Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/190



EIGHTH LETTER-BOX.

N the 15th of April, 1793, the reader may observe, far down in the hollow, three baggage-wagons groaning along. These baggage-wagons are transporting the house-gear of the new Parson to Hukelum; the proprietor himself, with a little escort of his parishioners, is marching at their side, that of his china sets and household furniture there may be nothing broken in the eighteenth century, as the whole came down to him unbroken from the seventeenth. Fixlein hears the School-bell ringing behind him; but this chime now sings to him, like a curfew, the songs of future rest; he is now escaped from the Death-valley of the Gymnasium, and admitted into the abodes of the Blessed. Here dwells no envy, no colleague, no Subrector; here, in the heavenly country, no man works in the New Universal German Library; here in the heavenly Hukelumic Jerusalem, they do nothing but sing praises in the church; and here the Perfected requires no more increase of knowledge..… Here, too, one needs not sorrow that Sunday and Saint's day so often fall together into one.

Truth to tell, the parson goes too far; but it was his way from of old never to paint out the whole and half