quite as delightful as a walk in the Prater of Vienna.  I fill my pipe very quietly, take out my ink-stand and pens, seat myself in the corner of my sofa, read, correct, and now for the first time really set about thinking what I have written.  To see this origin of a book, this metamorphosis of manuscript into print, is a delight to which I give myself up entirely.  Look you, this melancholy pleasure, which would have furnished the departed Voss with worthy matter for more than one blessed Idyl—­(the more so, as on such occasions, I am generally arrayed in a morning gown, though I am sorry to say, not a calamanco one, with great flowers;) this melancholy pleasure was already grown here in Halle to a sweet, pedantic habit.  Since I began my hermit’s life here, I have been printing; and so long as I remain here, I shall keep on printing.  In all probability, I shall die with a proof-sheet in my hand.”

“This,” said Flemming, closing the book, “is no caricature by a writer of comedy, but a portrait by a man’s own hand.  We can see by it how easily, under certain circumstances, one may glide into habits of seclusion, and in a kind of undress, slipshod hardihood, with a pipe and a proof-sheet, defy the world.  Into this state scholars have too often fallen; thus giving some ground for the prevalent opinion, that scholarship and rusticity are inseparable.  To me, I confess, it is painful to see the scholar and the world assume so often a hostile attitude, and set each other at defiance.  Surely, it is a characteristic trait of a great and liberal mind, that it recognises humanity in all its forms and conditions.  I am a student;—­and always, when I sit alone at night, I recognise the divinity of the student, as she reveals herself to me in the smoke of the midnight lamp.  But, because solitude and books are not unpleasant to me,—­nay, wished-for,—­sought after,—­shall I say to my brother, Thou fool!  Shall I take the world by the beard and say, Thou art old, and mad!—­Shall I look society in the face and say, Thou art heartless!—­Heartless!  Beware of that word!  Life, says very wisely the good Jean Paul, Life in every shape, should be precious to us, for the same reason that the Turks carefully collect every scrap of paper that comes in their way, because the name of God may be written upon it.  Nothing is more true than this, yet nothing more neglected!”

“If it be painful to see this misunderstanding between scholars and the world,” said the Baron, “I think it is still more painful to see the private sufferings of authors by profession.  How many have languished in poverty, how many died broken-hearted, how many gone mad with over-excitement and disappointed hopes!  How instructive and painfully interesting are their lives! with so many weaknesses,—­so much to pardon,—­so much to pity,—­so much to admire!  I think he was not so far out of the way, who said, that, next to the Newgate Calendar, the Biography of Authors is the most sickening chapter in the history of man.”