Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/62

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RICHMOND 44 RICHTER of 1919: Professors and instructors, 20; students, 300; president, F. W. Boat- wright, LL. D. RICHMOND, GRACE S., an Ameri- can author, born at Pawtucket, R. I. She was educated at the Syracuse, N. Y., High School, and by private tutors. Besides many short stories contributed to maga- zines, she wrote "The Indifference of Ju- liet" (1905); "The Second Violin" (1906); "With Juliet in England" (1907) ; "Around the Corner in Gay Street" (1908) ; "On Christmas Day in the Morning" (1908) ; "A Court of In- quiry" (1909) ; "Red Pepper Burns" (1910); "Strawberry Acres" (1911); "Mrs. Red Pepper" (1913) ; "The Twenty- Fourth of June" (1914) ; "Under the Country Sky" (1916) ; "Red Pepper's Patients" (1917) ; "The Brown Study" (1917); and "Red and Black" (1919). RICHTER, JOHANN PAUL FRIED- RICH, known by his pen-name of Jean Paul, a German humorist; born in Wun- siedel, North Bavaria, March 21, 1763. He was brought up in the mountain vil- lages in which his father was pastor, JOHANN PAUL F. RICHTER went to school at the town of Hof, and in 1781 was sent to Leipsic University to study theology. But Rousseau and Vol- taire, Swift and Sterne, Pope and Young, had much stronger attractions for him, and he too resolved to write books He asserted his independence of custom by discarding the periwig, wore his hair long and his shirt and vest open at the throat. Being poor, he got into debt all round, and in November, 1784, fled se- cretly from Leipsic to the poverty-stricken home of his mother at Hof. His first writings were satires; but he could get no publisher to introduce them to the world, till in 1783 Voss of Berlin gave him 40 louis d'or for "The Greenland Lawsuits." The book was a failure. For three years Jean Paul struggled on at home, his mother spinning hard for bread. He read enormously and made excerpts from the books he devoured — a practice he kept up to old age. These many folios of closely-written pages were the storehouses on which he drew for materials when he came to write his ro- mances. He took long rambles among the hills and forests. In the beginning of 1787 he began to teach the children of different families in the district. Dur- ing his nine years of tutorship, he pro- duced among other things, the satirical "Extracts from the Devil's Papers" (1789), "Falbel's Journey" (1796), and "Freudel's Complaint" (1796), the last two among the best examples of his sa- tirico-humorous writings; the beautiful idylls "Dominie Wuz" (1793), "Quintus Fixlein" (1796; Eng. trans, by Carlyle, 1827), the "Parson's Jubilee" (1797), the first two perhaps the most finished things Jean Paul ever wrote ; the grand romances "The Invisible Lodge" (1793), "Hesperus" (1795; Eng. trans. 1865), and "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," or "Siebenkas" (1796-1797; Eng. trans, by Noel 1844 and 1871, by Ewing, 1877) ; "Companerthal" (1798; Eng. trans. 1857), a series of re- flections on the immortality of the soul, and the prose lyrical idyll, "My Pros- pective Autobiography" (1799). "The Invisible Lodge" was his first literary success; "Hesperus" made him famous. In 1796 Charlotte von Kalb, perhaps the most remarkable woman of her age in Germany, wrote to express her admira- tion of the book; and at her invitation, Jean Paul visited Weimar. There Goethe received him politely, but with cool re- serve; that, too, was Schiller's attitude, when Jean Paul went on to Jena to see him. The antagonism between them was deep and fundamental, and lasted till death. Herder and his wife, on the other hand, greeted the young romance-writer with overflowing admiration, and gave him their friendship, which also endured till death. As for Charlotte von Kalb; in spite of having a husband already, she exercised her sex's fabled privilege of leap-year and gave him unasked the love of her vehement heart. From this time for a, few years Jean Paul's life was rich in incident and full of excitement. He was the object of ex-