CHAPTER VIII.

THE FICHTELGEBIRGE AND HOF.

FROM Leipsic to the Bavarian frontier, you cut through the very middle of the several Saxonies, leaving Saxe-Royal upon your left, and Saxe-Ducal upon your right hand. This is, however, far more a journey through Jean Paul than through any particular realm or country. The memory of him is awakened at every step, and the name of each railway-station calls up some creation of the wondrous enchanter whom, to understand and admire, one must first love. Zwickau, Wolkenstein, Alexandersbad, Franzensbrunn, Marienberg, Annaberg, Schneeberg! All these are places he has immortalized, and places where his own life was spent, for Jean Paul is of all great poets, perhaps, the one who has contrived to put the smallest distance of

space between his cradle and his coffin; his sphere of action was confined to a very limited number of square miles, and it was an event for him to go from Hof to Baireuth, and yet he was somehow or other always on the road, always wandering.

Who has forgotten his journey from Hof to Baireuth whilst engaged upon writing the preface to the second edition of Quintus Fixlein? "From Hof to Baireuth," says he, "a mere nothing-three relais de poste only-" and he begins to compose his preface; but a calèche whirls by upon the dusty road, and he catches sight of a female form. He recognizes a young betrothed bride of the name of Pauline, and the preface is put aside for the reflections with which her approaching marriage inspires him. At last, the woods close over the rapidly rolling vehicle, and Jean Paul is alone upon the chaussée. The preface begins again, but now the sun rises behind him, and he hastily puts into his deepest pocket, paper, pens, and all the materials for writing, exclaiming :

"Before this illumination of the eternal theatre, full of self-acting orchestras and decorations, how miserably discoloured and dim seem to me the farthing rushlight critics and those phosphorescent animals, the authors! I have often tried, in presence of this ceaseless exhibition of nature's painting

galleries, to think of the printer's tail-pieces, and Spatia, but I never could manage it, unless sometimes in mid-day-never on the contrary in the morning or the evening. the evening. For, in morning and evening, and much more in youth and age (life's morn and eve) man raises his earthy head, full of dreams and strong fancies, to the tranquil heavens, and gazes at them fixedly and longs-and longs! whilst, on the contrary, in the hot middle of life and of the day, his sweat-dropping brow bends towards the earth and towards her tubercles and truffles. Just as the middle strata of a playing-card is formed but of macule, whilst the two extremes are of fine paper, or just as we see the rainbow spring either from the east or west, from the couch of night or morning, never from the southern quarters of mid-day."

When one sees the beauties of the countries in which the poet lived, one can understand the comparative contempt he may have felt for the works of

man.

From Reichenbach to Plauen, you leave the railroad and cross the Fichtelgebirge in carriages, and here you feast your eyes upon one of the last of that rapidly-vanishing race, the postillions of Germany, and you listen with melancholy regret to the sound of his horn, which will soon cease to awaken the echo

of the woods. Ah, me! what is the meaning now of Schubert's melody? it has none.

"Von der Strassen her ein Posthorn klingt."

Alas! the streets are mute, and pavements no longer resound, and maidens' hearts no longer flutter at the clatter of hoofs, and the clang of the horn.

How the woods spread out on all sides, how they fill the valleys, how they cover the hills! see, what untrodden paths lead into the forest depths, and then what solitary streams! one fancies one is the first to have heard their silver song. Yonder, plunging its oak-crowned crest into the golden flood where the sun sinks down far, far away, is the Böhmerwald. This, this at least, is historical, nay, more,—traditional, legendary Germany. Thank heaven! there is no railroad.

The wind rose with the moon, and when we were once fairly upon the highest ridge of the Fichtelgebirge, the tall pine-trees, whence it derives its name, began to wave their arms, and mow, and creak out to us a hoarse Glück zu,* as we went gallopping by. Pure, pale, and brilliant hung "Dian's

* The customary salutation to a huntsman, or indeed any one setting out upon sylvan sport.

fair orb" over the black-wooded heights, and ever and anon the forest gave place to the heath, and vast tracks of land stretched out before us, barren and bare, untenanted and unclad by aught save faded heather; here and there the long, dark shadow of a solitary pine lies upon the silvered surface, or you may catch the reflection of the moon's rays in one of the forest-pools that tender their undrunk waters to the waste.

Then comes the deep roar of a rushing flood, the hollow resonance of a bridge beneath the horses' feet, the spark-spitting of an angry pavement, and the blast of the postillion's horn.

This is Plauen-encore Jean Paul !

Here recommences the railroad, and the woods, and the heath, and the tall pines, and the forestpools; but there is something more fantastical in our way of rushing by them. Flights of wild ravens whirl, cawing, round gaunt trees, and are as yet too well used to their secular solitudes to be seared

by the rampant engine. On we go, screaming, whistling, panting, groaning, tearing up the very ground we tread on, and throwing a lurid, blood-red glare across the woodland wilds, that starlight and moonlight became so well.

As we stopped at one station, in the very midst of a forest glade, the outlines of a strange form caught