Chap. 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