Such a filling-up of biblical characters and events given only in outline, was no longer strange to the Germans. The personages of both the Old and New Testaments had received through Klopstock a tender and affectionate nature, highly pleasing to the boy, as well as to many of his contemporaries. Of Bodmer's efforts in this line, little or nothing came to him; but "Daniel in the Lion's Den," by Moser, made a great impression on the young heart. In that work, a right-minded man of business, and courtier, arrives at high honors through manifold tribulations; and the piety for which they threatened to destroy him became, early and late, his sword and buckler. It had long seemed to me desirable to work out the history of Joseph; but I could not get on with the form, particularly as I was conversant with no kind of versification which would have been adapted to such a work. But now I found a treatment of it in prose very suitable, and I applied all my strength to its execution. I now endeavored to discriminate and paint the characters, and, by the interpolation of incidents and episodes, to make the old simple history a new and independent work. I did not consider, what, indeed, youth cannot consider, that subject-matter was necessary to such a design, and that this could only arise by the perceptions of experience. Suffice it to say, that I represented to myself all the incidents down to the minutest details, and narrated them accurately to myself in their succession.
What greatly lightened this labor was a circumstance which threatened to render this work, and my authorship in general, exceedingly voluminous. A well-gifted young man, who, however, had become imbecile from over- exertion and conceit, resided as a ward in my father's house, lived quietly with the family, and, if allowed to go on in his usual way, was contented and agreeable. He had, with great care, written out notes of his academical course, and acquired a rapid, legible hand. He liked to employ himself in writing better than in any thing else, and was pleased when something was given him to copy; but still more when he was dictated to, because he then felt carried back to his happy academical years. To my father, who was not expeditious in writing, and whose German letters were small and tremulous, nothing could be more desirable; and he was consequently accustomed, in the conduct of his own and other business, to dictate for some hours a day to this young man. I found it no less convenient, during the intervals, to see all that passed through my head fixed upon paper by the hand of another; and my natural gift of feeling and imitation grew with the facility of catching up and preserving.
As yet, I had not undertaken any work so large as that biblical prose- epic. The times were tolerably quiet, and nothing recalled my imagination from Palestine and Egypt. Thus my manuscripts swelled more and more every day, as the poem, which I recited to myself, as it were, in the air, stretched along the paper; and only a few pages from time to time needed to be re-written.
When the work was done,—for, to my own astonishment, it really came to an end,—I reflected, that from former years many poems were extant, which did not even now appear to me utterly despicable, and which, if written together in the same size with "Joseph," would make a very neat quarto, to which the title "Miscellaneous Poems" might be given. I was pleased with this, as it gave me an opportunity of quietly imitating well-known and celebrated authors. I had composed a good number of so- called Anacreontic poems, which, on account of the convenience of the metre, and the lightness of the subject, flowed forth readily enough. But these I could not well take, as they were not in rhyme; and my desire before all things was to show my father something that would please him. So much the more, therefore, did the spiritual odes seem suitable, which I had very zealously attempted in imitation of the "Last Judgment" of Elias Schlegel. One of these, written to celebrate the descent of Christ into hell, received much applause from my parents and friends, and had the good fortune to please myself for some years afterwards. The so-called texts of the Sunday church-music, which were always to be had printed, I studied with diligence. They were, indeed, very weak; and I could well believe that my verses, of which I had composed many in the prescribed manner, were equally worthy of being set to music, and performed for the edification of the congregation. These, and many like them, I had for more than a year before copied with my own hand; because through this private exercise I was released from the copies of the writing-master. Now all were corrected and put in order, and no great persuasion was needed to have them neatly copied by the young man who was so fond of writing. I hastened with them to the book- binder: and when, very soon after, I handed the nice-looking volume to my father, he encouraged me with peculiar satisfaction to furnish a similar quarto every year; which he did with the greater conviction, as I had produced the whole in my spare moments alone.
Another circumstance increased my tendency to these theological, or, rather, biblical, studies. The senior of the ministry, John Philip Fresenius, a mild man, of handsome, agreeable appearance, who was respected by his congregation and the whole city as an exemplary pastor and good preacher, but who, because he stood forth against the Herrnhüters, was not in the best odor with the peculiarly pious; while, on the other hand, he had made himself famous, and almost sacred, with the multitude, by the conversion of a free-thinking general who had been mortally wounded,—this man died; and his successor, Plitt, a tall, handsome, dignified man, who brought from his /chair/ (he had been a professor in Marburg) the gift of teaching rather than of edifying, immediately announced a sort of religious course, to which his sermons were to be devoted in a certain methodical connection. I had already, as I was compelled to go to church, remarked the distribution of the subject, and could now and then show myself off by a pretty complete recitation of a sermon. But now, as much was said in the congregation, both for and against the new senior, and many placed no great confidence in his announced didactic sermons, I undertook to write them out more carefully; and I succeeded the better from having made smaller attempts in a seat very convenient for hearing, but concealed from sight. I was extremely attentive and on the alert: the moment he said Amen, I hastened from church, and spent a couple of hours in rapidly dictating what I had fixed in my memory and on paper, so that I could hand in the written sermon before dinner. My father was very proud of this success; and the good friend of the family, who had just come in to dinner, also shared in the joy. Indeed, this friend was very well disposed towards me, because I had made his "Messiah" so much my own, that in my repeated visits, paid to him with a view of getting impressions of seals for my collection of coats-of-arms, I could recite long passages from it till the tears stood in his eyes.
The next Sunday I prosecuted the work with equal zeal; and, as the mechanical part of it mainly interested me, I did not reflect upon what I wrote and preserved. During the first quarter these efforts may have continued pretty much the same; but as I fancied at last, in my self- conceit, that I found no particular enlightenment as to the Bible, nor clearer insight into dogmas, the small vanity which was thus gratified seemed to me too dearly purchased for me to pursue the matter with the same zeal. The sermons, once so many-leaved, grew more and more lean: and before long I should have relinquished this labor altogether, if my father, who was a fast friend to completeness, had not, by words and promises, induced me to persevere till the last Sunday in Trinity; though, at the conclusion, scarcely more than the text, the statement, and the divisions were scribbled on little pieces of paper.
My father was particularly pertinacious on this point of completeness. What was once undertaken had to be finished, even if the inconvenience, tedium, vexation, nay, uselessness, of the thing begun were plainly manifested in the mean time. It seemed as if he regarded completeness as the only end, and perseverance as the only virtue. If in our family circle, in the long winter evenings, we had begun to read a book aloud, we were compelled to finish, though we were all in despair about it, and my father himself was the first to yawn. I still remember such a winter, when we had thus to work our way through Bower's "History of the Popes." It was a terrible time, as little or nothing that occurs in ecclesiastical affairs can interest children and young people. Still, with all my inattention and repugnance, so much of that reading remained in my mind that I was able, in after times, to take up many threads of the narrative.
Amid all these heterogeneous occupations and labors, which followed each other so rapidly that one could hardly reflect whether they were permissible and useful, my father did not lose sight of the main object. He endeavored to direct my memory and my talent for apprehending and combining to objects of jurisprudence, and therefore gave me a small book by Hopp, in the shape of a catechism, and worked up according to the form and substance of the institutions. I soon learned questions and answers by heart, and could represent the catechist as well as the catechumen; and, as in religious instruction at that time, one of the chief exercises was to find passages in the Bible as readily as possible; so here a similar acquaintance with the "Corpus Juris" was found necessary, in which, also, I soon became completely versed. My father wished me to go on, and the little "Struve" was taken in hand; but here affairs did not proceed so rapidly. The form of the work was not so favorable for beginners, that they could help themselves on; nor was my father's method of illustration so liberal as greatly to interest me.
Not only by the warlike state in which we lived for some years, but also by civil life itself, and the perusal of history and romances, was it made clear to me that there were many cases in which the laws are silent, and give no help to the individual, who must then see how to get out of the difficulty by himself. We had now reached the period when, according to the old routine, we were to learn, besides other things, fencing and riding, that we might guard our skins upon occasion, and present no pedantic appearance on horseback. As to the first, the practice was very agreeable to us; for we had already, long ago, contrived to make broad-swords out of hazel-sticks, with basket-hilts neatly woven of willow, to protect the hands. Now we might get real steel blades, and the clash we made with them was very merry.
There were two fencing-masters in the city: an old, earnest German, who went to work in a severe and solid style; and a Frenchman, who sought to gain his advantage by advancing and retreating, and by light, fugitive thrusts, which he always accompanied by cries. Opinions varied as to whose manner was the best. The little company with which I was to take lessons sided with the Frenchman; and we speedily accustomed ourselves to move backwards and forwards, make passes and recover, always breaking out into the usual exclamations. But several of our acquaintance had gone to the German teacher, and practised precisely the opposite. These distinct modes of treating so important an exercise, the conviction of each that his master was the best, really caused a dissension among the young people, who were of about the same age: and the fencing-schools occasioned serious battles, for there was almost as much fighting with words as with swords; and, to decide the matter in the end, a trial of skill between the two teachers was arranged, the consequences of which I need not circumstantially describe. The German stood in his position like a wall, watched his opportunity, and contrived to disarm his opponent over and over again with his cut and thrust. The latter maintained that this mattered not, and proceeded to exhaust the other's wind by his agility. He fetched the German several lunges too, which, however, if they had been in earnest, would have sent him into the next world.