ding the reflection of their feelings in her. There
is a constant interweaving of the human soul and the universe;
therein lies his pantheistic trait. 'To each man,' he said,[17]
'Nature appears different, and the only question is, which is the
most beautiful? Nature is for ever becoming flesh for mankind; outer
Nature takes a different form in each mind.' Certainly the nature of
Jean Paul was different from the Nature of other mortals. Was she
more beautiful? He wrote of her in his usual baroque style, with a
wealth of thought and feeling, and everywhere the sparkle of genius;
but it is all presented in the strangest motley, as exaggerated and
unenjoyable as can be. For example, from _Siebenkas_:

I appeared again then on the last evening of the year 1794, on
the red waves of which so many bodies, bled to death, were borne
away to the ocean of eternity.

To the butterfly--proboscis of Siebenkaes, enough honey--cells
were still open in every blue thistle-blossom of destiny.

When they had passed the gate--that is to say, the
un-Palmyra-like ruins of it--the crystal reflecting grotto of the
August night stood open and shining above the dark green earth,
and the ocean-calm of Nature stayed the wild storm of the human
heart. Night was drawing and closing her curtain (a sky full of
silent suns, not a breath of breeze moving in it) up above the
world, and down beneath it the reaped corn stood in the sheaves
without a rustle. The cricket with his one constant song, and a
poor old man gathering snails for the snail pits, seemed to be
the only things that dwelt in the far-reaching darkness.

When it was autumn in his heart:

Above the meadows, where all the flowers were withered and dead;
above the fields, where the corn ears waved no more, floated dim
phantom forms, all pale and wan, faint pictures of the past. Over
the grand eternal woods and hills a biting mist was draped in
clinging folds, as if all Nature, trembling into dust, must
vanish in its wreaths.... But one bright thought pierced these
dark fogs of Nature and the soul, turning them to a white
gleaming mist, a dew all glittering with rainbow colours, and
gently lighting upon flowers.

When his married life grew more unhappy, in December:

The heart of our sorrowful Firmian grew sadder yet, as he stood
upon this cold, burnt-out hearth-place of Nature.

an