XXIV
Why and in What Fashion Simplicissimus Left the World Again
The first part of the chapter is a fair translation, extending to many pages, of Quevara’s somewhat trite reflections on the vanity of a worldly life. It is taken from Albertini’s translation of a book called Of the Burden and Annoyance of a Courtier’s Life. 8vo Amberg, 1599. The only part of the chapter which concerns the story is as follows.
All these words I pondered carefully and with continual thought, and they so pierced my heart that I left the world again and became a hermit. Fain would I have dwelt by my spring in the Muckenloch, but the peasants that dwelt near would not suffer it, though it had been for me a wilderness to my taste; for they feared I should reveal the spring and so move their lord to force them to make highways and byways thither, especially now that peace was secured. So I betook myself to another wilderness and began again my old life in the Spessart; but whether I shall, like my father of blessed memory, persevere therein to the end, I know not. God grant us all His grace that we may all alike obtain from Him what doth concern us most, namely, a happy End.