In such rose-colored light does our Professor, as Poets are wont, look back
on his childhood; the historical details of which (to say nothing of much
other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on with an almost
wearisome minuteness. We hear of Entepfuhl standing "in trustful
derangement" among the woody slopes; the paternal Orchard flanking it as
extreme outpost from below; the little Kuhbach gushing kindly by, among
beech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, into the Black Sea,
into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how "the brave old Linden,"
stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all other
rows and clumps, towered up from the central _Agora_ and _Campus Martius_
of the Village, like its Sacred Tree; and how the old men sat talking under
its shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the wearied laborers
reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the young men and maidens
often danced to flute-music. "Glorious summer twilights," cries
Teufelsdrockh, "when the Sun, like a proud Conqueror and Imperial
Taskmaster, turned his back, with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his
fireclad bodyguard (of Prismatic Colors); and the tired brickmakers of this
clay Earth might steal a little frolic, and those few meek Stars would not
tell of them!"

Then we have long details of the _Weinlesen_ (Vintage), the Harvest-Home,
Christmas, and so forth; with a whole cycle of the Entepfuhl
Children's-games, differing apparently by mere superficial shades from
those of other countries. Concerning all which, we shall here, for obvious
reasons, say nothing. What cares the world for our as yet miniature
Philosopher's achievements under that "brave old Linden "? Or even where
is the use of such practical reflections as the following? "In all the
sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages and defacements,
you shall discern a creative instinct (_schaffenden Trieb_): the Mankin
feels that he is a born Man, that his vocation is to work. The choicest