“‘The undersigned begs to give notice, that whereas cropped hair has as many enemies as red hair, and said enemies of the hair are likewise enemies of the person it grows upon; whereas, further, such a fashion is in no respect Christian, since, otherwise, Christian persons would adopt it; and whereas especially, the undersigned has suffered no less from his hair than Absalom did from his, though on contrary grounds; and whereas it has been notified to him, that the public proposed to send him into his grave, since the hair grows there without scissors: he hereby gives notice, that he will not willingly consent to such extremities. He would, therefore, inform the noble, learned, and discerning public in general, that the undersigned proposes on Sunday next to appear in the various important streets of Hof, with a false, short queue; and with this queue, as with a magnet, and cord of love, and magic rod, to possess himself forcibly of the affection of all and sundry, be they who they may. “J. P. F. R.’” Points of this kind have been often argued seriously enough between loving aunts solicitous of propriety, and brisk nephews solicitous of independence, perhaps also affecting singularity; but let it stand here discussed more profoundly and systematically by a sensible German pastor and a profound German poet-philosopher, _in perpetuam rei memoriam_. Right or wrong, nothing could mark the man more decidedly; always independent and original in his principles of action, and ever willing to yield to innocent prejudice when he had once openly vindicated his principle. To pass from trifles to the serious business of authorship, the following extract is most instructive and full of character:-- “As these years, spent with his mother in Hof, were the most uninterruptedly studious of Richter’s life, it seems the place to give some account of the manner in which he pursued his studies. That plan must be a good one, and of use to others, of which he could say, ‘Of one thing I am certain; I have made as much out of myself, as could be made of the _stuff_, and no man should require more.’ “First in importance, he aimed, in the rules he formed for himself, at a just division of time and power, and he never permitted himself, from the first, to spend his strength upon any thing useless. He so managed his capital, that the future should pay him all ever-increasing interest on the present. The nourishment of his mind was drawn from three great sources--living Nature, in connexion with human life; the world of books, and the inner world of thought; these he considered the raw material given him to work up.