9. In any national calamity the ancient Egyptians took revenge on the god Typhon, whom they blamed for it, by hurling his favorites, the Asses, down over rocks. In similar wise have countries of a different religion now and then taken their revenge.
As more than one person now felt inclined to sleep, but I, on the contrary, as was proper, to wake, I freely offered my seat of honor, the front place in the coach (meaning thereby to abolish many little flaws of envy in my fellow-passengers), to such persons as wished to take a nap thereon. The Legation's man accepted the offer with eagerness, and soon fell asleep there sitting, under the Titan.[[74]] To me this sort of coach-sleeping of a diplomatic charge d'affaires remained a thing incomprehensible. A man, that in the middle of a stranger and often barbarously-minded company permits himself to slumber, may easily, supposing him to talk in his sleep and coach, (think of the Saxon minister[[75]] before the Seven Years' War!) blab out a thousand secrets, and crimes, some of which, perhaps, he has not committed. Should not every minister, ambassador, or other man of honor and rank, really shudder at the thought of insanity or violent fevers; seeing no mortal can be his surety that he shall not in such cases publish the greatest scandals, of which, it may be, the half are lies?
70. Let Poetry veil itself in Philosophy, but only as the latter does in the former. Philosophy in poetized Prose resembles those tavern drinking-glasses, encircled with party-colored wreaths of figures, which disturb your enjoyment both of the drink, and (often awkwardly eclipsing and covering each other) of the carving also.
At last, after the long July night, we passengers, together with Aurora, arrived in the precincts of Flätz. I looked with a sharp yet moistened eye at the steeples. I believe, every man who has anything decisive to seek in a town, and to whom it is either to be a judgment-seat of his hopes, or their anchoring-station, either a battle-field or a sugar-field, first and longest directs his eye on the steeples of the town, as upon the indexes and balance-tongues of his future destiny; these artificial peaks, which, like natural ones, are the thrones of our Future. As I happened to express myself on this point perhaps too poetically to Jean Pierre, he answered with sufficient want of taste: "The steeples of such towns are indeed the Swiss Alpine peaks, on which we milk and manufacture the Swiss cheese of our Future." Did the Legations-Peter mean with this style to make me ridiculous, or only himself? Determine!
"Here is the place, the town," said I in secret, "where to-day much and for many years is to be determined, where thou this evening, about five o'clock, art to present thy petition and thyself. May it prosper! May it be successful! Let Flätz, this arena of thy little efforts among the rest, become a building-space for fair castles and air-castles to two hearts, thy own and thy Berga's!"
At the Tiger Inn I alighted.
No mortal in my situation at this Tiger-hotel would have triumphed much in his more immediate prospects. I, as the only man known to me, especially in the way of love (of the runaway Dragoon anon!), looked out from the windows of the overflowing Inn, and down on the rushing sea of marketers, and very soon began to reflect, that, except Heaven and the rascals and murderers, none knew how many of the latter two classes were floating among the tide; purposing, perhaps, to lay hold of the most innocent strangers, and in part cut their purses, in part their throats. My situation had a special circumstance against it. My brother-in-law, who still comes plump out with everything, had mentioned that I was to put up at the Tiger. O Heaven! when will such people learn to be secret, and to cover even the meanest pettinesses of life under mantles and veils, were it only that a silly mouse may as often give birth to a mountain as a mountain to a mouse! The whole rabble of the stagecoach stopped at the Tiger; the Harlot, the Rat-catcher, Jean Pierre, the Giant, who had dismounted at the Gate of the town, and carrying the huge block-head of the Dwarf on his shoulders as his own (cloaking over the deception by his cloak), had thus, like a ninny, exhibited himself gratis by half a dwarf more gigantic than he could be seen for money.
158. Governments should not too often change the penny-trumps and child's drums of the Poets for the regimental trumpet and fire-drum; on the other hand, good subjects should regard many a princely drum-tendency simply as a disease, in which the patient, by air insinuating under the skin, has got dreadfully swoln.
And now for each of the Passengers, the question was how he could make the Tiger, the heraldic emblem of the Inn, his prototype; and so what lamb he might suck the blood of, and tear in pieces, and devour. My brother-in-law too left me, having gone in quest of some horse-dealer; but he retained the chamber next mine for his sister; this, it appeared, was to denote attention on his part. I remained solitary, left to my own intrepidity and force of purpose.