Translations from the German · Thomas Carlyle
SIXTH LETTER-BOX.
_Office-impost. One of the most important of Petitions._ The finest thing was his awakening in his European Settlement in the giant Schadeck bed!--With the inflammatory, tickling, eating fever of love in his breast; with the triumphant feeling, that he had now got the introductory program of love put happily by; and with the sweet resurrection from his living prophetic burial; and with the joy that now, among his thirties, he could, for the first time, cherish hopes of a longer life (and did not longer mean at least till seventy?) than he could ten years ago;--with all this stirring life-balsam, in which the living fire-wheel of his heart was rapidly revolving, he lay here, and laughed at his glancing portrait in the bed-canopy; but he could not do it long, he was obliged to move. For a less happy man, it would have been gratifying to have measured,--as pilgrims measure the length of their pilgrimage,--not so much by steps as by body-lengths, like Earth-diameters, the superficial content of the bed. But Fixlein, for his own part, had to launch from his bed into warm billowy Life, he had now his dear good Earth again to look after, and a Conrectorship thereon, and a bride to boot. Besides all this, his mother downstairs now admitted that he had last night actually glided through beneath the scythe of Death, like supple-grass, and that yesterday she had not told him merely out of fear of his fear. Still a cold shudder went over him,--especially as he was sober now,--when he looked round at the high Tarpeian Rock, four hours' distance behind him, on the battlements of which he had last night walked hand in hand with Death.
The only thing that grieved him was, that it was Monday, and that he must back to the Gymnasium. Such a freightage of joys he had never taken with him on his road to town. After four he issued from his house, satisfied with coffee (which he drank in Hukelum merely for his mother's sake, who, for two days after, would still have portions of this woman's-wine to draw from the lees of the pot-sediment) into the _cooling_ dawning May-morning (for joy needs coolness, sorrow sun); his Betrothed comes--not indeed to meet him, but still--into his hearing, by her distant morning hymn; he makes but one momentary turn into the blissful haven of the blooming acacia-grove, which still, like the covenant sealed in it, has no thorns; he dips his warm hand in the cold-bath of the dewy leaves; he wades with pleasure through the beautifying-water of the dew, which, as it imparts colour to faces, eats it away from boots ("but with thirty ducats, a Conrector may make shift to keep two pairs of boots on the hook").--And now the Moon, as it were the hanging seal of his last night's happiness, dips down into the West, like an emptied bucket of light, and in the East the other overrunning bucket, the Sun, mounts up, and the gushes of light flow broader and broader.--
The city stood in the celestial flames of Morning. Here his divining-rod (his gold-roll, which, excepting one sixteenth of an inch broken off from it, he carried along with him) began to quiver over all the spots where booty and silver-veins of enjoyment were concealed; and our rod-diviner easily discovered that the city and the future were a true entire Potosi of delights. In his Conrectorate closet he fell upon his knees, and thanked God--not so much for his heritage and bride as--for his life: for he had gone away on Sunday morning with doubts whether he should ever come back; and it was purely out of love to the reader, and fear lest he might fret himself too much with apprehension, that I cunningly imputed Fixlein's journey more to his desire of knowing what was in the will, than of making his own will in presence of his mother. Every recovery is a bringing back and palingenesia of our youth: one loves the Earth and those that are on it with a new love.--The Conrector could have found in his heart to take all his class by the locks, and press them to his breast; but he only did so to his adjutant, the Quartaner, who, in the first Letter-box, was still sitting in the rank of a Quintaner....
His first expedition, after school-hours, was to the house of Meister Steinberger, where, without speaking a word, he counted down fifty florins cash, in ducats, on the table: "At last I repay you," said Fixlein, "the moiety of my debt, and give you many thanks." "Ey, Herr Conrector," said the Quartermaster, and continued calmly stuffing puddings as before, "in my bond it is said, _payable at three months' mutual notice_. How could a man like me go on, else?--However, I will change you the gold pieces." Thereupon he advised him that it might be more judicious to take back a florin or two, and buy himself a better hat, and whole shoes: "if you like," added he, "to get a calfskin and half a dozen hareskins dressed, they are lying upstairs."--I should think, for my own part, that to the reader it must be as little a matter of indifference as it was to the Butcher, whether the hero of such a History appear before him with an old tattered potlid of a hat, and a pump-sucker and leg-harness pair of boots, or in suitable apparel.--In short, before St. John's day, the man was dressed with taste and pomp. But now came two most peculiarly important papers--at bottom only one, the Petition for the Hukelum parsonship--to be elaborated; in regard to which I feel as if I myself must assist.... It were a simple turn, if now at least the assembled public did not pay attention.
Fl. rhen. Kr. rhen. 30 49 For taking the oaths at the Consistorium. 4 0 To the Syndic for the Presentation. 2 0 To the then Buergermeister. 45 71/2 For the Government-sanction. ------------- Total 81 fl. 561/2 kr. If the printing-charges of a Rector do stand a little higher in some points, yet, on the other hand, a Tertius, Quartus &c. come cheaper from the press than even a Conrector. Now it is clear that in this case a schoolmaster can subsist; since, in the course of the very first year, he gets an overplus beyond this _dock-money_ of his office. A schoolmaster must, like his scholars, have been advanced from class to class, before these his loans to Government, together with the interest for delay of payment, can jointly amount to so much as his yearly income in the highest class. Another thing in his favour is, that our institutions do not--as those of Athens did--prohibit people from entering on office while in debt; but every man, with his debt-knapsack on his shoulders, mounts up, step after step, without obstruction. The Pope, in large benefices, appropriates the income of the first year under the title of _Annates_, or First Fruits; and accordingly he, in all cases, bestows any large benefice on the possessor of a smaller one, thereby to augment both his own revenues and those of others; but it shows, in my opinion, a bright distinction between Popery and Lutheranism, that the Consistoriums of the latter abstract from their school-ministers and church-ministers not perhaps above two-thirds of their first yearly income; though they too, like the Pope, must naturally have an eye to vacancies.
It may be that I shall here come in collision with the Elector of Mentz, when I confess, that in Schmausen's _Corp. Jur. Pub. Germ._ I have turned up the Mentz-Imperial-Court-Chancery-tax-ordinance of the 6th January 1659; and there investigated how much this same Imperial-Court-Chancery demands, as contrasted with a Consistorium. For example, any man that wishes to be baked or sodden into a _Poet Laureate_, has 50 florins tax-dues, and 20 florins Chancery-dues to pay down; whereas, for 20 florins more, he might have been made a Conrector, who is a poet of this species, as it were by the by and _ex officio_.--The institution of a Gymnasium is permitted for 1000 florins; an extraordinary sum, with which the whole body of the teachers in the instituted Gymnasium might with us clear off the entrymoneys of their schoolrooms. Again, a Freiherr, who, at any rate, often enough grows old without knowing how, must purchase the _venia aetatis_ with 200 hard florins; while with the half sum he might have become a schoolmaster, and here _age_ would have come of its own accord.--And a thousand such things!--They prove, however, that matters can be at no bad pass in our Governments and Circles, where promotions are sold dearer to Folly than to Diligence, and where it costs more to institute a school than to serve in one.
The remarks I made on this subject to a Prince, as well as the remarks a Town-Syndic made on it to myself, are too remarkable to be omitted for mere dread of digressiveness. The Syndic--a man of enlarged views, and of fiery patriotism, the warmth of which was the more beneficent that he collected all the beams of it into one focus, and directed them to himself and his family--gave me (I had perhaps been comparing the School-bench and the School-stair to the _bench_ and the _ladder_, on which people are laid when about to be tortured) the best reply: "If a schoolmaster consume nothing but 30 reichsthalers;[49] if he annually purchase manufactured goods, according as Political Economists have calculated for each individual, namely, to the amount of 5 reichsthalers; and no more hundredweights of victual than these assume, namely 10; in short, if he live like a substantial wood-cutter,--then the Devil must be in it, if he cannot yearly lay by so much net profit, as shall, in the long-run, pay the interest of his entry-debts." [49] So much, according to Political Economists, a man yearly requires in Germany. The Syndic must have failed to convince me at the time, since I afterwards told the Flachsenfingen Prince:[50] "Illustrious Sir, you know not, but I do--not a player in your Theatre would act the Schoolmaster in Engel's _Prodigal Son_, three nights running, for such a sum as every real Schoolmaster has to take for acting it all the days of the year.--In Prussia, Invalids are made Schoolmasters; with us, Schoolmasters are made Invalids."...
For the Schoolmaster class are, in well-ordered States, as little permitted to marry as the Soldiery. In _Conringius de Antiquitutibus Academicis_, where in every leaf it is proved that all cloisters were originally schools, I hit upon the reason. Our schools are now cloisters, and consequently we endeavour to maintain in our teachers at least an imitation of the Three Monastic Vows. The vow of Obedience might perhaps be sufficiently enforced by School-Inspectors; but the second vow, that of Celibacy, would be more hard of attainment, were it not that, by one of the best political arrangements, the third vow, I mean a beautiful equality in Poverty, is so admirably attended to, that no man who has made it needs any farther _testimonium paupertatis_;--and now _let_ this man, if he likes, lay hold of a matrimonial half, when of the two halves each has a whole stomach, and nothing for it but half-coins and half-beer!... I know well, millions of my readers would themselves compose this Petition for the Conrector, and ride with it to Schadeck to his Lordship, that so the poor rogue might get the sheepfold, with the annexed wedding-mansion: for they see clearly enough, that directly thereafter one of the best Letter-Boxes would be written that ever came from such a repository. Fixlein's Petition was particularly good and striking: it submitted to the Rittmeister four grounds of preference: 1. "He was a native of the parish: his parents and ancestors had already done Hukelum service; therefore he prayed," &c.
2. "The here-documented official debts of 135 florins, 41 kreutzers and one halfpenny, the cancelling of which a never-to-be-forgotten testament secured him, he himself could clear, in case he obtained the living, and so hereby give up his claim to the legacy," &c. _Voluntary Note by me._ It is plain he means to bribe his Godfather, whom the lady's testament has put into a fume. But, gentle reader, blame not without mercy a poor, oppressed, heavy-laden school-man and school-horse for an indelicate insinuation, which truly was never mine. Consider, Fixlein knew that the Rittmeister was a cormorant towards the poor, as he was a squanderer towards the rich. It may be, too, the Conrector might once or twice have heard, in the Law Courts, of patrons, by whom not indeed the church and churchyard--though these things are articles of commerce in England--so much as the true management of them had been sold, or rather farmed to farming-candidates. I know from Lange,[51] that the Church must support its patron, when he has nothing to live upon: and might not a nobleman, before he actually began begging, be justified in taking a little advance, a fore-payment of his alimentary moneys, from the hands of his pulpit-farmer?-- [51] His _Clerical Law_, p. 551. 3. "He had lately betrothed himself with Fraeulein von Thiennette, and given her a piece of gold, as marriage-pledge; and could therefore wed the said Fraeulein were he once provided for," &c.
_Voluntary Note by me._ 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 OEconoma, 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; not at all the mad fourth.... 4. "He had learned with sorrow, that the name of his Shock, which he had purchased from an Emigrant at Leipzig, meant Egidius in German; and that the dog had drawn upon him the displeasure of his Lordship. Far be it from him so to designate the Shock in future; but he would take it as a special grace, if for the dog, which he at present called without any name, his Lordship would be pleased to appoint one himself."
_My Voluntary Note._ The dog then, it seems, to which the nobleman has hitherto been godfather, is to receive its name a _second_ time from him!--But how can the famishing gardener's son, whose career never mounted higher than from the school-bench to the school-chair, and who never spoke with polished ladies, except singing, namely in the church, how can he be expected, in fingering such a string, to educe from it any finer tone than the pedantic one? And yet the source of it lies deeper: not the contracted _situation_, but the contracted _eye_, not a favourite science, but a narrow plebeian soul, makes us pedantic, a soul that cannot _measure_ and _separate_ the _concentric_ circles of human knowledge and activity, that confounds the focus of universal human life, by reason of the focal distance, with every two or three converging rays; and that cannot see all, and tolerate all----In short, the true Pedant is the Intolerant. * * * * * The Conrector wrote out his petition splendidly in five propitious evenings; employed a peculiar ink for the purpose; worked not indeed so long over it as the stupid Manucius over a Latin letter, namely, some months, if Scioppius' word is to be taken; still less so long as another scholar at a Latin epistle, who--truly we have nothing but Morhof's word for it--hatched it during four whole months; inserting his variations, adjectives, feet, with the authorities for his phrases, accurately marked between the lines. Fixlein possessed a more thorough-going genius, and had completely mastered the whole enterprise in sixteen days. While sealing, he thought, as we all do, how this cover was the seed-husk of a great entire Future, the rind of many sweet or bitter fruits, the swathing of his whole after-life.
Heaven bless his cover; but I let you throw me from the Tower of Babel, if he get the parsonage: can't you see, then, that Aufhammer's hands are tied? In spite of all his other faults, or even because of them, he will stand like iron by his word, which he has given so long ago to the Subrector. It were another matter had he been resident at Court; for there, where old German manners still are, no promise is kept; for as, according to Moeser, the Ancient Germans kept only such promises as they made in the _forenoon_ (in the afternoon they were all dead-drunk),--so the Court Germans likewise keep no afternoon promise; forenoon ones they would keep if they made any, which, however, cannot possibly happen, as at those hours they are--sleeping.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.