Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/193

 matter was this. He wished in the first place to have the murder-Sunday, the Cantata, behind him; not indeed because he doubted of his earthly continuance, but because he would not (even for the bride's sake) that the slightest apprehension should mingle with these weeks of glory.

The main reason was, he did not wish to marry till he were betrothed; which latter ceremony was appointed, with the Introduction Sermon, to take place next Sunday. It is the Cantata-Sunday. Let not the reader afflict himself with fears. Indeed, I should not have molested an enlightened century with this Sunday-Wauwau at all, were it not that I delineate with such extreme fidelity. Fixlein himself—especially as the Quartermaster asked him if he was a baby—at last grew so sensible that he saw the folly of it; nay, he went so far that he committed a greater folly. For as dreaming that you die signifies, according to the exegetic rule of false, nothing else than long life and welfare, so did Fixlein easily infer that his death-imagination was just such a lucky dream; the rather as it was precisely on this Cantata-Sunday that Fortune had turned up her cornucopia over him, and at once showered down out of it a bride, a presentation, and a roll of ducats. Thus can Superstition imp its wings, let Chance favor it or not.

A Secretary of State, a Peace-Treaty writer, a Notary, any such incarcerated Slave of the Desk, feels excellently well how far he is beneath a Parson composing his inaugural sermon. The latter (do but look at my Fixlein) lays himself heartily over the paper,—injects the venous system of his sermon-preparation with colored ink,—has a Text-Concordance on the right side, and a Song-Concordance on the left; is there digging out a marrowy sen-