SCHMELZLE'S JOURNEY TO FLÆETZ
Circular Letter of the proposed Catechetical Professor Attila Schmelzle to his Friends; containing some Account of a Holidays' Journey to Flätz, with an Introduction, touching his Flight, and his Courage as former Army-chaplain.
Nothing can be more ludicrous, my esteemed Friends, than to hear people stigmatising a man as cowardly and hare-hearted, who perhaps is struggling all the while with precisely the opposite faults, those of a lion; though indeed the African lion himself, since the time of Sparrmann's Travels, passes among us for a poltroon. Yet this case is mine, worthy Friends; and I purpose to say a few words thereupon, before describing my Journey.
You in truth are all aware that, directly in the teeth of this calumny, it is courage, it is desperadoes (provided they be not braggarts and tumultuous persons), whom I chiefly venerate; for example, my brother-in-law, the Dragoon, who never in his life bastinadoed one man, but always a whole social circle at the same time. How truculent was my fancy, even in childhood, when I, as the parson was toning away to the silent congregation, used to take it into my head: "How now, if thou shouldst start up from the pew, and shout aloud; I am here too, Mr. Parson!" and to paint out this thought in such glowing colours, that for very dread, I have often been obliged to leave the church! Anything
103. Good princes easily obtain good subjects; not so easily good subjects good princes: thus Adam, in the state of innocence, ruled over animals all tame and gentle, till simply through his means they fell and grew savage.
5. For a good Physician saves, if not always from the disease, at least from a bad Physician.
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