liis friends had demanded in vain for seven years, covering his throat and drawing out his curls beliind into a cue ; but, as lie could do nothing as other people did, he demonstrated his intentions by the humor- ous advertisement already mentioned. These changes were necessarj^, perhaps, to ensure his reception in the polite circles of Hof; but he entered with avidity also into all those families who had ever been friendly to his LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 189 mother, and showed a desire to please in every way those to whom for seven years he would not make the sacrifice of confining the natural flow of his hair. This sudden change of life proves that the plan of his literary works had changed, and that he held it necessary, at any price, to study men and character, and to gain a deeper knowl- edge of the human heart ; especially a more intimate knowledge of the thoughts, impulses, aspirations, and sor- rows of that sex who occupy so important a. place in his romances, and upon whose favor he depended so con- stantly in after life. This was not difficult for one with such gifts as he pos- sessed, and with such hearty sympathy in the joys and sorrows of others ; especially endowed as he was with that which the French so beautifully call poKtesse du cceur, which, we have seen by his book of Devotion, was nourished and cultivated as sedulously as if it had not been the natural growth, and rooted deeply in his own virgin soul. It was easy, therefore, for him to gain ad- mittance to a number of cheerful family circles, and the inteiTourse was for him so much the more charming, as he soon found in each family one or more growing-up daughters, who discovered for his higher nature a sur- prising sympathy, and by their more susceptible imagina- tions attached themselves closely to him. Among liis best friends was the Postmistress * Wirth. And to show the friendliness of the intercourse, we ex- tract a note to her. " I am reduced to the choice to freeze or to write to you ; and I do the last. We put off the purchase of wood until to-day, and to-day I am compelled, for want of * Women in Germany take the titles of their husbands, as, Sirs. Postmistress, Mrs. Doctoress, Mrs. Fastorin. 190 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. money, to put it oiF a week longer. But in that time, I and my harpsichord-playing fingers must be frozen unless you send me counsel or wood. It would be well for us Hofers, if we could get some of the fire which we shall have too warm hereafter, in our stoves in our lifetime." The mention of the harpsichord-playing fingers^ re- minds us of one of the accomplishments with which Paul made himself a welcome guest in every society. It was his first recommendation to princely circles, and has taken deep hold upon the heart and memory of all who heard him. He played never from written or printed notes, but fantasied, as the inspiration of the moment and the mood of his feelings dictated. In this manner he poured out all the emotions, images, and dreams of his soul, without the timidity that he had always felt at expressing them in words, and excited or melted his hearers with his own emotions. " Often," said one of his charmed circle, " when we had collected ourselves about him in the twi- light, and he had fantasied on the piano till the tears ran over all our faces, and from emotion Paul could play no longer, he would break off suddenly, and begin the most humorous stories of his future life ; of his journeys, his wife, his children (which were always three) ; then he would prophesy, but always with whimsical effect, what a great man he would be, — bow people would come from all places to see him, and princes and princesses would envy us the pleasure of his society." A prophecy, how improbable, but how well fulfilled ! Richter had not, up to this time, found a publisher for his third volume of Satires. At length Beekman, of Gera, consented to bring out the papers, which for three years had been journeying around in vain for patron or editor. The adverse fortune which had followed the book LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 191 did not cease now. Paul had long contention with the editor about the form, title, and price of the manuscript. Beckman wrote that he never would print a book whose title did not please the public ; that he printed only to sell, and, alas ! he knew from experience that the best books won or lost through their titles, and proposed for this one. Selections from Sir Lucifer's Papers. With slight alteration Richter consented, and the book was called Selections from the Papers of the Devil. CHAPTER X. elchter takes a school at schwarzenbach. — method of Instruction. — Female Pupils and Friends. AD. 1790, Mt. 26. HILE Richter was thus hajipy in the circle of youthful beings he had drawn about him, whom he was endeavoring to instruct and elevate, he was invited by- many persons of liigh rank to enter their families as pri- vate instructor. His experience at Topen forbade him again to encounter such humiliation ; but, urged by his friends Volkel, Vogel, and the magistrate * Cloter, to take charge of their children, he consented to go to Scliwar- zenbach, and become, as he says, a pedagogue where he had first been a school-boy. He had at first a small school of six boys and one girl, between the ages of four- teen and seven ; and his poetical associations were excited at the thought of beginning his school on the day of his birth, the 21st of March. Richter wrote to Cloter, " That on the following Monday, his allodial and feudal estate might be transported to Schwarzeubach in a child's go-cart. Inform both friends, that about the pedagogue's wages tliere need be no new negotiation. Tlicy should both pay less in proportion than yourself. Truly, it is much easier to receive presents than wages from friends." *^ Amtvei'walter, the magistrate of a certain district. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I93 C'loter answf red : " I must remind you of one of the Sibylline rules, that when tiie moon is waning all fortu- natt; things go backwards, and that JMonday also is Kind- lein day (Innocents), when nothing new should be begun. Forget not, when you enter your dwelling, to make three crosses, and place the right foot first.* Besides, on Mon- day I shall have no horses ; and to bring the reverenc" theologian with oxen in a chaise, God forbid ! that will I not." I have given this little extract that the reader may have a glimpse of the man who was to be Richter's future patron. We are already acquainted with Volkel and Vo- gel. Cloter was a man ojjcn and honorable in word and deed. " Where he gave his hand, he gave his heart, and the bond lasted as long as life." There was need of neither horse nor oxen to transport the personal property of our hero. He wrote to Otto upon his removal: "On my entrance into my Schwarzen- bach school office, I, as usual, made an inventor}- of boots, stockings, handkerchiefs, and a couple of kreutzeis. Out of this list, failed only Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4. I have noth- ing, but I hope tliis will be the very last request. I have been the occasion of some accidental successes, but friendship is perhaps best known to you under the form of favors, and with Herman died, as little what you did for him, as your goodness to me will die with either of us. Besides, thou knowest me, and thyself, and I hope neither the doing nor the forbearing to do, the refusing or consenting to my prayer, can ever alter our relations or our opinions. LebewoJd." The reader will now follow Richter to Schwarzenbach, * This raillery was no doubt occasioned by Jean Paul's wishing to enter upon his new duties on liis birthday. 9 M 194 I^II'E OF JEAN PAUL. the place wliere, in childhood, he hungered and thirsted for instruction, and where first the dreams of future fame hovered over the friendless bo3%* This last winter in riof had blown its icy breath of cold and jioverty into the poor apartment of his mother ; but now, in the spring, it was cheered with the warmer breeze of approachingvgood fortune. At this time his biographer says : " Whoever had seen him, with his small portion of worldly posses- sions in his hand, his gray-green woollen coat, and that noble, tender countenance, in which fate, with all its blows, had left no scars ; had looked into his beaming eyes, and said. Steer on, courageous Columbus ! What thou, with prophetic eye, hast looked upon, must be ! Only a few more heavy years, and thou shalt hear and see the land. Above the blooming hills of the New World the sun shall rise for thee, and a beam will pene- trate the narrow, dark chamber of thy poor mother, and will be to her the light-beam of an eternal blessedness ! " After a friendly contest with Cloter, who insisted that the new teacher should be exclusively his guest, it was decided that . he should live successively with each of his patrons, changing his residence every quarter. It is pleasant to see that this New England custom has had a precedent in Germany. After a few weeks Richter found his most sanguine hopes of contentment and happi- ness fulfilled. The deep and marked peculiarities of a poetic nature were never brought into fuller exercise than by Richter in the formation and government of his little school. That which is usually to men of rich endowments a vexing and wearisome employment, the daily routine of instruction for little children in the elements of • Spc First Part, par;o 71. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. I95 knowledge, became to him a source of elevated and ennobling thought. His mode of instruction was the opposite of that from which he thought he had him- self suffered. In his little school there was no learning by heart, no committing to memory the thoughts of others, but every child was expected to use its own powers. His exertions seem mainly directed to awaken in the children a reproducing and self-creating power ; all knowledge was therefore the material out of which they were to form new combinations. In a word, the whole of his instruction was directed to create a desire for self-study, and thus lead his pupils to self-knowledge. He aimed to bring out, as much as possible, the talents that God had given his pupils ; and, after exciting a love of knowledge, he left them to a free choice as to what they would study ; but their zeal and emulation were kept alive by a (so-called) " red book" in which an exact account of the work of each individual was recorded ; this was shown to parents and friends at the end of the quar- ter, and so great was their zeal, that they needed a rein rather than a spur. While he accustomed the children to the spontaneous activity of all their faculties, he gave them five hours a day of direct instruction, in which he led them through the various departments of human knowledge, and taught them to connect ideas and facts by comparison and association. From the kingdom of plants and animals he ascended to the stai-red firmament, made tliem accjuainted with the course of the planets, and led their imaginations to these worlds and their inhab- itants. Then he conducted them through the picture- gallery of the past history of nations, and placed the heroes and saints and martyrs of antiquity before them, or he turned their attention to the mystery of their own 196 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. souls and the destiny of man. Above all, and with all, he directed their tender, childish hearts to a Father in Heaven. He said, " There can he no such companion to the heart of children, for the whole of life, as the ever- present thought of God and immortality." In Levana, his work upon education, Eichter has^>given a detailed account of his method of instruction in this little school. It cannot be denied that it was more adapted to cultivate a poetic nature, to form authors and literary men, than active and practical men of business. His instructions were directed almost wholly to the un- folding of the spiritual and intellectual nature, and to forming a creative imagination. He seems to have been in danger of forgetting that the same sun that opens the tender bud may close it forever. A wise gardener will take care that a too powerful heat do not draw up from the root an excess of the vital fluid, and injure the deli- cate 2>lant forever. It has been said that Richter's method of instruction was to make of children, so diverse in age, character, and situation, mei'cly poets and literary men ; — that he sought to reproduce his own life and character without the vari- ous hinderances and trials that he encountered in his self- education. He made of his school an academy of poetry, sowing his own individuality under different forms, and creating only little Kichters among Ills pupils. He called his method the awaking of the spiritual nature to self- knowledge and self-instruction. These four years at Schwarzenbach were among the happiest of Richter's life. The parents of the children were his wannest friends, and his whole heart was en- gaged in forming the characters of his pupils. He wrote to Otto, " that his school-room was his Paradise, his Peru, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 197 his Tenipe, and his Prater." Every Sunday he walked to Ilof, and spent the day with his mother. There he always found a party of young female friends collected to meet htm, who was the soul and life of their intercourse. A heart like Richter's could not remain at any time in- sensible to female influence. The tenderness and rever- ence with which he always speaks of the sorrows and sen- sibility of women has made him dear to every woman's heart. He did not regard them, as men of genius are too apt to do, as mere playthings for the flattery of an idle hour, or solely as idols of the imagination, for poets to study in order to heighten the effect of their own creations : he strove to elevate them in their own estima- tion, and place them in a moral and intellectual equality with man, and, added to this, was all the tenderness which led him to say, " To the man who has had a mother, all women are sacred for her sake." The four young ladies with whom Richter lived in confidential friendship appear under the names of Caro- line, Helena, Frederica the sister, and Amone, who after- wards married his friend Otto. He encouraged them to write to him upon all questions of taste and literature, ethics or religion, that they found difficulty in solving themselves ; and he fortified the resolution or soothed the uneasiness of those who met with difficulties of any kind. He, indeed, seems to have held the double office of instructor and confessor. His intercourse with young women was also a l)enefit to liimself, for with them he was obliged to soften the bitterness of his satire, or to clothe it in the form of the graces. It may seem surprising that, placed in such intimate relations with women only a i^cw years younger tlian him- self, and susceptible as he had always been, Richter should 198 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. have felt no serious jiassion. At this time he wrote a prize essay that probably defined the limits of his friendship towards his young disciples : " How far friendship towards the other sex may proceed witliout love, and what is tlie difference between that and love." His biographer seems to wish to persuade himself that the change which ''took place in Jean Paul at this time was the result of an indi- \-idual passion. But it is plain, I think, from his journals, that his ideal of female beauty and excellence, the object for which his heart beat in secret, those exquisite crea- tions of profound feeling, meekness, and love which he has left in his writings, existed not yet to liim. In all his strong emotions, in the torrent of his deepest feelings, Avhen he bathed in the delight of a summer day, or when the setting sun spread over him rose-colored and golden clouds, and he asked for a second lieai't in which to pour the overflowing emotions of his own, it was always a female heart. In his journal are many passages, in which he dwells upon his hopes of one day meeting this idol of his dreams. He writes : " I ask not tlie most beautiful person, but for the most beautiful heart ; in that I can overlook blem- ishes, but in this, none." Even when his spirit was filled with universal benevolence, and he spread out liis arms to embrace all the world, a small voice from his heart whispered, that among a thousand, none had yet been found for him. He writes again : " There can be but one beloved, that can forget all for thee, and give thee every minute, every glance, every joy, eveiy beating of the ])idse, and say to thee : ' We have chosen each other from the whole world. Thy heart is mine, mine is tliine, thou, deeply, deeply loved ! ' But, beyond the clouds of earth and the grave, a time will come when we shall not seek LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 199 avariciously among the best a better for ourselves, but when there will be but one, supremely loved, that is, God, and millions loving all mankind. " And yet thou ! that in this dark, cold night of life remained longest with me, and pressed my arm upon thy heart ; yet, if I should meet thine eye that I have so loved, if I should see again all that here so drew me to thee, ah, I should fall weeping upon thy heart, and say : ' This is he who loved me upon earth, I must do some- thing here to distinguish thee from others.' " * There was said to be a certain Caroline, who carried Richter beyond the limits between friendship and love. It was not her extraordinary beauty that fascinated him, but the great liveliness of all her sentiments and emo- tions. However, this dream lasted but a short time ; with the spring it melted away ; and, that the lady her- self dissolved it, appears from an entry in his journal. " /alone must repeat in solitude, with flowing eyes, Thou lovest her yet, eternally, eternally ! " His letters to Caro- line differed very little from his letters to his other young friends. To all they were full of wise counsel, playful and humorous suggestions, delicate and penetrating sym- pathy with sorrows, only betrayed in hints and whispers. He wrote for them fables ; imaginary journeys all over the world, to teach them the customs of foreign countries ; a fanciful history of the inhabitants of the moon ; dreams, in which he veiled the most delicate hints and instruc- tions ; and to one of his young friends, who wished for some assurance of the immortality of the soul, he sent an " Essay upon the Continuance of the Soul, and its Con- sciousness," which contains the foundation and outline of the Campaner Thai. * Richter refers here to his friend Herman. 200 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. To another he wrote, on her birthday : " The soul cele- brates at every good deed a birthday. In your letter 1 rejoice at your joy over a quiet day. Men are made to be etei*nally shaken about, but women are flowers that lose their beautiful colors in the noise and tumult of life. Since a year and a half it has been my principle ^or your sex are judged by the suspicion of men or the hatred of women) to think better of every woman than any would think of her except her lover Let the reward of virtue be the continuance of virtue." It should be remembered, in reading the next extract, that Richter was writing for the young women who lived in the region of the Fichtelgebirge, where, we have learnt from the Introduction, the females bore the burden of life ; and before Paul had diffused more liberal ideas upon the education of the daughters of families, they received little intellectual instruction, and were scarcely regarded as the equals of man. He is speaking of a young bride he had met in one of his rambles, returning to her husband's home, and was invited to take a seat in the vis-a-vis. " I and the sun were opposite Pauline, and looked into lier face with equal warmth ; and at last I was touched by the sight of her patient, quiet figure. Why was it ? Not that I reflected upon the common Hernhuttish mar- riage lot-drawing of women, for at a certain age tliey have more feeling than knowledge, and in their empty hearts there is a fire for the sacrifice, but no God, as in the virgin temple of Vesta there was no image, but only fire, and at the^rs^ appearance of any divinity the altar was consecrated to him. My emotion did not come from the thought that she, like most of her sisters, like tender berries, were plucked from the stem and crushed in the LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 20I rough hand of man ; or that her female spring had so many cdoiids and so few flowery days ; or that I compared her, as many other hrides, to the sleeping cliild that Gara- fola has painted, with an angel holding over it a crown of thorns, that marriage, like the angel, would awake by pressing the thorns upon her brow. But it made my soul tender, when I looked in this sweet, contented face, blooming with red and white roses, and thought witliin myself, O, be not so joyful, poor sacrifice ! Thou knowest not that thy gentle heart needs something warmer than blood, and thy head better dreams than the {)illow can bring it; that the perfumed flower-leaves of thy youth must soon be drawn together to form the scentless calix- leaves to protect the honey-cup for thy husband, who will soon demand of thee neither tenderness nor a light heart, but only rough, working fingers, feet never weary, labor- ing arms, and a quiet, paralytic tongue. This far, wide- speaking vault of the eternal, the blue rotunda of the universe, will shrink up to be thy housewifery apartment, thy fuel-chamber and spinning-house, and in thy happiest days only a visiting apartment. The sun will be for thee only a hanging balloon-stove, a room-heater of the uni- verse ; the moon but a cobbler's rushlight upon the can- dlestick of a cloud. The Rhine will shrink into a pool and rinsing kettle, to whiten thy household linen, and the ocean be only a herring-pond Thou wert created for something better, but that thou wilt not be ; and so, thy leaves stripped away by years, and all thy sweet buds dried up and faded, death will first transplant thee to a more congenial climate. " Wherefore should not this trouble me ? Do I not see every week how souls are sacrificed as soon as they inhabit a female body ? K, then, the richest and most 9* 202 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. gifted souls, in the morning glow of life, with hearts un- requited, wishes denied, are in a single position disdained by society, what wonder if they sink into the sheltered citizenship of marriage ? They think themselves happy, if by this they escape ^ thousand signs of forgetfulness ; and if the husband is a gentle jailer, who could tame \he Bastile prisoner, the poor soul feels her lot supremely happy. The golden mornings and enchanted castles of her eai'lier years fade, and fall unremarked. Her sun descends, unseen, by slow degrees, over her clouded and earthly day, and amid pain and duty the twilight of even- ing shrouds her humble existence ; she has never expe- rienced all that she was worthy of, and in age she has forgotten all that the morning glow of life promised. Sometimes, when a long-buried idol of her once devout heart, or melancholy music, or a book, throws upon the ■winter sleep of her heart a warm sunbeam, she starts and looks around, and says, ' Formerly was it diflferent with me ; but it is long since, and I believe at that time I might have erred,' and she sleeps again. " Truly, parents and husbands, I draw this picture, not to press from the wounded hearts who recognize their own likeness another tear ; but I represent these pic- tured wounds, that you may heal the real, and throw away forever your instruments of torture." A letter to Helena follows, from which I give a short extract. " I would in this foolish letter repeat our late conver- sation. I will take the liberty to call you the Democrat, as you would be the protecting goddess of the freedom of women ; and I will take the title with which I was once baptized at your house, that of Chaplain. We will make believe that we were following the Democrat and the LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 203 Chaplain, and listening to their conversation as they walked to Krotenhof. " The dear good Democrat says : ' Can a maiden, who has preserved this name till old age, deserve every satiri- cal aiTow that is aimed at her from mouths and book- shelves, because she does not wish for fetters, or suffer them to be drawn on ? ' " The Chajjlain answered : ' In fact, we all, or none, de- serve satii*e, for we have all more follies than hairs. But how will your good nun defend herself?' " ' With everything,' (and the Democrat shaded herself with her parasol, as the sun with an evening cloud.) ' Ah, in the female heart envious eyes too often look, and too rarely the indulgent ! Pitying eyes would there find wounds that are every day cut deeper, and a world of stifled sighs. But upon, the female soul, as well as the female body, is bound an eternal corset. We go from chain to chain — ' " ' Suffer me to finish the picture, for so far it is true. Yes, you are right, — prejudices, that are flowers for us, are thistles for you. Your teachers, your companions, and often even your parents, trample upon and crush the little flowers that you have sheltered and cherished. Your hands are more employed than your heads. You ai^ only allowed to play with your fans, — and nothing is pardoned you ; at the least — a heart ! " ' Who, then, wouM be severe and satirical, if a being so opprest, so entangled in chains, has not the courage to deliver all she possesses, tliat best and tenderest treas- ure, her heart, into manly hands of which she knows nothing, — knows not whether he will warm or oppress ; cherish or torture the gift ! What upon this earth can be more dangerous than to make an election that can never 204 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. be changed, and whose good or evil goes on increasing continually to the last day of life ? May she not justify herself in avoiding this election, if she sees stretching out before her a charming, unfettered life, among female friends, with light duties, and the pleasures of youth ever renewed ? ' " ' Complete your picture,' said the Chaplain ; ' and do not forget, that perhaps there may have been one, upon whose arm you could, nevertheless, have passed through the thorns of life, but that he is eternally parted from you, and perhaps buried beneath these thorns. In certain years, it is difficult to forget what we have loved, and more difficult to replace it. The lacerated heart retreats into its solitary cell, and seeks, at most, only female friends.' " ' You are, then, of my opinion ? ' said the Democrat. " ' God forbid ! ' " Both now stood upon a height where they could look towards Krotenhof. The Chaplain opened his arms, and cried out, ' Is there in the w'ide world one w-ho would be Chaplainin ? Here stands the Chaplain ! — But, seriously, I have a hundred reasons to give you. In your opinion, the best maidens crook the finger, when asked to put on the marriage ring. But we will follow tliese best maid- ens into their sixtieth year, and see how it is with them then, without the marriage ring. "We find them solitary, unknown, without friends, except those who would live in their testaments, but not in their hearts ; without friends, for those wlio were their friends in the summer years of youth, liave taken back their hearts, and given them to their husbands and children. She has now no one that she can love ; instead of a husband, only a favorite cat to torment, that is not half as faithful as a husband ; and in- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 205 stead of children she educates canaiy-birds. Instead of the inexpressibly sweet duty of a mother, who, like God, educates little Adams and Ev^es ; and the sweet employ- ment of a good housewife, who takes from her husband all his cares and wrinkles, she has merely the duty to love or hate herself; to cherish her ennui and her great prayer-book, and on festivals to eat alone. In the long winter evenings she has no one but her maid to whom she can recount the joys of her youth The good maiden thought, forsooth, she should remain her whole life long only seventeen years old ; her young friends are now all scattered far from her, upon diflferent heights, and for tliirty years she has had nothing youthful near her, — and she will die alone, perhaps not missed.' " ' She will be regretted by the poor, to whom she gave bread, and missed by the children to whom she gave edu- cation.' " ' Educating poor children is like a bright-colored May-dream. It is as though I should see my children confessing to another, and myself seek complete strangers to absolve. If a man, that has all the world upon his shoulders, books to write, journeys about the world, protocols, sermons, conquests to make, and no time to woo, can scarcely be excused from marrying, how can a woman, who has more time to betroth herself, and first at the altar receives her crown and sceptre, her power to rule, and confer happiness ? — But here we are at the end of our walk, and I will send you a written contradiction and confutation.' " I have dwelt thus long upon this part of Paul's life because it was the season when he passed through those moral conflicts that resulted in a deep spiritual faith, and in love and devotion. His whole nature acquired an 2o6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. earnest direction, and his works were henceforth created to elevate in happiness, to soothe and cheer in sorrow. Satire remained among his lighter weapons, but he took from it the bitterness of scorn, and henceforth his vinegar was made of honey. These assertions are established by a remarkable pas- sage in his journal of this year (November 15, 1790). He calls it " the weightiest evening of my life, for I re- ceived the thought of death. I looked through thirty years, and saw myself on my death-bed. That last dre, cutting power, but without love. His con- versation 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 bemg 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 favor ; 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 not con- ceal his disappointment at the character of Goethe's latter poetical works, and soon after his retui'n to Hof he wrote to Knebel in relation to one of them, " that in such stormy times we needed a Tyrtajus rather than a Propertius." The remark reached Goethe's ears ; and Goethe, usually so indifferent to censure or criticism, showed himself deeply susceptible and offended at this so-called " manifestation of arrogance in Herr Richter." CHAPTER XV. Madam von Kalb. — Letters. — Close of Richter's Intimact WITH Madam von Kalb. T would perhaps have been excusable, if tlie 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 in- timacy with Madam von Kalb. She was somewhat older than himself, and at that age when an accom- plished woman can exercise the utmost power over the mind of an imaginative man. She was living in an un- happy union — or rather disunion, for they were rarely together — witli a husband much her infenor, and at a time when revolutionary ideas in domestic mannei'S 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 gasthof (inn). Ah ! are we not always in inns and pay-houses, where everything is done for us from interested motives, that kill all heart ? You LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 253 have told me that you could not live where they did not sympathize 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 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 ; 2d, 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 Ids sister that she must come in the afternoon. I believe they will not allow you to leave them to-day ; but / will let you, and all is with me like the laws of na- ture, — life and death. Life, and your " CHARLOTTE." Paul answered, •ndth 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 colors 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 un- derstand 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 254 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 durmg the three weeks he remained in Weimar. The notes that are preserved are upon the 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 char- acters which he has displayed in liis 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 misunderstand and correct me, to me also the treas- ure of his mind is confidentially imparted. " On Monday evening we were, as I have already writ- ten 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 * I give only extracts from these billets. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 255 •witli 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 11th. Say many beautiful things from me to Otto. Fai'ewell ! 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 was his answer to this letter : " Time has crept over the last eight days with cold, wet wings, without one swift feather. I cannot for- get 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 othei'. " Upon your bii-thday 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 25.6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. as if it had been tlirowai from rock to rock in tlie past. — - O, good Destiny ! Avill I pray, give this weary soul a ten- der, green repose ; rend not asunder again the hardly yet united parts of her wounded heart. Give her calmness of soul and a gentle life's course, accompanied by conge- nial beings, and rest, — rest ! Oh, I shall be eloqueiat on your birthday, and my tongue shall stream as my eyes, and overflow with wishes ; and when I am silent, and suik down with panting heart upon your beloved hand, my heart will be fuller, not lio;hter. It appears from this letter, that Richter felt for this lady the most profound pity, as well as the more enthu- siastic 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 fas- cinations of rank and wealth, in the midst of intellectual refinement 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 Avould 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 favor. 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 Spandaw ; and described, in lively colors, the consola- tion they had derived from it. The same lady, with her husband, visited his mother's house with the hope of see- LIFE.OF JEAN PAUL. 257 ing him, while he was absent at Bayreuth ; and we need no longer blush for the American habit of pilfering relics, when we leam 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, en- closing a letter and a purse beautifully net 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. " . . . . May some good genius open the cloud through which your haiid 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 Poetiy 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 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 258 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 mar- ket, or his garden house. For your coffee, the waiter will furnish it ; and if you wUl dine at home, as the food from a restorator'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 promise you that three months will not cost you more than ten rix-doUars. If at present you are without money, your friends here can lend you some hundreds of dollars. And what if it were forever ! 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 your- self 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 / 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 harmonica." To this truly feminine letter, Richter answered : — LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 259 " 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 bor- row money for my fast days, but not for my festival joys." At the conclusion of the Prefiice to the new edition of Quintus Fixlein Eichter inserted a species of myth, called the Ifondsjinsterness, which his biogi'apher 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 considers 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 displease him. After tliree years of correspondence a perceptible cold- ness had chilled her enthusiasm for the Poet. She began to learn that his love for women was principally for the sake of his poetry. He kindled into flame and enthu- siasm before every unusual female appearance, and as soon as the unwonted excitement had heightened the in- terest of the work in hand, it faded and went out. Thus Madam von Kalb had served for the original of Linda in the "Titan." Madam von Kalb appears to have been deeply tinged with the modern "French, and perhaps German {Esthetic 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 26o LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. effort to conceal from one's self 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 relig- ion upon the earth is nothing but the unfolding and eleva- tion of all our powers, and the disposition that our ndture has received. That the creature should suffer no re- straint, and that love needs no laws." 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 Alma- nac, a periodical conducted by Schiller, which had served to increase the discord between the ruling spirits of the age ; Herder had wholly withdrawn into himself. This strengthened Richter's decision to remain at home with his mother, working with unexampled activity upon the new editions of his Hesperus and Qulntus 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 L PART III, CHAPTER I. Prince Hohenlohe. — Madam von Krudenek. — Letters. — " JUBELSENIOK." — " CaMPANER ThAL." HAVE omitted, for the purpose of a. d. 1796, concluding the account of Richter's •^'- ^■ intimate friendship with 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 Prin- cess 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 worker 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 Rich- ter 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." 262 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. The other event, that made a deeper impression upon the imaginative mind of Richter, was a visit from the cele- brated enthusiast Julia von Krudener, the wife of the Russian ambassador in Denmark. This singular woman had been to Leipzig, to visit her son, and came, in the full bloom of her remarkable beauty, to his solitary resictence, 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 in- terest was mutual. There must have been something in Richter's person and manners extfemely fascinating to women ; 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 har- monica." 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 color 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 263 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- scribable whole of your emotion in expression and accent, established the sweetest harmony of knowledge and feel- ing. 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 un- derstand me, and how sweet is the jiope to see you here, and to open this heart to you, to show you, without pride and mthout fear, the virtues as well as the faults of my nature. This need of learning the truth, this living ne- cessity 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 observa- tion 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 fells upon him. Such stings take away the injurious blood, that inflames so easily at the smallest wound, and from wliich ill-humor and misanthropy are formed. I have climbed that mountain tliat little minds have not the power to ascend, and the echo of their voices brings no disharmony to my ears. 264 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " 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 happi- ness, 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 frien^hip, that the possibility of breathing in a lower world cannot exist. The hand of genius seized my thoughts even in their cradle, 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 pre- cious 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 tlirown 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 mari-iage, many years afterwards, in Berlin. INIadam von Krudener did not make a favorable 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 lie said of her, what might be said of many ostentatious women, " That it * French was the native tongue of Madam von Krudenor. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 265 was not vanity that made her an artist, but the enjoyment of the representation." From the subsequent life of Madam von Krudener, it will appear that Richter w^as not so penetrating as his friends in the estimation of her character.* Richter's spirits, after denying himself a return to the "Weimar Eden, and furtlier intimacy with Madam von Kalb, were too much depressed to allow him to pro- ceed with his Titan. He occu})ied himself this winter with two of his minor works, Jubelsenior and the Cam- paner Thai. During the progress of his great work, upon which he rested liis hopes of immortality, he kept himself constantly before the public, and procured the means of subsistence by a series of smaUer works. Like a celebrated painter, he worked up the superabundance of colors upon his palette into smaller pictures, wliile his immortal work was yet on the easel. These works differ from his earlier in tliis, 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 mer.ely 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 dif- fers more widely than the antipodes from Jean Paul, has in this respect the same peculiarity. The Jubelsenior is the beautiful and swnple representa- tion of an aged minister, and his equally aged wife, cele- brating the anniversary of tlieir marriage festival at the * See note at the end of the chapter. 12 266 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 relig- ious ceremonies ; and he awoke the gratitude of many an old man and many an aged matron with his intimate sym- pathy with their well-remembered feelings, and the 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 liistory, and makes a low, under, but sweet tone in the piece. The Campaner 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 con- solation. 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 tlie soul. He somewhere says, " That he never heard a cultivated woman * A church consecration is one of the principal country celebrations in Oormany. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 267 speuk of meeting again with her lost friends without de- tecting at the same time an almost imperceptible sigh of doubt." * lie 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 Revieic. It is written after receiving the Campaner Thai from the author. " I require, indeed, the pen of an angel to relate the thousand-fold obstacles that have prevented me, dear, un- forgotten 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 sacra- ment of love are beautiful, as I felt deeply when I re- ceived your dear letter with the Campaner Thai. " Ah, we owe you thanks for Hesperus also. If my * I quote from memory, not Laving the book at hand, t Appendix IV. 268 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. husband 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 naaterials than stone and marble, but in the taste of that time. " We look for Titan with the utmost impatience." * Note. — The Baroness Krudener was educated in Paris, where her father's house was the resort of men of talents, and lier beauty and wit were much admired. In her fourteenth year she was married to Barou Krudener, who was more than double her age, and accompanied him to Russia, where he was sent as ambassador. Madam Krudener, 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 at- tracted by the principles 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, * " He who casts one eye in thought on the Strasburg Minster, and another on the Teynplcs at Pcestum, will understand the difference between the romautic and classical." — Foreign Quarterly Review, July, 1837. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 269 sickens them of those of fashionable life, Qy to devotion, and kindle again for God the burnt-out coal of other passions. She was after- wards 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 backgroiind, 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 persons. She distributed libenilly 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. ElCHTER VISITS THE FkAUZENBATH TN EgER. — DeATH OF HIS Mother. — Emilie von Berlespsh. — Removal from Hof to Leipzig. N the month of June, 1797, Richter a. d. 1797, found his health, from uninterrupted -^t. 34. labor, so much impaired, that, to avoid a fit of hypocliondria, he fled to the baths of Eger, in Saxony, where were collected some of the most distin- guished and brilliant persons of the country. Here he was destined to meet another of those enchantresses, 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 immeiliately kindled, and he was soon so much the more captivated, 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 27I intelligence that she was no more. "With bleeding heart, in which remorse for his absence was mingled, he re- turned 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 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, and 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 demonstration 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, in 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 * The character of Lenette, in Siebenkds, has some of the traits of Paul's mother, and she is said to have furnished him with the original. t In a letter from the Duke of Mechlenburg this circumstance is mentioned as a touching feature in the character of Richter. It shows the strong aflfections of his heart, that he should have been so tenderly- attached to a character like that of Lenette. 272 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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, without contrariety ; that can improve me while I improve her. She is too noble and too perfect to be eulogized with a 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 sui-pass 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 Fraiizenhath 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 hinderances 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. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 273 " To-morrow I shall go to Weimar, and tliei'e I shall find a letter from you ! Tliis 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 dis- course of my feelings through whole pages, if the thought of your severe understanding did not stand in warning opposition before me." A week later : " I have received your letter. The manner 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 fi'om 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 de- stroyed. " I have been some hours with Plerder. 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 with all, so rich, so pure a heart Could one say more ? And yet, when I talked of you, they called me an enthusiast ! Further, social life in Weimar is as 12* R 274 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 wHte to you with unreserve, write, but never again in such a man- ner 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 honor 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 fomied inward, ideal man, where one half is a giant, the other a dwarf makes one not only melancholy, but desponding. Upon the churchyard 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 dear associates here gives me many w^ounds to take with me to Leipzig. May I there in your [)recious heart find none. " R." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 275 Ricbter 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 educa- tion 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 hhnself for the want of a helping hand, and tliis determined him to remove to Leipzig, 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 favorable to his genius. He felt that he needed a wider and more brilliant bu'thplace for liis Titan, to which, if it had not been for the demands of Emilie Berlespsh, he would now have been exclusively devoted. His wide-spread celeb- rity, 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 ten- derness and forbearance under Otto's jealousy. He says, in answer 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 immod- erate 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, 276 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 then* lettei-s express- ing their warm love, their reverence for his noble quali- ties, and their deep grief at losing one wTio 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 Leipzig, and leave forever the place of my youth. Exactly as at the first time, when I went a student myself to Leipzig, 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 treasui-es, 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 enchanting 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 suifer you to 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 color them, for you are holy Nature's first and dearest painter. Let your spirit still hover about us, and let now and then a drop of the LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 277 old friendship fall into our cup. Thanks, thanks ! noth- ing 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 Gampaner Thai, the ninth or tenth commandment will not stand in my way. You have spoilt 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 Leipzig only the written words, Jean Paul Frederic RicJiter, 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 Leipzig : " Excellent young German ! from whom in the future I promise thje 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 intervicAv, 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 your- self. With this wish, with these hopes, my infinitely dear friend, I close my youth's time, and we part silently from 278 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. each 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, in her illness, served his mother.* * Appendix V. CHAPTER III. Residence in Leipzig. — Letters. — Emilie von Beklespsh. — Visits Deesden. HE residence in Leipzig was a great ^ p ^.^gg and decided change in the life of our -^t- 35- Richter. In the tumult and whirlpool of the collected literature of the great book-fau- of Ger- many, 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 whir- ring of his mother's spinning-wheel, and the unweaiied scratching of his own pen. On his arrival in Leipzig, the bookseller Beygang re- ceived him into his house. Richter 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 forniture, where the " commode was better than anything he could put in it." Instead as formerly with timid and concealed steps he sought a cross hostess, booksellers ran to find the best victualler who would send the best dish to his table. Where he had before paused longingly, unable to afford 28o LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the grosclien to enter the concert-hall, he now passed freely where for the first time in his life he heard music. He found that what we desire in youth, age sometimes gives us in excess. But, alas ! these joys come when for us they have lost their value. Many families admitted him to their most intimate do- mestic 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 A B C 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 Ms first-born 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 Leipziger supper is always a guest repast. Weisse's daughter, a beautiful and accom- plished young lady, presides at his ; but for some years I have been dead to external beauty, and only alive to wliat is living beneath it." But, as in Weimar, Richter must sp(?ak for himself Leipzig was tlie residence of his friend Christian Oertel, who had lately been married, and Richter had not yet seen his young wife. He says : " Oertel had already de- posited 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 Renata, 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 * It is impossible to translate liebequelknden otlierwise. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 281 Italian pieces, you may easily tliink where my ears led my heart, and that the tones, floating between the present and the past, aflfected me too deeply. Wednesday I Avas at the concert-hall ; there were over a hundi-ed perform- ers. 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 Em- hardt and Dr. Michaelis and their sons. About eight o'clock, a man came to me without a hat, with tan- gled hair, and aphoristical voice, and conversation 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 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. Con- science finds in his panada * heart no ground firm enough in which to fix her hook. " I have been with Platner in his family, where I found a completely accomplished wife, and two extremely beau- tiful daughters, and many distinguished young people. It exceeds the power of my pen to give you a reasonable sketch of my acquaintances. Rather would I describe for you the refined, not too ftiU, but costly and delicious supper-parties. Yet I save nothing by them, for I must give the sei-vants drink-money, and the maid who lights you down, or up, even in clear daylight, demands the offering penny. * Boiled bread and water, sweetened. 282 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " What I promised to tell you of Goethe is insignifi- cant. It was merely that he judged favorably 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 little 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. " I met a noble Scot, Macdonald (celebrated in history 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 com- pletely wrong, namely, hinted a little vanity. That can- not exist in a mind that so readily performs anonymous work, and withdraws itself from praise. Every son of earth may dare to be somewhat vain, it is only unper- mitted wlicn 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 dilficult 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 283 precipices where we have fallen." * .... Fate is spin- ning 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 once 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 to Emilie von Ber- lespsh. A remark has been made by one of his biog- raphers, " 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 Richter'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 Leipzig 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 of her sex ; but female authorship was more rare in Germany 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 publislied remarks upon the revolution in Switzerland, together with Mallet du Pans's history of the same. Richter himself must un- * Otto had again expressed his distrust of Richter's affection. See Appendix IIL 284 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. fold her history in connection with liimself. He writes to Otto: — " Harpocrates, lay thy finger upon thy lips, for the theme is of her, the i:)urest, most sj^iritual 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 ful- fils 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, and only a sympathiz- ing part in her hard fate. She'introduced to me a beauti- ful, rich, high-principled young lady, her friend from Zu- rich, for whom no wooer had hithei'to been pure and good enough, and wished that I should marry her. Her pro- 230sal, 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 arrange- ment, but her soul hung on mine with more wai'mth 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 for as great- ness and purity of soul and worldly rit-hes can make me happy I shall be so, perhaps. "Ah, Otto, I weary to write, when thou art so long LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 285 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, liis mind was so completely the echo of his friend's, that he had not the power to represent to him that by such a mai-riage, even if he gained all the for- tunes of Germany, it would be no atonement to a heart like Richter's for the want of mutual confidence and love. He saw on Richter's side more sacrifice than love, and that he would sufller from exclusive demands upon his tenderness, for every woman that, self-forgetting, gives herself wholly, demands at times answering sacrifices, although in the moment of her highest elevation she may imagine that the certainty of possession is enough for her happiness. Otto also avowed that miserable, self-deceiving opinion, that a marriage without love was best for Richter's literary and poetic life. He would also be preserved, he said, from great vicissitudes by receiving at once a competence, which would only come by degrees if he married a woman without fortune. " The real" he adds, " in marriage, as well as in friend- ship, takes something from the ideal. But with thee, if it must be that thy ideal life proceed alone upon its heavenly way, yet wilt thou steal treasures from the real, for if disappointed love makes poets of prosaic men, how much more will it preserve in thee a poetic youtlifulness and a pure, unsatisfied love." 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 lie not only reconciled the lady to the 286 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. refusal of her passionate demands, but continued with her upon the most friendly and coniidential terms, without further question of love or marriage. Eichter'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 confessiO)is, to form with her a social and friendly bond. At the end of May we shall go to- gether 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 from 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 ]iapj)y.* " 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 Paulina, tell Renata she must ask me what I think of her silence." We have room but for one more extract from the Leip- zig letters ; one that shows the childlike simplicity and o])enness with which the two friends wrote to each other. " I celebrated my birthday on the 2Uth, 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 * Otto h:ul long been attached to Amone Herold, but through family opposition tlieir iniii'riiige was delayed. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 287 overcoat for tlie Avinter. Madam Feind gave me a cup, with hers and my initial letters interlaced ; Madam Bru- ningt a neckcloth ; and the Berlespsh made a little festi- val, with rose-trees, crowns, etc. ; to which Weisse and some other friends were invited." Richter was now pre2iaring 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 Leipzig 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 inter- course with his friend and his friend's betrothed, Amone. After fourteen days with Otto and his family, who re- sembled 1dm 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. Shortly after his return, he journeyed with Emilie to 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 in Dresden, and he was disappointed in the social tone of the accom- plished Dresdeners. But in Dresden a new and hitherto unimagined world was opened to him. He became ac- quainted with the Grecian plastic art. A new sun arose over his own, and threw its living beams upon, his mind. He wrote to Otto : — *' As yet I can impart nothing to you but the hall of Sculpture, that yesterday like a new, huge world pressed 288 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. iuto my mind, and nearly crowded the other out. "We entered a long, light, vaulted hall, through -which ex- tended 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, v^ere we find 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 re- pose of perfection, not of weariness, looks from their eyes and rests upon their lips. Whenever in future I write of great or beautiful objects, these gods will appear before me, and reveal to me the laws of beauty. Noav 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 despond- ing reflections upon himself; as the sight of a large library always made him melancholy, he felt the impossi- bility of taking in its treasures. He did not enter the ball 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 ex- cites in susceptible minds the longing after perfection. After his visit to the hall of Sculpture, Richter wrote in a secret pocket-book : " 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 in- spired him with a desire to renew his acquamtance with LIFE OF JEAX PAUL. 289 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 Eu- ripides and ^schylus. After the last hymns of the Iliad, and tlie CEdipus in Colortna, one can read nothing but Shakespeare or Goethe. They already affect my Titan, but as the teacher rather than the father." Richter had abeady found reason to rejoice that he had not formed a more permanent union with Emelie. 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 {siib rosa) she will go to England." The lady went to England and resided in the High- lands 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 Leipzig, from his Dresden journey, a deep sorrow awaited him. His brother Sam- tiel, upon whose account and to promote whose education lie had come to Leipzig, a youth of good talents and originally of a noble disposition, had fallen into dissipated company and become involved in a deep passion for gam- * Emilie von Berlespsh was a distinguished female German author. I learn from Schindel's biography that at the time of her acquaintance vrith Jean Paul she was divorced from her first husband, although in Richter's life she is called a widow. She visited Scotland in company with Sir James McDonald, 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. 13 s :90 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. ing. He had taken advantage of Ricliter's absence to* break open his desk, and abstract from it one hundred and fifty rix-dollars. With this sum he departed from his brotlier's lodgings, without leaving any clew by which he could be discovered. Paul suffered inexpressibly when he entered Kfs de- serted room, and discovered the rosebush 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 con-espondence with Otto. Richter was more lenient towards his poor, unhappy brother, be- cause he reproached himself with too mucli indulgence, and too little scrutiny of his conduct while at the Univer- sity. He never saw him again, but he settled on him a yearly sum to be paid through Otto, who was the medium of communication between them. The boy led a wan- dering life, probably filled with suffering, and died at a military hospital in Silesia. A strong character should never have the complete control of a weak one. The weak cannot sympathize 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 name of Septimus Fixlein. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 291 an 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 en- chanted by tlie old man, and by the neighborhood of the Hartz 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 sori'ows of Louis XVI. to those of Chi-ist ! " He returned to Leipzig at the end of July, regretting " that he had found no man for his heart ; that he had indeed found men whose pupil he could be, but none that he could take to his heart." The friendship between Otto and Jean Paul was one of the most beautiful that literary history has made known to us. But the frequent outbreaking jealousy of Otto, at what he imagined approaching 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 in the Appendix. CHAPTER IV. ElCHTER RETURNS TO WeIMAR. — WiELAND. — GOETIIE. — HeRDER. — His Attachment to Jean Paul. — Philosophy. — Madam VON Kalb. TTER the loss of his brother, Leipzig a.d. 1798, with all its noise and tumult ap- -^^^ ^^• peared to Richter an empty and deserted city. Leipzig had indeed never fulfilled the expec- tations 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 Leipzig, came too late. The theatre, con- certs, 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 fiiend returned, when there was no longer a reason for his remaining in Leipzig. An invisible hand drew him again to AVeimar ; an inward voice whispered to him that it was only by the side of Herder that the sun would rise that was to ripen his Titan. On a visit that he made there about this time, wlien all his former friends received him with the same delight as at first ; Goethe, with more flattering demonstrations of friendship than before ; the cirdelhat gathered about him was so choice and so de- lightful that he determined no longer to resist his secret wishes. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 293 Accordingly, at the end of October, just a year from the time he entered it, he left Leipzig, and on the 26th, at evening, entered the gate of AVeimar, to him that of a New Jerusalem. The same evening he wrote the follow- ing note to Herder : " At length I have passed the Arabian Desert of two years, and have arrived with the same pil- grim'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 as far as the comfort of a poet depends on outward circumstances, a humble personage claims a page in his biogx-aphy. 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 gi*eatest re- freshment 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 her- self, 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 my house Frau was a great reader. I inquired, and found that she had once taken the (Economical Lexicon from the library. They 294 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 Richter's life in Weimar, which was indeed most happj. His re- ception was even more flattering tlian at first, as personal knowledge had confirmed the former admiration. All doors and all hearts, even the ducal, weie opened to him. The noble and intellectual Duchess Amelia received him as a friend of the house, and he was indebted to her de- scriptions for his knowledge of hola Bella, Naples, Ischia, and the other parts of Italy that he has painted with such living colors in his Titan. Richter's genius also was never more creative and sportful, and the little work that he produced at this time, Bevorstehenden Lebenslanf* in fulness of thought, charm of expression, and a gentle play of wit and humor, between the serious and sportive, is not surpassed 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 Scliiller. He was indisposed, and I went, foolishly, to walk with his wife. She belongs to those agreeable coquettes in conversation, wdio Ao not throw the ball straight back, but keep it up through playful persiflage. She led the author of Hesperus, at twilight, to one 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 be- lieve 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 particu- * Approaching life's course. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 295 larly 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.* .... " I write to you, wrapped in Wieland's wide mantle, that, 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.f Wieland is slender, erect, with a red scarf, and a red handkerchief bound round his head, — talking much of himself, but not with pride, — a little aristippish, and indulgent towards himself, as towards others, — full of parental and conjugal love, but so in- toxicated by the muses, that his wife once concealed from him for ten whole days the death of one of his children. He does not penetrate the relations 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 inwai'd, never) about many tilings. He depreciates himself too much, and was too anxious about my praise of his works." " On my second visit to Wieland, with my wide flut- tering 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 draw- * In a severe review of Jean Paul's works. t This was on Paul's first visit from Leipzig, before he had perma- nently established himself in Weimar. 296 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. ing 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 Avill' not be di'awn out. And yet — otherwise — his wife proposed, and he mentioned it to me the next morning, that I should take the opposite house, and eat always with tliem. 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 wiU wear no chain, even were it formed of perfume, and welded by moonbeams, — and I should be certain that in the soli- tude of only their society 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 arbor. O, 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 spend- ing 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 * See Appendix IIL LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 297 therefore more independent. He inquired after my man- ner of working, as it completely surpasses his method, and asked how I liked Fichte. Upon the last Goethe said : ' He is the great new scholastic. Men are born 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 coifee 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 suiTender themselves to a past sensation, and recall anger or love,' etc. So also said Herder of his works. Wliat 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 he so before them, but I said, 'that my things, immediately after they were printed, pleased me extremely, and that I knew no bet- ter reading, — but when I had forgotten my own ideal, I knew none worse.' " Dear Otto, wdiy 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 ^t for distant, thirsting friends, when they are told how often you sneeze, gape, smile, or w^eep? 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." 13* 298 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Otto, in his next letter, discovers the source of his newly acquired contentment, and as it condenses the phi- losophy of many tedious volumes, I give an extract from it. " The conviction lies deep and indelible in every hu- man 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 un- justly or unwisely. I reflected upon my whole life. I have found nowhere what is in the world called happi- ness, but everywhere 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 Avas 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, ' Thou 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 de- served.' .... " I celebrated Amone's birthday, this year, with emo- tions wholly different from former ones. In future years, 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 connection 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 299 the manly ambition of a philosophical spirit ; her silence and patience under the severity of her father, and the narrowness of her family ; — all this makes the prospect of life with her, and only Avith 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 judgment, ujion happiness and desert, was always mine. I have always myself laid the egg out of which the basi- lisks 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 passions 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 scratched out. ". . . . In the great world I despise the men and 300 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 noth- ing 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 Rich- ter 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, fit- ting him to be a physician of the times, united both men in a friendship of the closest sympathy. He came, {is though sent by a good Providence, exactly at the time when Herder, on account of his political and philosoplii- cal principles, was deserted, and nearly forgotten. The happy evening hours that Richter passed with us, his perpetually cheerful, youthful soul, his fire, his humor, the animation with which he talked over with Herder everything that happened, always gave him new life. Much as tliey differed in their views upon one subject, yet were their principles and their emotions always thn 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 sj)irit, far above the soulless productions • of the time, that contended for the poetic form only. Hei-der named them brooks without water, and often said, " that Richter stood, as opposed to them, upon a high elevation, and that LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 301 he would exchange all artisifcal fc^rms f'cr Kii=" living vfr- tue, his feeling heart, his perennial creative genius ; he brings new, fresh life, truth, virtue, reality, into the de- clining and misunderstood vocation of the poet." " Most intimately united the two friends lived together. Our Uttle evening table, with him, our cMldren, and some- times Frederic Mayer, was a true sanctuary. Oh, how often has the good Richter there, or walking, or in his little journeys to the Ettersburg, by his genial humor, 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 revolution was beating in the hearts of men, more impor- tant even than the political that was raging without, de- manded all the highest quahties 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 pliilosophy, which in his nineteenth year he had abandoned for poetry. From the idealism of Fichte, which made egotism ti-anscen- dental, he turned to what he thought the interests of hu- 302 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. "^i&nity tleflyifid'ed. - God,?tWf mnker, preserver, and gov- ernor of the universe ; the immortality of man, as a self- conscious and accountable being, — and to love, as the spring, incitement, and impelling principle of the uni- verse. In these opinions he found in Jacobi an immova- ble 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 lais sixty-sixth year) and Jacobi's failing health pre- vented the accomplishment of their project. I cannot be guilty of the temerity of undertaking to define the different systems of the philosophical 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 philosophy upon religion and morals, and 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 con- sequences of his system in Schoppe, or Leihgeber, a char- acter introduced into more than one of his books, who is crazed by the Ideal philosoi)hy, and maddened by the fixed idea that he has lost his individuality. Ricliter's biographer asserts, that, after the publication of Fichtc's book upon the destiny of man, he seized every opportunity to express his reverence for the autlior, and that in his Levana he inserted a eulogy of Fichte. Jean Paul adhered closely to Herder, and was a fellow- believer with Jacobi, the '■'faith philosopher." Those who are acquainted witli the elevated and religious senti- ments " that echoed to the mighty heart of Herder," wiU understand the position he took in German philosophy. Richter possessed in an eminent degree what have been LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 303 called the highest capacities of man, — reverence for the holy and love for the beautiful. Superstition, bigotry, and fanaticism seein to have been equalhj abhorred by him in early life, although he said, after the French Revo- lution : " 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 residence, and immediately a storm arose in Richter's Indian summer. She had brought her husband and her own family to consent to her divorce, and, as a conse- quence, 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 elo- quence 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 holy, genial love, that I cannot, indeed, paint with this dark water, — but it passes not beyond my dreams." These stormy passages in the life of Richter were of singular advantage in enabling him to complete liis Titan, but they were unfavorable to his own happiness ; and, jis 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 ? Sliall 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 304 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. for a paradise I bore iu my heart, of which birds of prey have robbed me." Richter remained firm through the winter against the seductions of Madam von Kalb. He happily knew that such stormy heroines as Madam Berlespsh and Von Kalb were never formed for 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. Xoble 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 reverence and love. With a Berlespsh he could have found no repose, with Madam von Kalb there could have been no security. Xo genius of either sex should marry a genius. The result of the poetic nature seems to be an intense person- ality. I do not mean selfishness or even egotism, — but the poet lives in his owa 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 indi- vidual existence except in him. How could this be were both poets, both demanding supremacy and the acknowl- edgment of individual superiority ? Far happier, far more graceful is it for the woman to remain in the atti- tude of a priestess at the domestic altar of man, not be- cause 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- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 305 cast and rewritten, was entitled " Palingenesien," horn again. Ten years before, Ilichter 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 " Philosophical and Cosmopolitan Remains of Fuust," 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 rewritten, 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 ex- planation of the being and nature of the poet, and places poetical influences in the clearest light." In the course of tliis spring the splendor with which Weimar was invested at his second visit was somewhat diminished, and the shado\\'y side became more apparent when it was known that he had placed himself on the side of the literary men to which Herder belonged. It was too beautiful to Richter to sacrifice himself for this beloved friend. The relations between him, Goethe, and Schiller, the last having now come to live in Weimar, were every day attenuated, and the warm hopes with which he had approached these great men chilled. It became still worse when Herder's criticism of the Kantish school appeared, as it was well known that Jean Paul had gone through the manuscript with him, and had written notes upon it. At a dinner where all were present, at a remark of our hero, Goethe, apparently dis- pleased, remained silent, turning his plate around for a quarter of an hour. All this made an invitation to the court of Hildburghausen doubly welcome. CHAPTER V. RiCHTER VISITS THE CoURT OF HiLDBURGHAUSEN. — JIaDEMOI- SELLE VON F. — The Four Sister Princesses. — Dedication OF Titan. — Visits Berlin. ]N the spring of 1799 Madam von ^ p j-gg Kail), liaving invited Amone, the iEt. 36. betrothed of Otto, to accompany her, retired to one of her country houses, and all questioa of the divorce was thenceforth dropped. Richter could not pass the genial season of spring without a longing desire to wander ; he therefoi'e ac- cepted the invitation to visit the court of Ilildburghausen, from whose Duke he had received the diploma of Lega- tionsrath. 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 Ilildburghauficn. This new attacliinent was so far happier for Kit-hter, that the lady did not belong to the class of eccentric beings who had before entangled him, but the storm tliat nipped and destroyed its fiuit 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 wa.s one of the four beautiful sisters, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 307 daughters of the Duke of Mecklenburg, 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 Avhole face full of love and the cliarm of youth, her voice like the nightingale's, and her mother's 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 ar- rived 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 won- derfully good. Yesterday 1 fantasied upon the flute be- fore the court. You are shocked and friglitened. 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 Zinzendorf. No, it would be ungrateful if I did not receive the love of the Germans as the richest reward of my authorship. " ^ly Caroline lives with licr 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 ; immova- ble and incorruptible in its smallest branches. One feels, 3o8 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 sen- timental manna upon her tongue, but to leara ; tl^at is, she reads history and natural history. She lias formed a complete herbarium, and a succession of ingenious flower paintings. She makes verses, as you will learn by the accompanying enclosure, and therefore she cannot forget the satire upon female poetry in J. P.'s letters.* It was true, she said, but too bitter. She di-inks no wine at dinner, and passes great part of her time in the open air in the garden. ' Now that I am healtliy,' 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 tlic reverse of little and short ; the lips natu- rally cut, and the chin a little too prominent. Of the beauty of her hair I enclose a proof. Pray return it im- mediately. I derive from her, God knows why, unless it is my fi\ e-and-thirty yeai-s, a sense of firmness and secu- rity that enables me to enjoy the present hour witliout anxiety for future years ; and thus my life completes its circle, its enchanted circle." Eichter was now more genuinely attached tliaii he had ever been, and the lady ajjpeared 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 * See Jeau Paul's " Conjectural Biography." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 309 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 solemniz- ing both on the same day, and both retiring to the little city of Bayreuth, 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 be- trothment.* Certainly Richter had never loved appar- ently so naturally and prudently, and the encouragement of the Herders was to him a guaranty 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 * The " Verlobung " is often, but not always, a solemn ceremony in German society. It means that the lover is fonnally accepted by the lady and her family. If there be no reason for keeping the affair secret, the relations and friends, on both sides, are assembled, a little festival takes place, and the young people are presented as " Verlobt," affi- anced, or, as we say in this country, " engaged." The marriage cere- mony, which takes place afterwards, is more private, and attended by fewer witnesses. In this country we have the custom of " Verlobung," without the ceremony; and here, as Mrs. Jameson, in her pleasant notes to the Princess Amelia's dramas, observes, " the engaged youth is expected to devote eyery leisure minute to the society of his be- trothed ; he attends her to all public places, and to every private party, (as it is not considered good manners to invite them separately,)" and less restraint is placed on the intercourse of the lovers here than even in Germany. In England, it may be presumed, from Mrs. Jameson, the lovers do not appear much together before marriage; and in France it is offending against lien-seance ever to leave them alone together. la this, as in other habits of social life, we have been pemnitted, in this country, to select what is good and agreeable from all others. 310 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. took the Herders by surprise. What took place at thia time is not exactly known ; the opposition of the relatives does not appear to have prevented the betrotliment, 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 tiie 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, — misfortunes 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, Avill be important to me, as it concerns you and our Amone." Otto, who appears to have felt a singularly warm in- terest in the Fraulein von F., insisted upon knowing more distinctly the causes of the rupture. Richter says, in re^jly : " Merely little moral differences, but such as would have destroyed the whole liappiness of marriage." But there was also the opposition of the lady's noble family, who i)robal)ly looked with the eyes of worldly prudence, not merely u])on their sister's violation of all German conventionalism in uniting herself witli an author, but trembled for the straitened circumstances into which her disinterested inexperience would lead her. In a letter, written to her at the breaking off the be- * Otto and his sister Frederica were both married at this time; aud Otto immediately removed to Baj'reuth. t Otto's Verlobung day. ■ LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 31I trothment, Paul says : " Only one fault have I, and only I, committed throughout, that aftex* so many earlier les- sons 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, hut, 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 decrees 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, tliat 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 inequal- ity between you. Because the advantages of the separa- tion 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 rfzsadvantages of the union, because her dismterested gen- erosity and affection would obliterate them all ; while she feels the unhappiness of the separation." We see from these extracts that Eiehter was not alto- gether blameless with regard to the Fraulein von F., be- cause his deeper penetration and experience of life had 312 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. enabled him from the beginning to understand the dispari- ties, 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 saci'iliced the privileges of rank and accdpted 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 peiTnitted to protest against Richter in connection 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 mar- riage, he does not appear to have felt the truth and ten- derness of an equal love. He was dreaming of an ideal, spiritual love, like a far-off luminous star, while he per- mitted himself to write letters to his four or five Ilofer friends, that from any but a poet would have been thought genuine declarations of love. In his connection with INIadam von Kalb and Emilie Berlespsh he was more sinned against than sinning ; in the one case he retreated before dishonor, in the other before a marriage in which thei-e could be no genuine and mutual affection ; but even hei-e he appropriated their unselfish affections, their disinterested devotion, to purposes of artistic creation ; he made them the models for the female cliaracters 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. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 313 In the usual acceptation of the word, Richter was not an enemy to women, but his devotion to them was not a genuine devotion to them as women ; he did not love them for themselves ; he loved them artistically ; and as the 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 di-aw out the sweet affections, the hidden depths of the heart, revealed only to love, to mcrease 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, was ready for the press, and he had printed his history of Charlotte Gorday and Glavis Fichtiana. Nei- ther of these were works of the fii'st importance, but they served to keep him before the public while his great work was in preparation. The Glavis Flddiana was, at the time, one of his most celebrated works, and upon its publication attracted much attention. Fichte's popularity was so great, or the interest in metaphysical speculations so intense, that the booksel- lers 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 pliilo- sophical 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 noth- ing, even from them, and he widened the distance between himself and Goethe and Schiller. His letters at tliis time to his friend Otto, to whom he 14 314 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. confided every intimate and every passing 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 his demands too high. He says : " I would fain 'find a gentle girl who could cooh 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 sis- ters, the daughters of the Duke of Mecklenburg, is not to the sistei-s upon the throne, for he mentions only their bap- tismal names, and commends his Titan to their favor as exalted human, wot princely beings ; and when his fi-iends represented that his Titan contained bitter satires against princes, he answered, " That his dedication was to theiu 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 hyms of Polyhymnia, as she wanders invisible 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 315 heaven raised her sceptre and decreed, that these im- mortals 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 fiew into the arms of the mothers. Then their hearts beat with new love, and Polyhymnia, as she hovered invisibly near, gave them tlie voice and the heart to charm, and to con- sole humanity." The rupture of liis ties with the Fraulein von F. made 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 Berhn. 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 cus- tom 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 Ger- man language as to read it with ease, and to translate it into her mother tongue. Her love of Eichter's works had excited the highest admiration for their author, and an ardent desii-e 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 cor- respondence in different languages, and with the parti- tion wall of mountains also between them. It rarely happens, that a friendsliip formed without a personal interview, through the charm of correspondence, will not disappoint one of the parties when they meet. 3l6 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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, simpHcity, and openness, carried to almost childish excess ; southern animation, firmness, and tenderness, with a true German eye and heaK." This year also, in the midst of his intimacy with the four princesses, he wrote his Eulogy 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 legiti- macy, but the tyrant of a republic ; and has the boldness 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 ; conse- quently 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. richter removes to berlin. — introduction to caroline Meyer. — The Meyer Family. — The " Verlobung." ER-LIN was at tliis time to our a.d. isoo, Richter a newly discovered part ^t- 37. of the world. The society was distinguished by a higher culture, a more refined tone, through the accomplishments of the women, to wliich the beautiful Queen Louisa, one of the four sisters, lent a splendor and a charm at that time unequalled else- where. 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 henceforth only sit upon the steps of the throne, never again upon its summit. I avoid the merely learned, and therefore I meet with no envy ; but only a too warm en- thusiasm, that does not make me proud of myself, but of humanity. How it refreshes the heart to find tlie 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- 3l8 LTFE OF JEAN PAUL. ment, and beauty ! I dined \vitli ber, and sbe sbowed me the kindest attention. Tbe learned ZoUner invited eighty persons to meet me at the York Lodge ; gentlemen, their wives and daugliters, 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 could live as well from the outside of my cra- nium as from what is under it. " I have been often with the highly accomplislied min- ister. 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 nameless, and struggling Avith 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 Berlinians 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 i'rom another world, as a proi)hct 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 Vjeam of light he flashed among us, but cheering as tlie star of day is his lingoi-iiig here, lie cannot be more than forty, though he lias a l)ald head. All the riches of language appear to have been cieated lor him. * Moritz, in Berlin, from whom he received a hundred ducats for the manuscript of the Invisible Lodge. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 319 Nature is his dwelling, customs his playthings, and men his machines. Like the sun he shines through the cur- tains of art, and the labyrinth of the heart," etc. It was not only in the journals of ladies that Richter was favored ; 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 George of Mecklenburg, he formed a friendship that was uninterrupted till his death. In Schleiermacher he found a congenial spirit, and formed many friendships with distinguished 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 un- seen and Providential hand guided him to the happiness he had so long been seeking. The separation from his fiiends the Herders cost him some painful and lingering hours, but a more powerful wish drew liim 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 jirst visit at the festival that Zollner made for him at the York Lodge, he met the upper tribunal counsellor, Meyer, and his two unmamed 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 unoccu^^ied 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 320 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. man, the observed of all observers, approach it, and with timid humility she shrank from supporting a conversa- tion -with liim ; but as Richter had come from dining at Sails Sonet, the conversation about the queen and the court immediately became 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 imveiling 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 fatlier. It happened that her sister Ernestine, who sat opposite at the table, and, like a true woman, had observed 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. Richter led the sisters through tiie long avenues of the garden to their carriage, wifliout either expressing the wish to meet again, and bade them silently good night. One day only was permitted to pass before he called at the house of the Rath, with the ex- cuse that he could not leave Berlin without expressing liis gratitude for the agreeable evening he had passed at the York Lodge. But before we proceed with the w^ooing, we must learn something of the family of the Gelieimer-Rath Meyer. He was himself one of the most accomj)lislied and distin- guished oflicers of the Prussian government, and had mar- ried early in life a daughter of the family of Germers- hause, who had been educated in country simplicity, but in all the severity of the orthodox faith ; and even after LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 32I her marriage, she remained, out of childlike love, in blind subjection to the will of her mother. Herr JNIeyer 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 sacri- fices 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 agreement 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 de- pend 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 mothei-. This strange arrangement, which re- mained 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 soli- tude, must have promoted in the minds of the daughters an early development, and given them a strong and entire dependence on each other, as well as on themselves. 14* n 322 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. In their earliest years the children hung fondly on tlie 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 cultiva- tion of their liigher faculties, to the value of wliich tJiey 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 Avin from his duties as a servant of the state he devoted to the cultivation of his own and his daughters' taste, 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 art- ists, learned men, and poets, a susceptibility to everything great and good, which in this family was innate and true, but which an unsym])atliizing world calls transcendental- ism, when affected ibr purposes of vanity or display. Upon minds so prepared by education, the acquaintance 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 Cai'oline, 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. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 323 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 honor of his daughter, had coldl}' 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 deli- cacy 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 fol- lowing letter from Caroline to her father : — " It is a great pity that we caimot receive the noblest and best among men with interest and warmth. I feel indeed, dear father, that I have thereby lost your esteem. It pains me much, but the consciousness alone that I am free from all enthusiasm and all extravagance in esteem- ing and admiring such excellence raises me in a certain degree above all mortification. Your dissatisfaction with me aiises from the suspicion that something different from reverence has taken possession of my heart. Did you know how pm*e, 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 yom' own judgment whether tliis is extravagance. Truly, a more exalted man we can never meet. " 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 un- sound ? Its efifect then must be as wonderful as if poison 324 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. in a medicine were changed into a healing blessing. I have indeed become better, and feel within myself the power to improve. Tliis meeting has been the most momentous circumstance of my life, and I know nothing except this emotion in my heart that can ever make me happy or unhappy. Nothing outward, nothing thaf '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 repentance, must flow ! " Never was I less excited or extravagant than now. Yes, I will cherish this sentiment. It does not injure me ; I 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 Avill be with you, dear father, my apology for writing." In reading this letter, in which Caroline avows such faith in Richter, 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 me from the ideal height to which his presence had ele- vated me. But I feel a courage and power to bear life such as I never felt before. I could be hapj)y without ever again seeing him in this life." LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 325 The elevation of a pure and ideal love is here ti-uly expressed. Caroline felt lierself raised above the acci- dents of life, and happy in the ideal presence of the being she reverenced above all others. But Richter 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 forever united. Early the next morning, kneeling at the bedside 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 re- ward 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 acknowl- edged, in a worldly point of view, this connection appears romantic, if not imprudent. Caroline had been educated in all the luxury of refinement, at least in her father's house, and his fortune depending on his office, he could give his daughters no dowry.* * Caroline, although educated in the luxury of refinement, was prob- ably accustomed to great frugality of expense, as the salary of a Berlin Gehelmer-Rath is, in some instances, only two thousand florins. Richter says, in one of his letters: " She is cold towards all ornament in dress, 326 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. Although Jean Paul had dedicated his Titan to prin- cesses, they had given him nothing but empty praise in return. In the correspondence with the Rath INIeyer, 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 be touched upon by either of us. I approach tlie 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 weigh^sj prayer. Let her be mine ! she will be happy, as I shall be ! " Herr Meyer answered : " That it had been tlie aim of all his plans, in the education of his daughters, to prepare them to unite themselves to sucli men as himself, and that he gave his unconditional consent." The mother, also, in German phrase, sent hcT ja-wort, and the betroth- ing 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 tliat I have till now failed to find even in those who in everything else possess the splendor and purity of the diamond. She preserves in the full liarmony of" her love to me the middle and but 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 iian^ my heart, as a golden ornament, over hers. I would draw it out of my breast." Richter seems to have had a passionate admira- tion for a wiiite hat and a black veil, for a lady. Clotilda's hat occu- pies a large space in Hesperus. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL, 327 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 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 re- ceived at the news of our Verlohung 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 lOopstock's Meta. But they are only the beautiful expression of a submissiA^e tendeniess and boundless reverence. The letter to her son, which will appear hereafter, discloses independent thouglit, and is altogether of a higher order. Mrs. Austen says, " It is the habit of Paul's countrymen to require from women the virtues of attached and industrious ser- vants, 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 country- men, and pleads most eloquently for the emancipation of women from their state of servitude, his minute dii-ections to Caroline about household affairs, whenever he leaves home, look as if he had readily assumed the manly supe- riority of his countrymen. Paul, wliile he describes in Siehenkas, 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 eartli and beaming heavens strike, not in infinitesimals, but in large and 328 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. towering masses ; for wliom the great whole is some- thing raoi-e 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, forever improves the man whom she has wedded." The coldest of Richter's biographers speaks thys 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 enthu- siasm of feeling, and througli trial and experience a pene- trating knowledge of the world ; but with an accomplished education, and almost unlimited resources within herself, her outward life and appearance was modest, and w'ithout pretension. AVith their peculiar education, Caroline and her sisters possessed qualities singularly adapted to form the hap])iness 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 * The eldest sister of Caroline liad been jilreadj- three j-ears married to Carl Spazier, who was at this time the editor of a belles-lettres news- paper (Eleganten Zeiiung) in Leipzig. After a marriage of many out- ward dLfTiculties, he left her a destitute widow, with four young chil- dren. She entered upon the thorny path of female authorship, and continued their literary journal. Jean Paul contributed man}' of his ephemeral pieces to its pages, and Caroline also assisted her with her elegiint 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. 329 could have resisted Paul. Tlie 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 toucliingly tender intonations of his voice, together with the mystery that involved the author of Hesperus, who was thought to have lived upon a solitary island ; all this would liave given every woman, without exception, to his hand, and Caroline had the feli- city to be chosen from all." She had beside the happiness of being chosen by him, the guaranty of that happiness, from the fact that, in sjjite of the seductions that had surrounded him at a time when the bonds of domestic society were every- where 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. Richter's Petition to the King of Prussia. — Marriage. — Caroline's Letters from Weimar. UR Richter had never been so liappy a.d. isoi, as the few montlis after his betroth- ■^'- ^s. ment to Caroline. The learned and social circles of Berlin had many charms for him. They were composed, as he says, of Jews, ministers, offi- cei-s, 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 Scldeiermaclier, wliose Reden iiber Religion he calls " an inspired and in- spiring work, a simple and beautiful temple, whose con- tents are a true God's service." At t]iis time, spite of their philoso])hioal differences, the exalted cliaracter of Fichte attached Jean Paul intimately to him. He also renewed his acquaintance with Madam von Krudener. From the exciting tumult of the society of the gi'eat, where he wfis courted and admired, he turned with a LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 331 sense of domestic tranquillity to the quiet circle in which his betrothed moved. Tliis, 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 her bi-other George, upon hearing of the betrothment of Richter and Caroline Meyer, a costly service of silver, — but nothing more useful or enduring appeared in pros- peel. In the mean time tlft 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 honor, and will bring money into the city. Is there none who will be a Colbert? no Scholenburg? no Hardenburg ? 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 l^egin to read. Through years of poverty and labor, I at last won a hearing 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. 332 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " 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 the throne (that has so many to listen to and to make liappy), that I also may be excused, if respectfully I submit my prayer. My gratitude and joyful sympathy in the happi- ness 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,. " hBw much it had rejoiced him to observe, that by his talent and industry alone, exercised in the face of such unfavorable outward circum- stances, he had placed himself at the head of the litera- ture of his country. He was not indifferent to literary merit, and would be glad to have Richter remain his sub- ject ; and if any vacant prebend should offer, he would remember him." It seems to us almost a degradation of genius like Richter'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 preb- ends," 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 tlie 27th of May, after a solemnization of their marriage un- der the eyes of their father and of the dearest friends of their house, 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 333 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 Caroliiae to her father, a week after her marriage. " Weimar, June 3, 1801. " I write to you, my beloved father, for the first time, from the most charming resting-place. We arrived last evening, about 8 o'clock, after the most delightful journey that was ever taken, except the pain of the separation 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 such men, — so sympathizing and attentive to the smallest little tilings, 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 twice a week the music at the Stadthause imparts a cheerful gayety that is read on all faces. " But now, the most delightful thing that could have happened. As soon as we arrived on Wednesday even- ing, we went to Herder's. It was already dark. With a beating heart I stepped into the sacred house. The aged mother sat in the parlor alone, knitting. Richter 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 334 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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, tlie 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 llichter would be happy. He loves me now equally with hina, and he was as much moved as a father who has found his lost chil- dren. He went in great emotion up and down the apart- ment, — 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 aflfei'ted, that I could say nothing, and the evemng passed like a quiet festival. " I tell you all, my dear father, for Richter wishes it, just as it happened, ibr it will make you happy to know your daughter so beloved ; and principally, that we both know from this sympathy how much Richter 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 liim. 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 iioii firmness and decision that makes weakness LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 335 blush before him, he manifests the refined politeness of a man of the world, Avithout 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 individual worth, for he is so modest that he veils his eyes like a young girl who is praised for the fu'st 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 cheerfully 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 mexpressibly happy in the little quiet apartment 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 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 tuned, 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 336 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. only through love and humility ? Thank God, I have a husband with whom love in married life can only take the path of honor and morality ; one that I must obey, as we obey vii-tue 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 Richter himself, the perfect happiness that he imparts to Otto thus unreservedly. " That the brightest and purest fountain of love to mankind 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 disinter- estedness 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 !" CAROLINE TO HER FATHER. " Weimar, June 11, 1801. " .... I have lived a very happy time here, and have been everywhere received with more hearty warmth than I expected. Herder's sympathy with us has every day increased ; indeed, we dwell almost wholly with them. Like yourself, he loves a simple drive in the country with LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 337 his wife and children, and tliere he is often a child, and sings and jokes like any youth. " I have also been presented to the Duchess mother. Afterwards we were invited to dine, with no company except Wieland. I sat between liim and the Duchess ; he was very kind to me, and bade me make Richter truly happy. He is very old, and wears, even in the presence of the Duchess, a little black velvet cap, as a being who stands on the boundary of life pays no regard to conven- tional observances. " The Princess is very simple in her apartment, and in all her surroundings. " We have now made our rounds of visits, and I am rejoiced that our last day can be undisturbed. On the 17th, we journey to Gotha and Eisenach. In Gotha my splendid husband will visit his friend Schlichtgeroll ; this will give me the acquaintance of his amiable wife. I seek in every house some instruction for my own. Fare- well, dearest father. " C." 15 CHAPTER VIII. Residence in Meiningen. — Letters. — Birth of Eichter's FIRST Child. — Dog's Petition. S soon as our Ricliter and his bride A. D. 1802, JJt. 39. Ui%/l\>A)'! had accomplished what, in modern *^V| I phrase, is called the bridal tour, they hastened to the enjoyment of what had always been his ideal dream, — complete social independence, in im- mediate union with nature. His inclinations drew him to Bayreutli to be near his friend Otto ; but he felt almost a maiden dilHdence 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 completed, 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 uniiiterruj)t(Hl 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 j)lace 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. Ilichter has already established himself, and waits for the LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 339 beloved 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 hinderance, accept it. " Our young furnisliing, now five days old, has a thou- sand wants ; yet you will find Richter's chamber ordered iafter the old fashion, as he has altered nothing, and you will feel at home. IMine is also domestic and friendly, — yours alone is wholly poor, that you may not remain there long, but be always ready to run up to us. I am a docile being, and will 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 mar- riage-day, when our union through the presence of our friend, is first truly consecrated. " Rest is inexpi'essibly welcome to my husband after ■ a tliree weeks' journey. We suffered ourselves to be detained fourteen days in Weimai-, for the sake of the charming little dwelling of the good hostess, and through the love of the Herders. In Gotha we received Schlicht- geroU'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 in- deed too great indifference to outward life, her absorp- tion in quiet employment, her heavenly, faithful, virgin love, her unconditional compliance with my lightest wish, 340 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. makes our love yet younger and fresher than in the be- ginning, Avhen 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 completely my Caroline knows how to order everything. Tou can- not know the whole value of a married union, as you 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. " O 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 mislaid ? ' 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 IMeiningen received us with extreme joy, and showed us many houses ; but this made me really melan- choly, and the first niglit 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 341 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 simjjie 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- faihng, good-humored husband arranged his own cham- ber, I mine, and thus we were at the end of the first day apparently 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. " 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 enthu- siasm are over, you will believe that my judgment is sound. Richter is the purest, the holiest, the most god- like man that lives. Could others be admitted, as I am, to his inmost emotions, how much more would they es- teem him. There are moments when my soul lies kneel- ing before him, and I fear only death. Every one finds him stronger and fresher. He is also calmer than he was in Bei'lin, and his life is more regular. We rise about six, and dine at twelve o'clock. At the latest, Richter 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 meek and enduring love that 342 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. belongs almost exclusively to domestic life, in which Car- oline'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 in it, and I took it with me. Then I had nothing more to care for, and I felt a great loneli- ness. I took up the unbound part of Titan, and ha\e, 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 wondei'fully still in our quiet dwelling. No one has been here, and only the newspaper-carrier 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 sunbeams kiss thee, and I be worthy to deserve thy heart Farewell ! my soul, my heaven. Thine. " C." The eighteen months Richter passed at Meiningen, LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 343 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 fre- quent 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 evening invitations, sometimes as many as six in a week. He comes to us often, and lately he dUied with us. He would build me a house here, which God forbid, as I seek no eternity in Meiiiingen." In the winter of this year Paul went with the Duke to Oberland in a sleigh. In Newhouse, he says they gave us, in an amateur theatre, a comedy by four peasants. " It was performed tlu'ee 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 peas- ants, a jug of good beer was passed backwards and for- wards, from which all drank in turn." One letter more from Meiningen, of September, 1802, and we close this chapter. " Dear old Friend : Your expressions over my wife touched me deeply. You should have had, as of a prin- cess, tlie diarium of her double life, — but indeed it lasts no longer. This very night she had, with her still con- tinued blooming health, pains that prevented sleep About eleven o'clock they were 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 ojien, a beautiful high l)row, kiss-lipped, heart-touching, and with the little nose of my Caroline. 344 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " God is near at the birth of every child. Who does not find him in tliis incomprehensible mechanism of pain, in this sublimity of his exquisite machinery, in this pros- tration of our owii independence, will ne^•er 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 ajjartraent 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 1 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 noth- ing 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 daughtei-, wthout equal, — the honest waiting- woman, &c. 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 pub- lic, lie answered, ' Georgine.' * Truly, he sympathizes kindly with human feelings." Caroline added to tliis letter, with the child on her left arm, " Beloved Otto ! who is so blest as I ? with two so dear to love ! " C." * George was the prince's own name. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 345 One other little incident belongs to tlie Meiningen residence. On account of the hunting season, all the dogs of citizens were put under arrest. Richtei", in liis 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 Gi'immathal. " I can bring attestation from my master that I under- stand as little of hunting as he does, and that I keep close beliind 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 sta- tion. I constitute his animal establishment ; liis poultry, 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." 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. 15* CHAPTER IX, Titan. APPROACH this great work with diffidence, with real humility, and feel that I am entirely incompetent to give to the English reader a just idea of a work so tliorougldy German, so difficult for him to appi'cciate, and yet by wliich Jean Paul, if he is read at all, is usually appreciated in this countr}^ In speaking of it, I shall be somewhat indebted to the author from whom I have already quoted. In the ten years during which T'itan had been xa. 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 tlie nui^ses of the inspiration that is lavished upon this. The great idea of Titan is that which so many poets and romance-writers have endeavored to represent, and which Goethe has so nobly evolved in Faust, — the lim- itations and compensations of life, — that all power as soon as it aims to exceed its just bounds, breaks down ; LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 347 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. " Every heaven-stormer finds his hell, as surely as every mountain its valley." In Albano, the hero of the novel, Richter has accomplished the object twice attempted be- fore without success (in the Invisible Lodge and in Hes- perus), through birth, education, trial, and experience to form a perfectly harmonious character. " He is not, like Victor, a man seeming and feehng only, but a man of deeds, and unites with the highest love the highest sphere of action. He is not merely an cesthetic example, but a real chai'acter, in which life and action are identified with poetic representation." And yet he does not, I think, enlist so mucli the sympathies of the reader as Victor in Hesperus ; his treatment 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 au- thor intended to give it the tragicomic cliaracter of some of liis other works, and that the comic should enter largely into its composition. But his visit to Weimar, and in consequence his enlarged range of characters, especially his connection with Madam von Kalb, induced him to change his plan ; to make it a senous romance, and re- serve the satirical and comic elements for an appendix. Through the last half of the first volume he is apparently contending with the witty and satirical manner of his early works. The outline of the story is this. Two German prin- cipalities, Ilohenflies and Haarhaar, are in contention for the succession, — each has a supporter, Haarhaar, the 348 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. German gentleman, Von Bouverot, as he is called, a gambler, a voluptuary, but connoisseur in art, who fol- lows Luigi, the pretended only son of the Hohenflies prince to Italy, and there by every kind of excess sub- jects him to a lingering dissolution. The supporter of the Hohenflies dynasty is the knight Don Gaspaiti 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, 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 Gas- pard ; his pai'cnts 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 Gas- pard. 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 enthu- siasm of her character. Her mother soon dies : Linda is left without female influence, and at liberty to travel wherever her love of independence leads her. She ac- cordingly goes to Switzerland, and there, in the solitude of the mountains, endeavors to establish a school of in- dustry and innocence. Not succeeding, she removes to Italy, and nourishes her passion for the beautiful by liv- ing in the midst of the monuments of art in that exqui- site climate. Albano, whose parents were travelling at tlie time, was bom, together with a twin sister, at Isola Bella, where he remains until the death of his mother, in his third year. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 349 He is then taken to Germany as the son of Don Gaspard, and placed in the family of TVehrfritz, the provincial di- rector, 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-instracted 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 friendship with the son and daughter of the court minister Frovlay, 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 character of Linda, and by the help of his brother, an alchemist, ventriloquist, juggler, and liar, makes use of magical means, deceptive glasses, and voices issuing ap- parently from the clouds, to accomplish liis object, the union of Albano with his daughter ; and although, from consciousness and pride (for the same means are prac- tised on Albano), they avoid each other, yet, when they accidentally meet, a mysterious influence di-aws them irre- sistibly 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, beauti- ful, ingenuous character, he cements his secretly-formed friendship 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 350 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. the most touching episodes in all Richter's works. It is a Romeo and Juliet, \\Titten and performed in heaven. Liana is one of those spiritual beings, with angelic souls, and almost transparent bodies, that Richter loved to di'aw : disinterested, religious, humble, sacrificing all to duty, and suffering 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 mysticism that surrounds it with spiritual ex- istences, and clothes Liana with the robes of angels before she leaves her mortal investment. 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, free, with an infinite generosity and nobility of soul. Her glowing Spanish heart and Italian imagina- tion have never been restrained by the conventionahsms of courtly society. Like Madam von Kalb, she gives way to fits of passionate jealousy ; like her, she avows the pe- culiar 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 immor- tality of the soul, and even her occasional blindness, which in poor Linda led to such fatal consequences. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 351 Albano's powerful character subdued Linda's pride; with the most childlike love she yielded her indepen- dence, 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 Stael. These glowing descriptions are more unique from the circumstance 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, and in France even in the times in which we live. An example, where the culture 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 gi-aceful 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 conceived a violent passion for Linda, and attempted even then to shoot himself because the httle girl turned 352 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. her back upon liim 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, occa- sioned by Linda's quickness of resentment, and Albano absented himself for a few days. According to a psycho- logical law of love, Linda is now more tender than ever, and her cold independence melts under the thought of estrangement. Roquairol forges Albano's handwriting, and asks for an interview. Deceived by his counter- feiting the voice and di-ess of Albano, and by her even- ing blindness ; seduced also by her OAvn views of love, that it should yield all without 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 love, and its catastrophe, performed in a tragedy he had already written, and at the end of tlie fourth act shoots himself. Linda, crushed in body and soul, retires forever to her living tomb ! and Don Gaspard, who had thought to make use of men as the instruments to accom- plish his aml)itious purposes, disappears from the scene. But the romance docs not end thus tragically and iiope- 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 heal- ing streams into the impure society of the time, he ascends the throne, and becomes a benefactor and reformer. Idoine, a princess of Ilaarhaar, who had made a volun- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 353 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 idylUc 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 sculpture ; poetry, delicate irony, hidden satire, and broad humor. 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 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 Al- bano will be thus i-estored to his birthright, and by a beautiful spiritual mysticism she wiU stiU be tlie pro- tecting guardian of her earthly love. 354 I^IFK OF JEAN PAUL. 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 hu- mility to those who, strong in self-reliance, throw aside tlie 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 ten'ible fate. Many other characters revolve around these, the prin- cipals in tlie drama. Schoppe, the former Leibgeber, appears again, crazed by the philosophy of Fichte, ever accompanied, and trying in vain to escape from his Ich (me) ; Dian, a Greek artist, and his simple and affec- tionate 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., etc. The four volumes of the Titmi were printed in three successive years. Great, indeed, was the disappointment of the reading public, when, after ten years of expecta- tion, the first volume made its appearance. The discrep- ancy between its first and last portions displeased both parties of Richter's admirers. Those who loved Jean Paul's earlier maimer were disapi)ointed to lose it, and tlie admirers of his serious romances were displeased at the intrusion of the comic into this. The second volume, containing the cjiisode of Liana, appeared at the end of a LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 355 year, and was violently condemned as sentimental, mys- tical, 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 edi- tion, Richter had determined by an earlier development, and more psychological analysis of the character of Linda, to show, that, with her previously-formed ojjinions and education, the catastrophe was unavoidable. And to illus- trate more fully the axiom, " that character and destiny are the same thing." How much it is to be regretted 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 lo\'e, should have left a passage that cannot be read without deep mortification and pain. Note. — The above very imperfect account of the Titan has been rendered superfluous by the admirable translation of that work by the Eev. Charles T. Brooks. Every English reader can now reaffirm that which has been so elo- quently said, " That the name of Jean Paul will be held in affectionate esteem as long as the sorrows of humanity elicit pity, the joys of friendship yield satisfaction, the moral virtues command reverence, or the love of God and the hope of Heaven have disciples." CHAPTER X. RiCHTER LEAVES MeININGEN. — REMOVES TO COBURG. — BiRTH OF HIS Son. — Death of Herder. — " Flegeljahre." — Bay- EEUTH. HE work that succeeded the Titan, a. d. 1803, the Flegeljahre, 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 irre[)ressible. 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, \vith wife and child and dog, lie should depart in May, and draw nearer to the 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 liim 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 favorite Bayrcuth beer, free from impost, and to add every new book to his library. The solitude of Meiningen op- LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 357 pressed him ; but liis fii-st removal was only to Coburg, a short distance from tlie Prince, and a stage nearer to the attraction of the mountain magnet and the friend Otto. The year that Kichter dwelt in Coburg has been passed over in silence by his biographers. No reason has been given why he selected this small city, and tliere appears to have been no person there who could lend attraction to such a residence. But it was marked by two events that aftected 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 spii'it in- spired them both, and the aim of both was to buUd up the wavering faith of the age in God, virtue, and immor- tality. " 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 what could I still my grief when I found him no longer there ? Weimar, or rather Ids 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." * " What shall I say to you," he wrote to Caroline Her- der, " wliile you suffer so much from the soitow of others, and, like the widow of a prince, must at the same time mourn for the country and for yourself. I would that I could go to you and sit with you unconsoled for half an hour, and then silently withdraw. * See Appendix IFI. 358 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. " We are indeed only mourning for ourselves, for his pure spirit deserves the purer world. He was so God- like that 1 can think of him unaltered in his own place in that holy, distant world, with that exalted spiritual wliich is, if God is ! If his illumined countenance is now turned towards this earth, nothing will appear there but the thought, — ' You have loved me and blessed me, and the Eternal will give you through your children your joy and your reward ! ' " For me is Weimar now also bui'ied. "J. P. F. R." The residence in Coburg was also marked by the pub- lication of the Flegeljahre. Carlyle says the word may be translated " wild 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 througli the intricate labyrinth of the introduction. Paul wrote to Otto while he was writing it, " I work now witli inexpressible pleas- ure and care upon the history of my brothers, — of J. P. In this I can make the highest satirical leaps, and its objectivity gains by them," It is said to be the most personal of all the autlior's works. In it he has represented his'own already so often mentioned double nature, in the personal i-elations of Walt and Vult, 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 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 359 embrace eacli other. They are opposite magnets that are continually drawn to each other, but meeting, are thrust asunder as by positive and negative electricity." "Walt, tlie earnest, sentimental, ideal enthusiast, is represented as anticipating a paradise in every-day life, surrounding 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 dehght from every flower, even from every weed in his path, — is twin- brother to Vult, an eccentric humorist, a musician, ven- triloquist, 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 despis- ing 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 humor. Each seeks to gain an ascendency over the other, — Walt, by the seducing and vanquishing power of pure, disinterested love ; Vult, by the imposing ascendency of knowledge of society and extensive worldly experience. The interest of the book consists, first, in the psycho- logical 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 brotiiers 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 disposi- tion leads him to the clerical life, is deterred from enter- ing the Church by the tears of his mother, wlio 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. 360 LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. 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 liappiiie^s of a Swedish Pastor's life, and determmes to put it in his power to follow his inclinations 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 cun- ning executors, that the reader foresees that the noble- minded and unsuspicious 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 follows him as his sha