[Footnote 1: I need not tell any one that the valley itself is situated
in the departments of the Upper Pyrenees.]
[Footnote 2: It is well known that the Symplegadian rocks continually
dashed against each other, and destroyed every passing ship, until
Orpheus's lyre subdued and tranquillized them.]
[Footnote 3: Alluding to a painting by Reynolds, in which Garrick,
invited by both Muses, follows Thalia.]
[Footnote 4: A kind of jelly-fish.]
[Footnote 5: Ten drops of this instantly sweeten half a pound of sour
beer.]
[Footnote 6: The cave is twenty feet high, but the entrance only five
feet.]
[Footnote 7: French miles. The valley is about two German miles--ten
English miles--long.]
[Footnote 8: The Hoefersche heaven-path, or how to learn the way to
eternal salvation in twenty-four hours.]
[Footnote 9: A market-place in Rome where deformed beings were sold,
and fetched a higher price the uglier they were.]
[Footnote 10: A Parisian dentist wrote this over his door.]
[Footnote 11: In the same Sec. Kant says: "Everything that Newton has
written in his immortal _Principia_, though such a large head was
required to invent it, can be learned; but to compose spirited poems
cannot be taught, however complete the instructions for learning the
art may be. The reason is, that Newton can explain all the steps he had
to take, from the first elements of geometry to his grandest and most
profound inventions; he can explain them, not alone to himself, but to
others, even to the remote descendants, while no Homer or Wieland can
show how his ideally rich, and yet thoughtful characters, came forth
from his brain; for he knows it not himself, and therefore cannot teach
it others."
I had hoped that I could depend upon Kant, who has a million times more
intelligence than I have, as upon a mental _Charge d'Affaires_; but
when I came to this passage (and to those upon repentance, music, the
origin of evil, &c), I saw I must myself follow him, and not only pray
after him, as I had before done, but reflect. But to return! Certainly
Newton's "Principles" can be learned, that is, the new ones may be
repeated, but that also can happen to the invented poems; yet you can
be taught to invent them as little as Newton's Principles. A new
philosophic idea seems, after its birth, to lie more clearly in its
former seed-vessels and organic molecules than a poetic one; but why
was Newton the first to see it? He and Kant can discover, no better
than Shakespeare or Leibnitz, how the beginning of a new idea suddenly
bursts from the cloud of old ones; they can show their _Nexus_ (else
they would not be human ones) with the old ones, but not their
conception from it; the same holds of the poetic. Let Kant teach us to
_invent systems_ and truths (not to prove them, though, strictly
speaking, the one is closely allied to the other), then he shall be
taught to invent epics, and I will be responsible for it. He seems to
me to confound the difficulty of forming ideas with the less important
one of forming new ones; the difficulty of transition with the
inexplicability of the matter. I fear and wonder at the latent
almightiness with which man orders, that is, creates his range of
ideas. I know no better symbol of creation than the regularity and
causality of the creation of ideas in us, which no will and no mind can
regulate and create, for any such arrangement and intention would
presuppose the unborn idea. And in this creation the grand enigma of
our moral freedom is veiled.]
[Footnote 12: Gold dissolved in strong acid, mixed with a small
quantity of quicksilver in a vial, forms a tree with foliage.]
[Footnote 13: The male glowworms are black.]
[Footnote 14: Rameses caused his son to be fastened to the topmost
point of an obelisk, that they who had to raise it should risk a more
valuable life than their own.]
[Footnote 15: It lives more than two years, though it does not long
survive the period of its leaving the grub-state, just as other
insects, to whom nature has given the rose period of youth, only
_after_ the thorny age of reproduction.]
[Footnote 16: It is well known that the sight of blood damps courage,
and that the Jews are not permitted to eat blood.]
[Footnote 17: Beauty in this connection, I adopt in the same sense
which Schiller gives to it in his aesthetic critique, a prize essay of
his genius on Beauty, which here, like Longinus, is at once the subject
and the delineator of the exalted.]
[Footnote 18: If he had been, I would have read page 224 in the third
part of Hesperus to him.]
[Footnote 19: The sun reflected in the water.]
[Footnote 20: At a circumcision, the Jews place one chair for the
operator, and another for the prophet Elias, who is supposed invisibly
to occupy it.]
[Footnote 21: These animals shine by night. Care must be taken not to
draw them into the brain from the flower calyxes with the perfume.]
[Footnote 22: The Guernsey lily from Japan has its name from the Island
of Guernsey, on which some roots of it were cast by a wrecked vessel.]
[Footnote 23: For the climatic dissimilarity of the planets must
produce, as the climatic difference between the zones, Negroes, Greeks,
Indians, etc., but always human beings.]
[Footnote 24: One ought, therefore, not to say _mundus intelligibilis_,
but _mundus intellectus_.]
[Footnote 25: It may be said, that in this manner every Utopia, which
is also a copy, must be realized, for the original of all dreams and
Utopias does indeed exist,--though partially and disconnectedly; but
the Original of the Eternal cannot exist in pieces and by parcels.]
[Footnote 26: This applies chiefly to the higher and richer orders,
with whom the saturation of the five camel stomachs, the senses, and
the starving of Psyche or the soul, at last determines into a horrible
horror of life, and into a repulsive mingling of _high aspirations and
grovelling desires_. The savage, the beggar, and the provincialist far
surpass the rich and high in spiritual enjoyment, for in these, as in
the houses of the Jews, (in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem)
there must always be something incomplete, and the poor have too many
of their earthly wants assuaged to be overwhelmed and pained by the
demands of their ethereal nature.]
[Footnote 27: The new moon always rises with the sun, although dark and
invisible.]
[Footnote 28: There are three kinds of men. To some, a heaven is
granted even on this earth; to others, a _limbus patrum_ in which joy
and sorrow reign equally; and, lastly, to some a hell in which grief
predominates. Beings who have suffered for twenty years on the sick-bed
of bodily pain, which is not, like mental sorrow, worn out by time,
have certainly had more unhappiness than happiness, and, but for
immortality, would be an eternal reproach to the highest moral being.
And if there exists no such unhappy being, it is yet in the power of a
tyrant to make one, on a clinical torture-bed, with the assistance of a
physician and a philosopher. Such a one, at least, has a right to
demand a future indemnity for his sufferings, because the Creator
cannot have formed a creature to mourn more than it can rejoice.
Besides, though the object of our grief may seem but a deception in the
eyes of the Eternal One, our grief itself cannot. Human suffering is
also distinguished from brutish pain, because the animal only feels the
wound, as we perhaps do in sleep, but it sees it not. Its pain is not
trebled and increased by _anticipation_, _recollection_, and
_sensibility_; it is an evanescent sting, and nothing more. Therefore
tears were only given to human eyes.]
[Footnote 29: Ignorance concerning our connection with the body and our
connection with the second world.]
[Footnote 30: The yearly destruction of the slowly developed, beautiful
flower-world does not argue against this; for to the tangible world
each condition of its parts is as indifferent and perfect as the other,
and rose-ashes are as good as rose-buds (without, of course,
considering the organic soul). Nothing is beautiful but our
appreciation of the beautiful, not the object itself. If it should be
said that nature destroys so many developments, for whose growth she
had already provided, that she breaks many thousand eggs, tears so many
buds, crushes men in all stages of life with her blind tread, I would
reply that the interrupted development is yet a condition of the
perfected one, and that every position of its parts is indifferent to
material objects, and, as coverings of the spiritual being, they still
testify to a compensating immortality of the latter.]
[Footnote 31: Methinks the folly of spiritual mortality has not been
sufficiently considered from this point of view. The living or
spiritual whole (for the lifeless one has no other object than to be a
means for the living), as such, can attain no object which each portion
of it does not attain, for each one is one whole, and every other whole
can only exist as a collective idea, and not as a reality. To consider
the untenability of a progress contained in a course of vanishing
shadows more vividly, one might shorten the life of a soul so that he,
e. g. could only read one page of Kant's Critic, and then die. For the
second page another soul must be created, and so for the new edition
884 souls. The mistake will perhaps become perceptible to most people
by the increasing moonlight of liberality which has gradually risen
over the past centuries; but the necessity for compensation demands
immortality.]
[Footnote 32: Raphael died when he had finished the painting of the
resurrection, and Haman died while his essay on resurrection and
disembodiment was being printed.]
[Footnote 33: So are the Vampires called.]
[Footnote 34: _Fixlein_ stands in the middle of the volume; preceded by
_Einer Mustheil fuer Maedchen_ (A Jelly-course for young Ladies); and
followed by _Some_ Jus De Tablette _for Men_. A small portion of the
Preface relating to the first I have already omitted. Neither of the
two have the smallest relation to _Fixlein_.--Ed.]
[Footnote 35: _J. P. H_., _Jean Paul_ Hasus, _Jean Paul_, &c., have in
succession been Richter's signatures. At present even, his German
designation, either in writing or speech, is never _Richter_, but _Jean
Paul_.--Ed.]
[Footnote 36: For understanding many little hints which occur in this
_Life of Fixlein_, it will be necessary to bear in mind the following
particulars: A German _Gymnasium_, in its complete state, appears to
include eight Masters; Rector, Conrector, Subrector, Quintus, Quartus,
Tertius, &c., to the _first_ or lowest. The _forms_, or classes, again,
are arranged in an inverse order; the _Primaner_ (boys of the _Prima_,
or first form) being the most advanced, and taught by the Rector; the
_Secundaner_, by the Conrector, &c.; and therefore the _Quartaner_ by
the Quintus. In many cases, it would seem, the number of Teachers is
only six; but in this Flachsenfingen Gymnasium we have express evidence
that there was no curtailment.--Ed.]
[Footnote 37: A university beer.]
[Footnote 38: From Peter I will copy one or two of these privileges;
the whole of which were once, at the origin of universities, in full
force. For instance, a student can compel a citizen to let him his
house and his horse; an injury, done even to his relations, must be
made good fourfold; he is not obliged to fulfil the written commands of
the Pope; the neighborhood must indemnify him for what is stolen from
him; if he and a non-student are living at variance, the latter only
can be expelled from the boarding-house; a Doctor is obliged to support
a poor student; if he is killed, the next ten houses are laid under
interdict till the murderer is discovered; his legacies are not
abridged by _falcidia_, &c., &c.]
[Footnote 39: _Literary Germany_, a work (I believe of no great merit)
which Richter often twitches in the same style.--Ed.]
[Footnote 40: See _Schmelzle's Journey_, p. 289--Ed.]
[Footnote 41: As in the State.--[V. or Von, _de_, _of_, being the
symbol of the nobility, the middle order of the State.--Ed.]]
[Footnote 42: In Erlang, my petition has been granted. The _Bible
Institution_ of that town have found instead of the 116,301 As,
which Fixlein at first pretended with such certainty to find in the
Bible-books (which false number was accordingly given in the first
Edition of this Work, p. 81), the above-mentioned 323,015; which
(uncommonly singular) is precisely the sum of all the letters in the
Koran put together. See _Luedeke's Beschr. des Turk. Reichs_ (Luedeke's
Description of the Turkish Empire. New edition, 1780).]
[Footnote 43: _Paravicini Singularia de viris claris_, Cent. I. 2.]
[Footnote 44: _Ejusd_., Cent. II. Philelphus quarrelled with the Greek
about the quantity of a syllable; the prize or bet was the beard of the
vanquished. Timotheus lost his.]
[Footnote 45: Their prayer-barrel, Kueruedu, is a hollowed shell, a
calabash, full of unrolled formulas of prayer; they sway it from side
to side, and then it works. More philosophically viewed, since in
prayer the feeling only is of consequence, it is much the same whether
this express itself by motion of the mouth or of the calabash.]
[Footnote 46: In German, as in some other languages, the common mode of
address is by the _third_ person; plural, it indicates respect;
singular, command; the _second_ person is also used; plural, it
generally denotes indifference; singular, great familiarity, and
sometimes its product, contempt. _Dutzenfreund_, _Thouing-friend_, is
the strictest term of intimacy; and among the wild _Burschen_
(Students) many a duel (happily however, often ending like the
_Polemo-Middinia_ in one drop of blood) has been fought, in consequence
of saying _Du_ (thou) and _Sie_ (they) in the wrong place.--Ed.]
[Footnote 47: These antique Christmas festivities Richter describes
with equal _gusto_ in another work (_Briefe und Zukuenftige
Lebenslemf_); where the Christ-child (falsely reported to the young
ones to have been seen flying through the air, with gold wings); the
Birch-bough fixed in a corner of the room, and by him made to grow; the
fruit of gilt sweetmeats, apples, nuts, which (for good boys) it
suddenly produces, &c., &c., are specified with the same fidelity as
here.--Ed.]
[Footnote 48: Which he purposed to make for his Island of St. Pierre in
the Bienne Lake.]
[Footnote 49: Borrowed from the "Imperial Mine-product-sale-Commission,"
in Vienna. In their very names these Vienna people show taste.]
[Footnote 50: As, by the evidence at present before us, we can found on
no other presumption, than that he must die in his thirty-second year;
it would follow, that, in case he died two-and-thirty years after the
death of the testatrix, no farthing could be claimed by him; since,
according to our fiction, at the making of the testament he was not
even one year old.]
[Footnote 51: In St. Paul's Church at London, where the slightest
whisper sounds over, across a space of 143 feet.]
[Footnote 52: So much, according to Political Economists, a man yearly
requires in Germany.]
[Footnote 53: This singular tone of my address to a Prince can only be
excused by the equally singular relation wherein the Biographer stands
to the Flachsenfingen Sovereign, and which I would willingly unfold
here were it not that, in my Book, which, under the title of
_Dog-post-days_, I mean to give to the world at Easter-fair, 1795, I
hoped to expound the matter to universal satisfaction.]
[Footnote 54: His _Clerical Law_, p. 551.]
[Footnote 55: Eichhorn's _Einleitung ins A. T_. (Introduction to the
Old Testament), Vol. II.]
[Footnote 56: Both have the same sound. _Fuechslein_ means Foxling,
Fox-whelp.--Ed.]
[Footnote 57: Campe, a German philologist, who, along with several
others of that class, has really proposed, as represented in the text,
to substitute for all Greek or Latin derivatives corresponding German
terms of the like import. _Geography_, which may be _Erdbeschreibung_
(Earth-description), was thenceforth to be nothing else; a _Geometer_
became an _Earth-measurer_, &c., &c. _School-undergovernor_, instead of
_Subrector_, is by no means the happiest example of the system, and
seems due rather to the Schadeck Lawyer than to Campe, whom our Author
has elsewhere more than once eulogized for his project in similar
style.--Ed.]
[Footnote 58: _New Universal German Library_, a reviewing periodical,
in those days conducted by Nicolai, a sworn enemy to what has since
been called the New School.--Ed.]
[Footnote 59: Superstition declares, that on the spot where the rainbow
rises a golden key is left.]
[Footnote 60: To the Spring, namely, which begins with snow-drops, and
ends with roses and pinks.]
[Footnote 61: This Christian superstition is not only a Rabbinical, but
also a Roman one. _Cicero de Senectute_.]
[Footnote 62: For, according to the Jurists, fifteen persons make a
people.]
[Footnote 63: A long philosophical elucidation is indispensably
requisite; which will be found in this Book, under the title, _Natural
Magic of the Imagination_. [A part of the _Jus de Tablette_ appended to
this Biography, unconnected with it, and not given here.--Ed.]]
[Footnote 64: This pygmy piece of ordnance, with its cunningly devised
burning-glass, is still to be seen on the south side of the Paris
Vanity-Fair; and in fine weather, to be heard, on all sides thereof,
proclaiming the conversion (so it seems to Richter) of the Day from
Forenoon to Afternoon.--Ed.]
[Footnote 65: The Wild Hunter, _Wilde Jaeger_, is a popular spectre of
Germany.--Ed.]
[Footnote 66: Indicating to the congregation what Psalm is to be
sung.--Ed.]
[Footnote 67: Salerno was once famous for its medical science; but
here, as in many other cases, we could desire the aid of Herr Reinhold
with his _Lexicon-Commentary_.--Ed.]
[Footnote 68: This hospitable Potentate is as unknown to me as to any
of my readers.--Ed.]
[Footnote 69: A little work printed in manuscript types; and seldom
given by him to any but Princes. This piece of print-writing he
intentionally passes off to the great as a piece of hand-writing; these
persons being both more habituated and inclined to the reading of
manuscript than of print.]
[Footnote 70: Thus defined by Adelung in his Lexicon: "_Kraeutermuetze_,
in Medicine, a cap with various dried herbs sewed into it, and which is
worn for all manner of troubles in the head."--Ed.]
[Footnote 71: Linne formed in Upsal a flower-clock, the flowers of
which, by their different times of falling asleep, indicated the hours
of the day.]
[Footnote 72: The good Professor of Catechetics is out here. _Indignor
quandoque bonus dormitat Schmelzle_.--Ed.]
[Footnote 73: Passenger so placed in the huge German Postwagen, that he
cannot look out.--Ed.]
[Footnote 74: _Titan_ is also the title of this Legations-Rath Jean
Pierre or Jean Paul (Friedrich Richter)'s chief novel.--Ed.]
[Footnote 75: Bruehl, I suppose; but the historical edition of the
matter is, that Bruehl's treasonable secrets were come at by the more
ordinary means of wax impressions of his keys.--Ed.]
[Footnote 76: Cities of Richter's romance kingdom. Flachsenfingen he
sometimes calls _Klein-Wien_, Little Vienna.--Ed.]
[Footnote 77: The campaign of 1813-14 was the holy war of Germany, or
Freiheitskampf, to which Jean Paul here alludes.--Translator.]