ealously 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 gray austere yet hearty patriarchal aspect,
could not but appear another Ulysses and 'much-enduring Man.' Eagerly I
hung upon his tales, when listening neighbors 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, this simple
Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the World_!

"Why mention our Swallows, which, out of far Africa, as I learned,
threading their way over seas and mountains, corp