CAREERS
Anyone who wants to lead an upstanding life in this world needs a career. You can’t just work your way along. Work has to have a particular character and a goal it is aiming toward. To reach that goal, you choose a profession. This happens when a person leaves school, at which point that person is an adult, or in other words, now he has another school he has to attend: life. Life is a strict schoolmaster, they tell you, and it must be true if it is such a universal opinion. We can choose whatever we want as our profession, and anywhere we can’t do that, it is an injustice. There are all kinds of jobs I’d like. That makes it hard to choose one. I think the best thing to do would be take up some profession or another, maybe the first one that comes along, try it out, and, when I’ve had enough of it, toss it aside. For is it even possible to know how things will look from inside a given job? It seems to me that you have to live it first. Inexperienced minds, like ours, cannot be faced with a choice without making spectacular fools of themselves. It’s really something for parents to do, choosing a career for you. They know what’s right for you better than anyone. And if something other than what they’ve decided on for our lives turns out to suit us better, there’s always time to change saddles later. You don’t sink to the level of a saddler. No, it is rarely unfair to us, whatever they do. — Well, I’d like to be captain of a ship. But I wonder if my parents would agree. They love me very much and they would be worried about me if they knew I was exposed to the ocean’s storms. The best thing to do would naturally be to run away in secret — at night, out through the window, down a rope, and goodbye forever. But no! I don’t have the courage to trick my parents, and who knows if I even have what it takes to be a ship’s captain. I don’t want to be a locksmith, a joiner, or a carpenter. Such manual labor is not suited to an essayist of my caliber. A bookbinder would be nice, but my parents would not allow it, since I know they think I’m much too good for that. As long as they don’t make me go to university, I would go crazy there. I have no desire to be a doctor, no talent to be a pastor, no stick-to-itiveness to be a lawyer or a teacher… I’d rather die. Our teachers, in any case, are all unhappy, you can tell just by looking at them. I’d like to be a forest ranger. I would build myself a little house overgrown with ivy at the edge of the forest and wander around in the forest all day until late at night. Maybe that would start to seem boring to me too eventually and I would long for the big fancy cities. As a poet I would want to live in Paris, as a musician in Berlin, as a businessman nowhere. Just stick me in an office and see what happens. Well there’s one other thing I have in my souclass="underline" It would be great to join the circus. A famous tightrope walker, sparklers on my back, the stars above me, an abyss to either side, and just a slender, delicate path to walk before me. — A clown? I do feel that I have some talent for joking around. But my parents would be hurt if they knew I was onstage with a long nose painted red and flour sprinkled on my cheeks and wearing a wide, ridiculous suit. — Well, then what? Stay home and whine? Not that, never. One thing for sure, I’m not worried about finding a career. There are so many of them.
THE FATHERLAND
Our form of government is a republic. We are allowed to do whatever we want. We can act as free and easy as we feel like. We don’t have to account for our behavior to anyone but ourselves, and that is our pride. Our honor, though, is the limits we place on our actions. Other countries stare in wonder at us, amazed that we can govern ourselves with nothing but our own power. We are not subject to anyone or anything except our own judgment and our upright character, whose orders and guidance we are happy to receive. We have no place for king or kaiser. The streets of our cities were not built for princely processions to march through, our houses are no pigsties but not palaces either. Our churches have no pomp and splendor and our city halls are simple and proud. Our mentality is like our homes, simple and prosperous; our hearts are like our landscapes: rough, but not infertile. We carry ourselves like members of a republic, citizens, warriors, human beings. The subjects in other countries often look like house pets. I don’t mean that freedom and pride are not native to other peoples as well, but with us they are inborn. Our forefathers, the brave confederators, bequeathed us their mentality, and it would be tragic if we were anything other than true to their magnificent gift. I feel a sacred serious feeling when I write these words. I am an ardent believer in the Republic. Young as I am, I already want to eagerly serve my fatherland. I am writing this essay with trembling fingers. I only hope that it will please the fatherland to claim my services and abilities soon. But I forget that I am still a boy in grade A-2. How I long to escape from this stifling youth and enter into public life with its great demands, tempests, ideas, and actions. I lie here as though in chains. I feel like a mature, intelligent adult, and then I look in the mirror and what I see stuns me with its youth and insignificance. Oh, if I ever make it that far, I will serve my fatherland with the most sacred fervor, and take pride in being permitted to serve it, and not get tired from whatever tasks it sees fit to assign me. It needs my abilities — my whole life. Why else did my parents give me it (life)? You are not really alive if you’re not living for something, and what other good is it nobler and more glorious to fight and live for than the good of the homeland? I am glad I still have such a wonderful life ahead of me. The fatherland is large, but to be able to do my part to help make it even larger will be my pride, my life, my desire, my honor. Oh, I have boundless aspirations, all the more so since I know that this kind of ambition is not a shameful, ignoble urge. It is still possible to be a hero, even today. Heroism looks different now, that’s all. When it comes to the greatness, fame, and advancement of the fatherland, it is no superfluous thing to be a hero, a sacrificer. Oh, but I still a schoolboy in grade A-2.
MY MOUNTAIN
It gets its name, Bözingenberg, from the village that lies at its southwestern foot. It is high but you can still climb it easily. We climb it a lot, my classmates and I, because the best places to play are up there. It is wide, probably an hour, no, much wider than that. I actually have no idea since I have never measured its whole width. It would take me too far out of my way. When you see it from another mountain, sitting there in all its height and width, it looks like a sleeping magician. Its form has the shape of an elephant’s head. I don’t know if that’s exactly right. In any case, since it’s only a beautiful mountain, it doesn’t really make any difference what it looks like. And it is the best mountain, with the best view. From the top you can see three white lakes, lots of other mountains, plains in three directions, cities and villages, forests, and all of it so beautiful down in the distant valleys, as though spread out just for you to look at. From up there, studying geography and lots of other things too is a pleasure. But for us the most beautiful things are the mighty beech trees on the mountainside. In spring their leaves are a wonderfully bright and wet green, almost fresh enough to eat. Frisky brown horses leap around in its meadows. You can walk right up close to them without being afraid. You just have to trust horses. There are goats and cows, too, but they’re not as exciting. A classmate of mine once grabbed a cow by the tail and it dragged him halfway down the mountain. We were scared for him, but still we had to laugh. When we play we often get into arguments, sometimes even fights. I like the latter more than the former. I hate arguments but it’s fun and exciting to hit. I like to feel hot with my blood pumping. Sometimes our game degenerates into a crazy battle. A battle is tremendous, and the hero in a battle is even more splendid. Of course you’re mad afterward, there’s anger, hate, enmity. But at least those are all clear feelings. Nothing is drier than dryness and there’s nothing more important to me than being dry and aloof. If there’s hate in the air I like to be the mediator and calm everybody down. I can play that role too. Playing shouldn’t get out of control and degenerate into fistfights. There, now I’ve said the right thing, even though I myself am a first-class giver and receiver of punches when it comes to that. Well, let’s move on. It’s easier to give fine warnings (to give yourself fine warnings) than it is to avoid being bad and sinning in the given moment. Everything at its proper time. So, fighting and throwing stones at its, and good intentions at its. It’s important to know every side. But I’ve almost forgotten about my mountain. I have spent so many beautiful mornings, evenings, and even nights on it that it’s hard for me to picture and put down on paper one single time. Once I spent an evening up there. I was lying in the grass by myself under century-old fir trees and dreaming. The sun cast its glow down on me and on the meadow. Bells and railroad noises rose up from the lowlands. I felt like I was far, far away from the whole world. I didn’t look at anything, I just let myself be looked at. At least that’s what a squirrel did for a long time. It peeked down at me scared and confused. I let it do what it wanted. Shrewmice were jumping from rock to rock, the sun went down, and the meadow glowed in the dark, transparent shadows. Oh, the longing I felt in my heart. If only I knew what for.