Fixlein

“ The courier handed in, to his master, Fixlein's song of gratitude, and Füchslein's invectives, with the same hand. The Dragoon Rittmeister, incensed at the ill-mannered churl, and bound to his word, which Fixlein had publicly announced in his Actus, [Pg 372] forthwith wrote back to the new Parson an acceptance and ratification; and Fixlein is and remains, to the joy of us all, incontestable ordained parson of Hukelum. ”

“ During the Thanksgiving-repast, there arrived considerable personal tribute from his catechumens, and fairings by way of bonfire for his recovery; proving how much the people loved him, and how well he deserved it; for one is oftener hated without reason by the many, than without reason loved by them. But Fixlein was friendly to every child ”

“ Amen!"—And when Thiennette perceived that it was the old mistress who had cooked and served up all this herself, she fell upon her neck, as if it had been not her husband's mother, but her own.
Emotion conquers the appetite. But Fixlein's stomach was as strong as his heart; and with him no species of movement could subdue the peristaltic. Drink is the friction-oil of the tongue, as eating is its drag. ”

“ Smile away, Fixlein, at this astonishment over thy today's Ovation, which is leading on to-morrow's Triumph; on thy dissolving countenance quivers happy Self, feeding on these incense-fumes; but a vanity like thine, and that only, which enjoys without comparing or despising, can one tolerate, will one foster. But what flowed over all his heart, like a melting sunbeam over wax, was his mother, who after much persuasion had ventured in her Sunday's clothes humbly to place herself quite low down, beside the door of the Prima class-room. ”

“ Nothing makes the heart fuller and bolder than walking to and fro in the night. Fixlein now led the Fräulein in his arm without scruple. By reason of her lancet-wound, Thiennette could only put her hand, in a clasping position, in his arm; and he, to save her the trouble of holding fast, held fast himself, and pressed her fingers as well as might be with his arm to his heart. It would betray a total want of polished manners to censure his. At the same time, trifles are the provender of Love; the fingers are electric discharges of a fire sparkling along every fibre ”

“ Fixlein—the counterpart of great men and geniuses—was inclined to treat, to gift, to gratify a serving housemate, rather than a man who is for the first time passing through the gate, and at the next post-stage will forget both his hospitable landlord and the last postmaster. ”

“ About four o'clock, the finger waved again; she sank down on the stiffened lips,--but this had been no signal, for the lips of her friend under the long kiss had grown stiff and cold....
How deeply now, before the infinite Eternity's-countenance of Night, did the cutting of this thought pass through Fixlein's warm soul: "O thou forsaken one beside me! No happy accident, no twilight hast thou, like that now glimmering in the heavens, to point to the prospect of a sunny day; without parents art thou, without brother, without friend ”

“ A man whom grown-up people love, children love still more. The whole school had smiled on the smiling Fixlein, and liked him in their hearts, because he did not thunder, but sport with them; because he said Sie (They) to the Secundaners, and the Subrector said Ihr (Ye) ; because his uprearing forefinger was his only sceptre and baculus ”

“ Fixlein felt that he was departing as a high-priest from the church which he had entered as a country parson, and all day he had not once the heart to ban. When a man is treated with solemnity, he looks upon himself as a higher nature, and goes through his solemn feasts devoutly. ”

“ In Prussia, invalids are made Schoolmasters; with us, Schoolmasters are made invalids." ....
But to our story! Fixlein wrote out the inventory of his Crown-debts; but with quite a different purpose than the reader will guess, who has still the Schadeck testament in his head. In one word, he wanted to be Parson of Hukelum. To be a clergyman, and in the place where his cradle stood, and all the little gardens of his childhood, his mother also, and the grove of betrothment,—this was an open gate into a New Jerusalem, supposing even that the living had been nothing but a meagre penitentiary. ”

“ Meister Steinberger, in the character of store-master, had introduced into the wire-cage of a garret, where Fixlein, while a Student at Leipzig, was suspended, many a well-filled trough with good canary-meat, of hung-beef, of household bread and Sauerkraut. Money indeed was never to be wrung from him: it is well known that he often sent the best calfskins gratis to the tanner, to be boots for our Quintus; but the tanning-charges the Ward himself had to bear.—On Fixlein's entrance, as was at all times customary, a smaller damask table-cloth was laid upon the large coarser one; the armchair ”

“ When she went after breakfast to bring in coffee, which the Ward had to drink down to the grounds: "I beat Eva to death if she but look at him," said he. Then addressing Fixlein: "Hear you, Ward, did you never cast an eye on my Eva? She can suffer you, and if you want her, you get her; but we have done with one another: for a learned man needs quite another sort of thing."
"Herr Regiments-Quartermaster," said Fixlein (for this post Steinberger filled in the provincial Militia) , "such a match were far too rich, at any rate, for a Schoolman." ”

“ Fixlein's Letter-boxes I keep by me in my pocket; and I have only to look and abstract from his what can be of use in my own.—Strange enough! so easily do we forget a thing in describing it, I really did not recollect for a moment that I am now sitting at the very grove-table of which I speak, and writing all this.—
My gossip in the mean time is also laboring for the world. His study is a sort of sacristy, and his printing-press a pulpit, wherefrom he preaches to all men; for an Author is the Town-chaplain of the Universe. A man who is making a book will scarcely hang himself ”

“ His joy was, that with his legacy he could now satisfy his head-creditor Steinberger, and leave the world an honest man. Just people, who make much of money, pay their debts the most punctually.
The purple Pontac arrived at a time when Fixlein could compare the red-chalk-drawings and red-letter-titles of joy, which it would bring out on the cheeks of its drinker and drinkeresses,—with the Evening-carnation of the last clouds about the Sun.... ”

“ Fixlein first took his victuals, and then signified that he was made Conrector. "Ward," said Steinberger, "if you are made that, it is well.—Seest thou, Eva, I cannot buy a tail of thy cows now; I must have smelt it beforehand." He was hereby informing his daughter that the cash set apart for the fatted cattle must now be applied to the Conrectorate; for he was in the habit of advancing all instalment-dues to his Ward, at an interest of four and a half per cent. Fifty gulden he had already lent the Quintus on his advancement to the Quintusship; of these the interest had to be duly paid ”

“ I hold this ground to be the strongest in the whole Petition. In the eyes of Herr von Aufhammer, Thiennette's genealogical tree was long since stubbed, disleaved, worm-eaten, and full of millepedes; she was his [Oe] conoma, his Castle-Stewardess, and Legatess a Latere for his domestics; and with her pretensions for an alms-coffer, was threatening in the end to become a burden to him. His indignant wish that she had been provided for with Fixlein's legacy might now be fulfilled. In a word, if Fixlein become Parson, he will have the third ground to thank for it ”

“ It is more pleasant for pedestrians—for geographers it is not—to count by wersts than by miles. In walking, our Quintus furthermore got by heart the few fields on which the grain was already reaped.
But now roam slower, Fixlein, through His Lordship's garden of Hukelum; not, indeed, lest thy coat sweep away any tulip-stamina, but that thy good mother may have time to lay her Cupid's-band of black taffeta about her smooth brow. I am grieved to think my fair readers take it ill of her, that she means first to iron this same band; they cannot know that she has no maid ”

“ To our poor Quintus, whom no mortal disliked, and who again could hate no mortal, he alone bore a grudge; simply because Fixlein did not write himself Füchslein, and had not chosen along with him to purchase a Patent of Nobility. The Subrector, on this his Patent triumphal chariot, drawn by a team of four specified ancestors, was obliged to see the Quintus, who was related to him, clutching by the lackey-straps behind the carriage ”

“ Nazianzen informs us (Orat. XVI.) that the Jews, in old times, had high beds with cock-ladders of this sort; but simply because of vermin. The legacy bed-Ark was quite as large as one of these; and a flea would have measured it not in Diameters of the Earth, but in Distances of Sirius. When Fixlein beheld this colossal dormitory, with the curtains drawn asunder, and its canopy of looking-glass, he could have longed to be in it ”

“ A man, however, who has been exalted to the Peerage, while still a f [oe] tus, may with more propriety be likened to the spinner, which, contrariwise to all other insects, passes from the chrysalis state, and becomes a perfect insect in its mother's womb.--
But to proceed! Fixlein was at present not without cash. It will be the same as if I made a present of it to the reader, when I reveal to him, that of the legacy, which was clearing off old scores, he had still 35 florins left to himself, as allodium and pocket-money, wherewith he might purchase whatsoever seemed good to him. ”

“ There seemed to be need of some such organ, for the Jena ‘Allgemeine Literaturzeitung,’ formerly devoted to the Fichtean ideas, was beginning to waver in its allegiance, and Nicolai, in the ‘Neue Allgemeine Bibliothek,’ and in many a dreary satire, was prosecuting, after his antiquated fashion, his favourite warfare against every novelty in literature or philosophy. Fichte, however, had deceived himself regarding his relations to his new friends. There were elements present which rapidly led to discord and even to the bitterest animosity. ”

“ It is worthy of remark, that amid this eager enthusiasm Fichte resolutely opposed the adoption of any proceedings against the enemy which might cast dishonour on the sacred cause of Freedom. While a French garrison still held Berlin, one of his students revealed to him a plan, in which the informant was himself engaged, for firing the French magazine during the night. Doubts had arisen in his mind as to the lawfulness of such a mode of aiding his country’s cause, and he had resolved to lay the scheme before the teacher for whose opinion he entertained an almost unbounded reverence. ”

“ He had chosen for the medium of his utterance a system of terminology which was largely regarded as ridiculous, as well as meaningless; and the high spirit of Fichte was stung by the ridicule, and was lonely in its isolation. Now, at last, the constraint and the disguise were thrown away. He stood a man among men. He stood a leader of men. The heart of the nation thrilled at his words. A century after his birth, although his philosophy was a sealed book to many of the scholars of Germany, the German people united in a tribute to his memory. ”

“ I have compared Fichte to Carlyle. Happier than Carlyle, the craving of his spirit was to be satisfied by what he regarded as a gospel of joy and peace. He was to feel the power of this gospel in his own heart; and the utterance of it was to be the glad employment of his life.
It is strange how it is often by some apparent chance that we meet the great crises of our lives. Fichte was tutoring in such studies as offered themselves, when a young man expressed the wish to study with him the philosophy of Kant. ”

“ As a patriot, as representative of what seems noblest and loftiest in the German character, he lives, and will doubtless continue to live, in the grateful remembrance of his countrymen; as a metaphysician, he lives not at all beyond the learned pages of the historians of philosophy.
That such should be the case will not appear surprising when there are taken into consideration the nature of the historical surroundings of Fichte’s career, and the relations in which he stood to them. ”

“ The more I act the happier I seem to be. Is this, too, a delusion? It may be so, but there is truth at the bottom of it.” [1]
With many plans, and full of hope in his future career, Fichte departed for Leipzig in the spring of 1790. His letters of recommendation to various courts, however, produced no result; the plans which he endeavoured to realise at Leipzig, mainly the establishment of a literary journal, came to naught; and in the course of a few months he was again reduced to a state of want and uncertainty even more harassing than before his journey to Zürich. ”

“ But it soon became evident that such a plan was impracticable, partly because Fichte’s strong ethical personality was in itself repulsive to the Schlegels, partly becaiise of the open antipathy between Dorothea Veit and the wife of A. “W. Schlegel, the celebrated Karoline, married, after her divorce from Schlegel, to Schelling. The proposed journal for literary criticism proved equally impracticable. Schelling was now beginning to cast himself loose from the Fichtean philosophy, and projected a journal of his own. ”

“ Nature, in his system, appears merely as the negative limit of mind. Nor in his practical activity, as will appear, was he more fortunate. “Fichte,” said Goethe, with much truth, “too often forgets that experience is not in the least what he has imagined it to be.” It hardly admits of question that a more realistic education, a training in physical science such as his great predecessor fortunately possessed, would have given greater weight and force to Fichte’s speculations, greater elasticity and prudence to his action. ”