Va. I joking? Cursed be any joke that enters my mind! Da. I shall be the better pleased if you will talk seriously. What I say to you is, the paper with the motto Unum est necessarium Enter CHRYSANDER. Chrys. (with a newspaper in his hand). Well, is it not so, Herr Valer? My son is not to be dissuaded from the marriage. Don't you see that it is not so much I, as he, who is bent on this marriage? Da. I! I bent on the marriage? Da. What does "Hist, hist!" mean? My honor suffers in this. Might not people think that I cared who knows how much for a wife? Chrys. Hist, hist! Va. Oh, pray don't stand upon ceremony! I see it well enough. You are both against me. What ill-fortune it is which brought me into this house! I meet an agreeable woman, I please her, and yet in the end I must relinquish all my hopes. Damis, if I ever had any right to your friendship Da. But isn't it so, Valer? For one thing one must complain of the Berlin Academy. Just think, in future the subjects for the prize essays will be made known two years previously. Why two years? Wasn't one enough? Are the Germans so slow? I have been sending in my treatise every year, but, without boasting, I have never worked at it more than a week. Chrys. But do you know, you good people, what has oсcurred in the Netherlands? I have the very latest newspaper here. They have come to blows pretty smartly. I really am quite angry with the allies. Haven't they made a strange business of it again? An. Now, there they are, all three talking about different things. The one talks of love, another of his treatises, and the third of war. If I, too, am to talk about anything special, it shall be about supper. To fast from midday till six o'clock in the afternoon is no joke. Va. Unhappy love! Da. That blundering Academy! Chrys. Those stupid allies! An. The fourth voice is still wanting: that dawdling cook! Enter LISETTE. Lis. Well, Herr Chrysander, I thought you were gone to call the gentlemen to supper, but I see you want to be called yourself. Supper is already on the table. An. It was high time. Heaven be praised! Chrys. Quite true, quite true; I had almost forgotten it altogether. The newsman stopped me on the stairs. Come, Herr Valer; we will consider the present state of the country together over a glass of something. Put Juliane out of your head. And you, my son, may chat with your bride. You will have a capital wife; not such a Xantippe as Da. Xantippe? How do you mean? Are you, too, still under the popular delusion that Xantippe was a bad wife? Chrys. Do you mean to consider her a good one, then? You surely are not going to defend Xantippe? Pshaw! That is a childish mistake. I believe the more you scholars learn, the more you forget. Da. I maintain, however, that you cannot produce a single valid piece of evidence for your view. That is the first thing which makes the whole matter suspicious, and for the rest Lis. This everlasting palaver! Chrys. Lisette is right. My son, contra principia negantem non est disputandum. Come to supper! -"The Young Scholar." Erich Raspe The Lion and the Crocodile We sailed from Amsterdam with despatches from their High Mightinesses the States of Holland. The only circumstance which happened on our voyage worth relating was the wonderful effects of a storm, which had torn up by the roots a great number of trees of enormous bulk and height in an island where we lay at anchor to take in wood and water. Some of these trees weighed many tons, yet they were carried by the wind so amazingly high that they appeared like the feathers of small birds floating in the air, for they were at least five miles above the earth. However, as soon as the storm subsided they all fell perpendicularly into their respective places, and took root again, except the largest, which happened, when it was blown into the air, to have a man and his wife, a very honest old couple, upon its branches, gathering cucumbers. In this part of the globe that useful vegetable grows upon trees. The weight of this couple, as the tree descended, overbalanced the trunk, and brought it down in a horizontal position; it fell upon the chief man of the island, and killed him on the spot. He had quitted his house in the storm, under an apprehension of its falling upon him, and was returning through his own garden when this fortunate accident happened. The word fortunate, here, requires some explanation. The chief was a man of very avaricious and oppressive disposition, and though he had no family, the natives of the island were half starved by his oppressive and infamous impositions. The very goods which he had thus taken from them were spoiling in his stores, while the poor wretches from whom they were plundered were pining in poverty. Though the destruction of this tyrant was accidental, the people chose the cucumber-gatherers for their governors, as a mark of their gratitude for destroying, though accidentally, their late tyrant. After we had repaired the damages we sustained in this remarkable storm, and taken leave of the new governor and his lady, we sailed with a fair wind for our destination. In about six weeks we arrived at Ceylon, where we were received with great marks of friendship and true politeness. After we had resided there about a fortnight, I accompanied one of the governor's brothers upon a shooting party. He was a strong, athletic man, and being used to that climate (for he had resided there some years), he bore the violent heat of the sun much better than I could. In our excursion he had made considerable progress through a thick wood, when I was only at the entrance. Near the bank of a large piece of water I thought I heard a rustling noise behind me. On turning about, I was almost petrified (as who would not be?) at the sight of a lion, which was evidently approaching with the intention of satisfying his appetite with my poor carcass, and that without asking my consent. What was to be done in this horrible dilemma? I had not even a moment for reflection; my gun was only charged with swan-shot, and I had no other about me. However, though I could have no chance of killing such an animal with that weak kind of ammunition, yet I |