teristic circumstances of their Education,
what furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified it: to which
duty, nowadays so pressing for many a German Autobiographer, I also
zealously address myself.'--Thou rogue! Is it by short-clothes of
yellow serge, and swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is
educated? And yet, as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is
laughing in his sleeve at these Autobiographical times of ours, or
writing from the abundance of his own fond ineptitude. For he
continues: 'If among the ever-streaming currents of Sights, Hearings,
Feelings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as in a Magic Hall, young
Gneschen went about environed, I might venture to select and specify,
perhaps these following were also of the number:

'Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, so the
young creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a Historical tendency
given him by the narrative habits of Father Andreas; who, with his
battle-reminiscences, and gay austere yet hearty patriarchal aspect,
could not but appear another Ulysses and "much-enduring Man." Eagerly
I hung upon his tales, when listening neighbours enlivened the hearth;
from these perils and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades
itself, a dim world of Adventure expanded itself within me.
Incalculable also was the knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old
Men under the Linden-tree: the whole of Immensity was yet new to me;
and had not these reverend seniors, talkative enough, been employed in
partial surveys thereof for nigh fourscore years? With amazement I
began to discover that Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a Country, of
a World; that there was such a thing as History, as Biography; to
which I also, one day, by hand and tongue, might contribute.

'In a like sense worked the _Postwagen_ (Stage-coach), which,
slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended through
our Village: northwards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards
visibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year did I reflect that this
Postwagen could be other than some terrestrial Moon, rising and
setting by mere Law of Nature, like the heavenly one; that it came on
made highways, from far cities towards far cities; weaving them like a
monstrous shuttle into closer and closer union. It was then that,
independently of Schiller's _Wilhelm Tell_, I made this not quite
insignificant reflection (so true also in spiritual things): _Any
road, thi