RICHTER.

BY C. WOODWARD

I PURPOSE making a brief sketch of the life of him whom the Germans call Jean Paul, the Only. To trace the career of this rich humorist and true prose-poet will be for me a refreshing task, and I trust not unpleasing to the reader.

HUTSON.

land. His record of the impression made upon him in these childish years by being put into the bed of his dying grandfather to receive his blessing, makes a touching picture, and shows how closely he clung to the precious memories of youth. In truth his heart never grew old.

In his thirteenth year, his worthy father was promoted by a kind patroness to the

John Paul Frederick Richter, best known to all the world as Jean Paul, like every body else, except Adam and his wife, was the child of two parents. His mother, the being near-pastorate of Schwarzenbach, on the Saale, a est to him in race, though no kinswoman as the Duke of Suffolk's case, cited in Swinburne, and made much of by Sterne, has decided, was Sophia Rosina, daughter of John Paul Kuhn, cloth-weaver of Hof. His father was John Christian Christopher Richter, Tertius or subrector of the gymnasium, and organist in Wunsiedel. The business of teaching had been in the family before, as the elder Richter was the son of the rector of the gymnasium in Neustadt on the Culm.

much larger place than Joditz. Here Jean Paul received instruction in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and also acquired the rudiments of music. Here too the delights of literature dawned upon his young mind. He records the ecstasy with which he read Robinson Cruso-that charming chronicle where the ideal and the real mingle their fragrance so sweetly-as well as several other romances which then came into his hands. The chaplain, Volkel, taught him, or essayed to teach him, geography and philosophy. But for the first he, who afterwards invented so complete an imaginary geography for his heroes and heroines to grace, had no very strong predilection. He thanks Vokkel, however, for having taught him at least a German style of reasoning which would prove the exist

Jean Paul, who tells us himself something about the early dawn of his life, says that he was born at the end of the Seven Years' War, and at the beginning of spring, on the 21st of March, in the year 1763, in Wunsiedel. Early in his young life, his father was called to be pastor in the little village of Joditz, around which runs the Saale, spring-ence of God and his providence from his ing from the Fichtelgebirge. This he calls works and the order of history, without the his proper birthplace, which he defines to assistance of the Bible. With the question be the first and longest place of education. as to how far even cold Deism can go in the Upon which premise he observes wisely: way of truth with any certitude, were the "Let no poet suffer himself to be born or words of revelation cancelled, we have no educated in a metropolis, but if possible in a concern at present. Richter thought philoshamlet; at the highest in a village." Here he ophy could compass so much of religious passed what he calls "a whole course of truth at least. At this time also he learnt idyllic years." With that sweetness and from Wolfmann, his schoolmate, that beautigrace of humor which flows through all he ful handwriting for which he was in after life has written, he tells of the instructions of his famous. While these grand studies were good father, the simple lessons he learned, the going on, he fell in love a second time, and childish turn for mechanical invention which managed this time to be somewhat bolder seized him at this period, his many youthful than at the period of his first taste of the pursuits and hobbies, such as his invention of disturbing passion; for, in playing the game a cipher, his passion for music, his dread of of "How does your neighbor please you?" ghosts, his strong belief in the supernatural he always called little Katharine Baerin to the of all sorts, his unspoken love for a blue-eyed court, although she as invariably gave a peasant girl who led the cows to the mead-negative answer, and so lost him his expected ows, and for whose sake the sound of a cow- kiss. Of one kiss, indeed, he robbed her by bell ever after carried him away into dream-lying in ambush to snatch it; and, though it

was never repeated, it melted deep down into his soul, and was remembered long years after with fondness as the first.

During these years at Schwarzenbach, borrowing books from his friend Vogel, and making voluminous extracts from them that he might possess something like a library of his own, he filled his mind with abundance of lore in all departments, not altogether escaping that period of skepticism so apt to seize upon ardent and inquiring minds in their first search after truth.

At the age of sixteen he was placed by his father at the gymnasium of Hof. Soon after this event, his father died, leaving to Jean Paul, who was the eldest son, the care of the mother and the burden of the debts contracted at Joditz. His grand parents in Hof also died about this time, leaving to Jean Paul's mother, their favorite daughter, the house and estate at Hof. But the other relations instituted a lawsuit to break the will; and for a long time trouble and uncertain prospects embittered the life of the family. During the period of his residence at Hof, Richter became intimate with two of his fellowscholars; the one, John Bernard Hermann, a poor youth struggling to get his education, and the other, Adam Lorenzo von Oerthel, the son of a wealthy merchant. From Hof he went to the University at Leipzig, where, besides the severer studies of the lecturerooms, he set himself the pleasanter task of learning English. He also read much at this time of the more elegant and imaginative of the French writers.

cut short. He discarded vests, and wore open collars à la Hamlet. It is true that these singularities were forced upon him to some extent by his poverty, but they were also due in a great measure to affectation. Despite the remonstrances of his friends, he persisted in these absurdities for seven years. At last he had the good sense to yield to the demands of conventional decency, and consented to attire himself like those around him. While this controversy concerning costume was going on, Richter sent his friend Oerthel the following story in mockery of the whole affair:

"There was once a fool who inhabited a city peopled with fools. Ordinarily, some exceptions occur, but here there was none. The first people of the town wore engraved on their hats a fairly designed jackass. For a long time our fool had some simple tracery by way of ornament, but no special figure. At last he got a little money, which put him in the way of getting, in his turn, the emblazonment of a good sturdy jackass just the picture of life. How people's eyes will open when they see me! said he as he put on his hat in front of the glass. All day he coursed up and down the town, called on his friends, called even on some of his enemies; but no one took any notice of him. The weakbrained fellow! he had forgotten that fools take no account of any folly that is already their own. For, to make an extravagance admired, it must be new; even to get the distinction of blame, one must be original. So our fool went to pay his respects to another Pressed by his needy circumstances, he city. Here, the fashion was to wear a mule wrote now a satire entitled The Eulogy of for the proper cognizance. Now the city in Stupidity, which his friend Vogel praised question was situated not far from the coungreatly, but for which he could find no pub- try of Utopia, where may be found another lisher. Reading it over some time after, and city preferring in its turn a horse on the hat. displeased with its many evidences of green- The vanity described in our fool when for ness, he threw it aside, and in the course of the first time he wore his jackass can hardly the next six months composed a second satire give a notion of the triumphant vanity with called The Greenland Lawsuits, which, after which he swelled almost to bursting when having been refused by all the publishers of he came to discarding his jackass and putLeipzig, was accepted by Voss of Berlin, who ting a mule on the vacant place. A superb paid him for it a sum amounting to between animal! cried he. 'Tis a pity that it does not sixty-five and seventy dollars. For the sec- propagate its kind as well as the fashion does ond part of the same work he received a which ennobles it. Then once more he besomewhat larger sum. About this time he gan to hold his head high; but, by the fates, excited much ridicule and some enmity by a little accident soon happened to disenchant his whimsical persistence in wearing a cos-him again. His mother wrote to him: Come tume totally at variance with the fashion of the day. The hair was then dressed with powder and worn with a queue; he wore his

to the holiday-doings, and above all lay aside your new-fangled fashion, and do not fail to wear your handsome jackass. He replied: I

come, but instead of a jackass, I wear a brave mule, which becomes me infinitely better. He came then with his mule to his birthplace. No sooner was he perceived than the people, surrounding him, cried out: Our young chap-does he then dare to insult the church-folks, that he despises jackasses? Heaven send him his senses! 'Tis a gosling! said the women-'tis no jackass. He who wears no jackass is himself a jackass, said the good townsfolk all with one voice. But look at the fellow. God forgive us, he's wearing a mule! By George, he's a mule himself. Our fool put on such an air of scorn that he made the outcry still worse; and he found himself in such a heat about a folly of which he had fools for critics, that he could do no better than write the story of the whole matter to his friend Oerthel."

son most disagreeable, in spite of the kind affection of Adam von Oerthel-his loss by death of this second friend, conspired to make the next two or three years too painful a record to linger over now.

At the close of this dreary experience, began his intercourse with Herder. He sent to that literary man, gifted with a genial nature as well as with genius, two serious essays, with the request that he would offer them for publication by Wieland in the paper which he then edited. Herder was in Italy; but his wife, herself an accomplished woman, opened the package, and was greatly pleased with the essay on What Death Is. The sympathy he received from Caroline Herder was a foretaste of that full meed of love and praise which the women of Germany were to accord him in the future.

On giving up his outrè costume, and finding his earnest essay please more than all his satires, he made a complete change in the habits of both mind and body, began to mingle freely in society, and seemed to seek to acquaint himself from personal observation with the springs of human conduct. He soon became a favorite with many, owing much in particular to his skill upon the harpsichord, in playing which he used no notes, but fan

During the vacation in the summer of 1783, which he passed with his mother in Hof, his third love-passage occurred; but the understanding, of whatever nature it may have been, which existed between him and this Sophia of Hof, did not last long. After his return to Leipzig, the debts contracted there pressed so heavily upon him that he made a twilight escape, and went down to Hof in disguise. His prospects were dark at this period. His last volume of satires, en-tasied or improvised, thus carrying the hearts titled Selections from the Papers of the Devil, no publisher would buy. From his staunch friend Vogel, he received much help and sympathy; and Christian Otto, who became his warm friend at this time, also aided him materially. But, steeped as he was in poverty, he continued cheerful, and worked on, preparing collection after collection of materials for the works which he had in contemplation -collections found in after years marked respectively, "Quarry for Hesperus," "Quarry for Titan," and so on.

He is described at this time as of slender form, thin pale face, high brow, fair hair curling around it, clear soft blue eyes, and what one of his biographers styles, “a lovely, lip-kissing mouth." He wore a loose green coat and straw hat, had a dog at his heels, and was to be seen tramping over the hills with open breast and flying hair, singing as he went, and sure to have a book with him. His address seems to have been at all times most fascinating.

The death of his friend, Hermann-his own disappointment in finding life at Toepen as instructor of Herr von Oerthel's younger

of all along with him in the mood that came upon him at the time. So must David have touched the harp in the presence of Saul when the evil spirit entered into him and needed to be charmed away.

About this time he took a small school at Schwarzenback, at the request of his friends, Volkel, Vogel, and Kloter. He made a good teacher, and spent four years at the head of his little flock, taking much pleasure and no little pains in their instruction. Every Sunday he walked to Hof to pass the day with his mother. There was always gathered a little coterie of young women who found the greatest pleasure in his society. These young maidens, whose tastes he improved by his conversation, and who in return unconsciously taught him to know so much of woman's true worth, were named Caroline, Helena, Frederica (Otto's sister) and Amonè (Otto's wife in after time.) M. Blaze names only three, and gives their names as Helena, Renee and Caroline. To Caroline he seems to have been most attached; and it was with her that he oftenest corresponded.

The secret of the strong attraction by

which all women were and still are drawn toward Richter, lies in that beautiful aphorism in his Fixlein: "To the man who has had a mother, all women are sacred for her sake." He understood the mother principle in woman; his poet-soul had a pure and clear insight into the sensibilities that to grosser hearts are mysteries unexplored, experiences of which they do not even dream. His sympathy gave knowledge, and his knowledge engendered sympathy. He, who can feel that blessed instinct of the pure poetic faith recorded above, has a fount of tenderness in his bosom to which the milk of woman's nature bears a natural chemical affinity. To such a one, the creative idealism of his own heart will reveal enough of woman's inner life to give him some perception of the changing current of her joys and sorrows.

It was at this time that Jean Paul wrote an essay which I would give much to see, for the knot which it seeks to unravel is certainly a tough one. This is its title, or at least its subject of discussion: "How far friendship toward the other sex may proceed without love, and what is the difference between that and love."

hended. His picture of this vision of loveliness in a letter to his friend Otto is tinged with such hues as the rapture of a new and joyous experience alone can shed upon the real in life.

He declared that in Bayreuth his moments were roses and his hours polished brilliants. On his return from this paradise, he composed his Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces. The longest of these is the history of Siebenkaes, the Advocate of the Poor. He was now distinguished, and from Weimar, at that epoch the Athens of Germany, came tributary offerings to his genius. His rich humor, his delicate fancy, his engaging tenderness, had won for him the enthusiastic commendations of such men as Wieland and Herder. Of this a fair correspondent, the lady Charlotte von Kalb, hastened to assure him. Invited pressingly by her, and by other passionate admirers of his genius, to visit Weimar, at the age of thirty-three he entered that charmed circle which he had so long looked toward with distant reverence. Wieland, who loved humor so well that he had read Tristram Shandy eighty times, and Herder, who loved Richter's manliness of spirit, welcomed him with open arms. Goethe and Schiller, attached to the strict rules of art, and regarding him as a revolutionist in the realm of the Muses, stood aloof. But, favored by the Duchess Amelia, almost idol

pense with the flattery of attention from even these great men.

With Otto as his private critic, he now went on in his literary career, publishing next The History of the Contented Little Schoolmaster, Maria Wuz, which he calls an Idyll. After this he wrote The Invisible Lodge, which he calls his Pedagogical Ro-ized by the ladies of Weimar, he could dismance. It was never finished, and he himself calls it a Born Ruin. This work he sent anonymously to the Counselor Moritz of Berlin, who was delighted with it, and got for him from the printer one hundred ducats. He immediately began composing his Hesperus. The money which The Invisible Lodge had procured him, he expended in making his mother comfortable and in paying some debts of gratitude. The Hesperus was followed by Quintus Fixlein. The former work had already made him famous. Amongst the benefits which it secured for him was the warm friendship of the Jew, Emanuel of Bayreuth, a man of noble character, This friend he visited in the summer of 1794, and in his princely mansion for the first time enjoyed the pleasures afforded by a life in the midst of elegant and tasteful surroundings. Here too, for the first time, he met a woman of high rank and refinement, and learnt to know in its most attractive guise the sex he so dearly loved and so intuitively compre

From this magic atmosphere of unstinted praise and admiration, he had the soberness of soul to withdraw himself after a short stay, and return to his humble home in Hof in time to escape the entaglement of a liaison with Madame von Kalb, who was unhappily married and had conceived a violent passion for the gifted Richter. This lady, of powerful organization and ardent impulses, became the original of Linda in his Titan. While engaged in writing Titan, he produced two minor works, Jubelsenior, the sketch of an aged pastor and his wife celebrating their sixtieth marriage anniversary; and the Kampaner Thal, which treats of the immortality of, the soul.

In June, 1797, finding his health injured by unremitting toil, he sought the baths of Eger in Saxony to recuperate his powers. Here he met another Circe, a young, rich and lovely Swiss widow, named Emilie von Berlespsh,

had another love-passage; but the fair lady's noble relations were opposed to their union. Yet a general consent seems to have been finally given; and the time was even fixed for their public betrothal, when from some unascertained cause the match was broken off. Richter in writing concerning it to his friend Otto, uses the vague phrase "moral incompatibilities," as expressive of the nature of those difficulties which had caused the rupture between himself and this fair Caro

but he does not seem to have been altogether blameless in the matter.

who speedily bewitched him. But the news of his mother's death carried him back to Hof; and, for many weeks, full of sorrow, he kept himself secluded from his warmest friends. Finally he returned to Eger, drawn by the memory of her who had there so greatly charmed him. Strangely enough, fascinated by her at first as the idealist seems to have been, she found cause to complain soon enough when distance separted them of the coldness of his letters. About this time he removed from Hof to Leipzig; and she pur-line. What is meant it is impossible to say; chased a country house at Gholis, a short distance from his new place of residence. Here he visited her often, and endured a long struggle as to his duty toward one who loved him devotedly, and whose love, nevertheless, he could not respond to with such deep affection as he felt would be needful to secure wedded happiness. They did not marry, but remained warm friends. With her he, shortly after their final understanding, paid a visit to Dresden, and there enjoyed the statuary which adorns that capital. The sight of Grecian art sent him back to the wonders of the old world; and he read once more with fresh delight the Iliad and the Odyssey and some of the plays of the three great dramat-ance on the part of the great idealist, who ists. Soon after this visit, his Emilie went to England and thence to Scotland, and on her return to the Continent married and retired to her estates near Berne.

Richter on his return to Leipzig found that the brother, to educate whom he had made it his residence, had fled from his home after robbing him. He sought long for him, and finding some trace of him at last, settled a yearly sum on him, which Otto took care to convey to the lost wanderer.

After this event Leipzig was a painful place for him to live in; and he removed to Weimar. Here he was happy and comfortable. On the one hand, the saddler's wife at whose house he lodged was the best of housekeepers and motherly in her devotion to him; on the other, he had Herder and Herder's intellectual wife to talk to. This time, too, Goethe and Schiller were kinder. But Madame von Kalb was too kind for his peace. Having obtained from her husband and her own family their consent to her divorce, she wished Richter to promise to marry her as soon as she was free. But Richter said very decidedly, No.

In the spring he accepted an invitation to visit the Court of Hildburghausen. Here he

While busy with love-making, he was preparing the first volume of Titan, esteemed by the Germans his master work, a history of Charlotte Corday, whom he elevated to the dignity of a Jael or a Judith, and his Clavis Fichtiana, in which he took the field against Fichte's philosophy. In 1800 he removed to Berlin.

The Queen invited him to Sans Souci, and every body did him honor. Here, in the midst of his triumph, as a man of genius, he met his future wife, Caroline Meyer, daughter of Counselor Meyer. They loved at once; and, after a brief disappear

wished perhaps to test the strength of his new attachment, he returned, spoke, and won a glad consent from all parties concerned. Jean Paul was in his thirty-eighth year when this devoutly wished-for consummation was reached. She made a soft, dove-eyed, tender and reverential wife, which was what he had been waiting and looking for all these years.

Having no means of subsistence, though welcome at the court and graced with the friendship of Tieck, Schlegel, Fichtè, and Schleiermacher, he petitioned the King for some appointment in his gift; but royal favors are tardy, and he petitioned in vain. So he married without any assured income; and on the 27th of May, 1801, he and his young bride left Berlin, traveled in Dessau, visited the Herders in Weimar, and finally settled down in Meiningen. Here he put up and consecrated his Lares, and bade a final farewell to that nomadic life which in bachelorhood he had led. The quiet nest-life, which had always been his ideal of happiness, he had found at last; and with a tranquil joy he set himself to work in this sweet retreat. With a home at last to charm away his restlessness, and a sweet wife by his side to enrich