Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/99

 behind the pulpit-stairs the sacristy-cabin, and in this was there not a church-library of consequence—no school-boy could have buckled it wholly in his book-strap—lying under the minever cover of pastil dust? And did it not consist of the Polyglot in folio, which he, spurred on by Pfeiffer's Critica Sacra, had turned up leaf by leaf, in his early years, excerpting therefrom the literæ inversæ majusculæ minusculæ, and so forth, with an immensity of toil? And could he not at present, the sooner the more readily, have wished to cast this alphabetic soft-fodder into the Hebrew letter-trough, whereto your Oriental Rhizophagi (Rooteaters) are tied, especially as here they get so little vowel hard-fodder to keep them in heart?—Stood there not close by him the organ-stool, the throne to which, every Apostle-day, the Schoolmaster had by three nods elevated him, thence to fetch down the sacred hyssop, the sprinkler of the Church?

My readers themselves will gather spirits when they now hear that our Quintus, during the outshaking of the poor-bag, was invited by the Senior to come over in the afternoon; and to them it will be little less gratifying than if he had invited themselves. But what will they say, when they get home with him to mother and dinner-table, both already clad in their white Sunday dress; and behold the large cake which Fräulein Thiennette (Stephanie) has rolled from her peel? In the first place, however, they will wish to know who she is.

She is,—for if (according to Lessing), in the very excellence of the Iliad, we neglect the personalities of its author; the same thing will apply to the fate of several authors, for instance, to my own; but an authoress of cakes must not be forgotten in the excellence of her baking,—Thiennette is a poor, indigent, insolvent young lady; has