Thereupon her husband regulated my hours: for I was to hear lectures on philosophy, the history of law, the Institutes, and some other matters. I was content with this; but I carried my point so as to attend Gellert's history of literature (with Stockhausen for a text-book), and his Practicum besides.
The reverence and love with which Gellert was regarded by all young people was extraordinary. I had already visited him, and had been kindly received by him. Not of tall stature, elegant without being lean, soft and rather pensive eyes, a very fine forehead, a nose aquiline, but not too much so, a delicate mouth, a face of an agreeable oval,—all made his presence pleasing and desirable. It cost some trouble to reach him His two Famuli appeared like priests who guard a sanctuary, the access to which is not permitted to everybody, nor at every time; and such a precaution was very necessary: for he would have sacrificed his whole time, had he been willing to receive and satisfy all those who wished to become intimate with him.
At first I attended my lectures assiduously and faithfully: but the philosophy would not enlighten me at all. In the logic it seemed strange to me that I had so to tear asunder, isolate, and, as it were, destroy those operations of the mind which I had performed with the greatest ease from my youth upwards, and this in order to see into the right use of them. Of the thing itself, of the world, and of God, I thought I knew about as much as the professor himself, and in more places than one the affair seemed to me to come into a tremendous strait. Yet all went on in tolerable order till towards Shrovetide, when, in the neighbourhood of Professor Winkler's house on the Thomas-place, the most delicious fritters came hot out of the pan just at the hour of lecture, and these delayed us so long, that our note-books became disordered, and the conclusion of them, towards spring, melted away, together with the snow, and was lost.
It was soon quite as bad with the law lectures: for I already knew just as much as the professor thought good to communicate to us. My stubborn industry in writing down the lectures at first, was paralyzed by degrees, for I found it excessively tedious to pen down once more that which, partly by question, partly by answer, I had repeated with my father often enough to retain it for ever in my memory. The harm which is done when young people at school are advanced too far in many things, was afterwards manifested still more when time and attention were diverted from exercises in the languages, and a foundation in what are, properly speaking, preparatory studies, in order to be applied to what are called "Realities," which dissipate more than they cultivate, if they are not methodically and thoroughly taught.
I here mention, by the way, another evil by which students are much embarrassed. Professors, as well as other men in office, cannot all be of the same age; but when the younger ones teach, in fact, only that they may learn, and moreover, it they have talent, anticipate their age, they acquire their own cultivation altogether at the cost of their hearers, since these are not instructed in what they really need, but in that which the professor finds it necessary to elaborate for himself. Among the oldest professors, on the contrary, many are for a long time stationary; they deliver on the whole only fixed views, and, in the details, much that time has already condemned as useless and false. Between the two arises a sad conflict, in which young minds are dragged hither and thither, and which can scarcely be set right by the middle-aged professors, who, though sufficiently instructed and cultivated, always feel within themselves an active endeavour after knowledge and reflection.
Now as in this way I learned to know much more than I could digest, whereby a constantly increasing uncomfortableness was forced upon me, so also from life I experienced many disagreeable trifles, as indeed one must always pay one's footing when one changes one's place and comes into a new position. The first thing that the ladies blamed in me related to my dress; for I had come from home to the university rather oddly equipped.
Domestic Tailoring.
My father, who detested nothing so much as when something happened in vain, when any one did not know how to make use of his time, or found no opportunity for turning it to account, carried his economy of time and abilities so far, that nothing gave him greater pleasure than to kill two birds with one stone.[2] He had therefore never engaged a servant who could not be useful to the house in something else. Now, as he had always written everything with his own hand, and had, latterly, the convenience of dictating to the young inmate of the house, he found it most advantageous to have tailors for his domestics, who were obliged to make good use of their time, as they not only had to make their own liveries, but the clothes for my father and the children, besides doing all the mending. My father himself took pains to have the best cloths and stuffs, by getting fine wares of the foreign merchants at the fair, and laying them up in store. I still remember well that he always visited the Herrn von Löwenicht, of Aix-la-Chapelle, and from my earliest youth made me acquainted with these and other eminent merchants.
Care was also taken for the fitness of the stuff, and there was a plentiful stock of different kinds of cloth, serge, and Götting stuff, besides the requisite lining, so that, as far as the materials were concerned, we might well venture to be seen. But the form spoiled almost everything. For if one of our home-tailors was anything of a clever hand at sewing and making up a coat which had been cut out for him in masterly fashion, he was now obliged also to cut out the dress for himself, which did not always succeed to perfection. In addition to this my father kept whatever belonged to his clothing in very good and neat order, and preserved more than used it for many years. Thus he had a predilection for certain old cuts and trimmings, by which our dress sometimes acquired a strange appearance.
In this same way had the wardrobe which I took with me to the university been furnished: it was very complete and handsome, and there was even a laced suit amongst the rest. Already accustomed to this kind of attire, I thought myself sufficiently well dressed; but it was not long before my female friends, first by gentle raillery, then by sensible remonstrances, convinced me that I looked as if I had dropped down out of another world. Much as I felt vexed at this, I did not at first see how I could help myself. But when Herr von Masuren, the favourite poetical country squire, once entered the theatre in a similar costume, and was heartily laughed at, more by reason of his external than his internal absurdity, I took courage, and ventured at once to exchange my whole wardrobe for a new-fashioned one, suited to the place, by which, however, it shrunk considerably.