FOOTNOTES:
[9] To explain this joke to the un-Germanized reader, it will be necessary to inform him that the title of Goethe's poem is "The Shepherd's Lament," wherein a shepherd, leaving his native hills, gives a lingering look up at the familiar mountain, and sings regretfully
"I have to the valley descended,
And how I cannot tell."
Herunter kommen, means also to decline, to fail, and upon this turns the joke.