stomach the more his head abounded in plans "for
writing books to earn money to buy books." He devised a system of
spelling reform and could submit to his pastor friend at Rehau in 1782
a little sheaf of essays on various aspects of Folly, the student
being now of an age when, like Iago, he was "nothing if not critical."
Later these papers seemed to him little better than school exercises,
but they gave a promise soon to be redeemed in _Greenland Law-Suits_,
his first volume to find a publisher. These satirical sketches,
printed early in 1783, were followed later in that year by another
series, but both had to wait 38 years for a second edition, much
mellowed in revision--not altogether to its profit.

The point of the _Law-Suits_ is directed especially against
theologians and the nobility. Richter's uncompromising fierceness
suggests youthful hunger almost as much as study of Swift. But
Lessing, had he lived to read their stinging epigrams, would have
recognized in Richter the promise of a successor not unworthy to carry
the biting acid of the _Disowning Letter_ over to the hand of Heine.

The _Law-Suits_ proved too bitter for the public taste and it was
seven years before their author found another publisher. Meanwhile
Richter was leading a precarious existence, writing for magazines at
starvation prices, and persevering in an indefatigable search for some
one to undertake his next book, _Selections from the Papers of the
Devil_. A love affair with the daughter of a minor official which she,
at least, took seriously, interrupted his studies at Leipzig even
before the insistence of creditors compelled him to a clandestine
flight. This was in 1784. Then he shared for a time his mother's
poverty at Hof and from 1786 to 1789 was tutor in the house of
Oerthel, a parvenu Commercial-Counsellor in Toepen. This experience he
was to turn to good account in _Levana_ and in his first novel, _The
Invisible Lodge_, in which the unsympathetic figure of Roeper is
undoubtedly meant to present the not very gracious personality of the
Kommerzienrat.

To this period belongs a collection of _Aphorisms_ whose bright wit
reveals deep reflection. They show a maturing mind, keen insight,
livelier and wider sympathies. The _Devil's Papers_, published in
1789, when Richter, after a few months at Hof, was about to become
tutor to the children of three friendly families in Schwarzenbach,
confirm the impression of progress. In his new field Ric