or and "the consciousness of a kindred folly." Fixlein is the
archetypal pedant. The very heart of humor is in the account of the
commencement exercises at his school. His little childishnesses are
delightfully set forth; so, too, is his awe of aristocracy. He always
took off his hat before the windows of the manor house, even if he saw
no one there. The crown of it all is The Wedding. The bridal pair's
visit to the graves of by-gone loves is a gem of fantasy. But behind
all the humor and satire must not be forgotten, in view of what was to
follow, the undercurrent of courageous democratic protest which finds
its keenest expression in the "Free Note" to Chapter Six. _Fixlein_
appeared in 1796.

Richter's next story, the unfinished _Biographical Recreations under
the Cranium of a Giantess_, sprang immediately from a visit to
Bayreuth in 1794 and his first introduction to aristocracy. Its chief
interest is in the enthusiastic welcome it extends to the French
Revolution. Intrinsically more important is the _Flower, Fruit and
Thorn Pieces_ which crowded the other subject from his mind and tells
with much idyllic charm of "the marriage, life, death and wedding of
F. H. Siebenkaes, Advocate of the Poor" (1796-7).

In 1796, at the suggestion of the gifted, emancipated and ill-starred
Charlotte von Kalb, Jean Paul visited Weimar, already a Mecca of
literary pilgrimage and the centre of neo-classicism. There, those
who, like Herder, were jealous of Goethe, and those who, like Frau von
Stein, were estranged from him, received the new light with
enthusiasm--others with some reserve. Goethe and Schiller, who were
seeking to blend the classical with the German spirit, demurred to the
vagaries of Jean Paul's unquestioned genius. His own account of his
visit to "the rock-bound Schiller" and to Goethe's "palatial hall" are
precious commonplaces of the histories of literature. There were sides
of Goethe's universal genius to which Richter felt akin, but he was
quite ready to listen to Herder's warning against his townsman's
"unrouged" infidelity, which had become socially more objectionable
since Goethe's union with Christiane Vulpius, and Jean Paul presently
returned to Hof, carrying with him the heart of Charlotte von Kalb, an
unprized and somewhat embarrassing possession. He wished no heroine;
for he was no hero, as he remarked dryly, somewhat later, when
Charlotte had become the first of many "beautiful souls" in confusion
of spir