By the by, from a Lawyer, at the same time a Country Judge, I should
certainly have looked for more sense; I should (I may be mistaken) have
presumed he knew that the _Acts_, or Reports, which in former times
(see Hoffmann's _German or un-German Law-practice_) were written in
Latin, as before the times of Joseph the Hungarian,--are now, if
we may say so without offence, perhaps written fully more in the
German dialect than in the Latin; and in support of this opinion,
I can point to whole lines of German language to be found in these
Imperial-Court-Confessions. However, I will not believe that the Jurist
is endeavoring, because Imhofer declares the Roman tongue to be the
mother tongue in the other world, to disengage himself from a language,
by means of which, like the Roman _Eagle_, or later, like the Roman
_Fish-heron_ (Pope), he has clutched such abundant booty in his
talons.----
Toll, toll your bell for the Actus; stream in, in to the ceremony; who
cares for it? Neither I nor the Ex-Conrector. The six pygmy Ciceros
will in vain set forth before us in sumptuous dress their thoughts and
bodies. The draught-wind of Chance has blown away from the Actus its
powder-nimbus of glory; and the Conrector that was has discovered how
small a matter a cathedra is, and how great a one a pulpit. "I should
not have thought," thought he now, "when I became Conrector, that there
could be anything grander, I mean a parson." Man, behind his
everlasting blind, which he only colors differently, and makes no
thinner, carries his pride with him from one step to another; and on
the higher step, blames only the pride of the lower.
The best of the Actus was, that the Regiments-Quartermaster and Master
Butcher, Steinberg, attended there, embaled in a long woollen shag.
During the solemnity, the Subrector Hans von Füchslein cast several
gratified and inquiring glances on the Schadeck servant, who did not
once look at him. Hans would have staked his head, that, after the
Actus, the fellow would wait upon him. When at last the sextuple
cockerel-brood had on their dunghill done crowing, that is to say,
had perorated, the scholastic cocker, over whom a higher banner
was now waving, himself came upon the stage; and delivered to the
School-Inspectorships, to the Subrectorship, to the Guardianship, and
the lackeyship, his most grateful thanks for their attendance; shortly,
announcing to them at the same time, "that Providence had now called
him from his post to another; and committed to him, unworthy as he was,
the cure of souls in the Hukelum parish, as well as in the Schadeck
chapel of ease."
This little address, to appearance, wellnigh blew up the then Subrector
Hans von Füchslein from his chair; and his face looked of a mingled
color, like red bole, green chalk, tinsel-yellow, and _vomissement de
la reine_.
The tall Quartermaster erected himself considerably in his shag, and
hummed loud enough in happy forgetfulness: "The Dickens!--Parson?"----
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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