nfluence on the human race. It
was for the same reason that I determined to marry Amalia, for a man is
not a complete Mensch until he is the father of a family; to be which
is a condition of his existence, and therefore a duty of his education.
Amalia must wait; she is out of the reach of want, being, indeed, cook
to the Frau Prorectorinn Nasenbrumm, my worthy patron's lady. I have one
or two books with me, which no one is likely to take from me, and one in
my heart which is the best of all. If it shall please Heaven to finish
my existence here, before I can prosecute my studies further, what cause
have I to repine? I pray God I may not be mistaken, but I think I have
wronged no man, and committed no mortal sin. If I have, I know where to
look for forgiveness; and if I die, as I have said, without knowing all
that I would desire to learn, shall I not be in a situation to learn
EVERYTHING, and what can human soul ask for more?

'Pardon me for putting so many _I_'s in my discourse,' said the
candidate, 'but when a man is talking of himself, 'tis the briefest and
simplest way of talking.'

In which, perhaps, though I hate egotism, I think my friend was right.
Although he acknowledged himself to be a mean-spirited fellow, with no
more ambition than to know the contents of a few musty books, I think
the man had some good in him; especially in the resolution with which he
bore his calamities. Many a gallant man of the highest honour is often
not proof against these, and has been known to despair over a bad
dinner, or to be cast down at a ragged-elbowed coat. MY maxim is to bear
all, to put up with water if you cannot get Burgundy, and if you have no
velvet to be content with frieze. But Burgundy and velvet are the best,
bien entendu, and the man is a fool who will not seize the best when the
scramble is open.

The heads of the sermon which my friend the theologian intended to
impart to me, were, however, never told; for, after our coming out
of the hospital, he was drafted into a regiment quartered as far as
possible from his native country, in Pomerania; while I was put into
the Bulow regiment, of which the ordinary headquarters were Berlin. The
Prussian regiments seldom change their garrisons as ours do, for the
fear of desertion is so great, that it becomes necessary to know the
face of every individual in the service; and, in time of peace, men live
and die in the same town. This does not add, as may be imagined, to the