tions for those unlucky ones who are not Original Geniuses,” belongs to the same category, as does also a “Most Gracious Despatch to the Moon.” There is also a list of different phrases for expressing the single fact that a man is tipsy—a hundred and three in high-German and fifty-five in low. Things like these follow one upon the other in a most amazing confusion, the whole interleaved with dedications, prefaces, circulars, supplements, first appendices, second appendices, notes, remarks, and proposals of various sorts. In this irresponsible role the author reminds one of a mischievous boy thoroughly enjoying himself.
In spite of their wit and dry humour, the majority of the above-mentioned pieces have acquired a slightly musty flavour with time, and it is consequently by his “Miscellaneous Reflections ”[1] that Lichtenberg is now chiefly popular. These form a posthumous work — a hotchpotch of aphorisms, thoughts, criticisms, witticisms, and the like. A certain semblance of order has been given them by their successive editors, but arbitrarily, as in the original notebooks all is pell-mell in Lichtenberg’s usual manner ; indeed, he himself, borrowing a commercial term from the English, used to call these
- ↑ The present translation is made from the Edition brought out in 1844 by Lichtenberg’s sons, and though their grouping under subject-headings is often capricious, I have thought it best to keep in general to their arrangement.
