Autobiography

XV

I gave it exactly as I found it. However, the fact that I did not include the promotions Academic appointments or advancements in rank within the church or school system. recorded in Bebenhausen A former Cistercian monastery near Tübingen that served as a prominent Protestant cloister school where Andreä held office., especially in the final books; that I do not recount the changes regarding his scribes or the maids; and that I also made no mention of the lapdogs he received from Augsburg—for this, every reader will forgive me who wishes to get to know the man himself, rather than learn of every domestic incident. While I was unmerciful toward the two Bolognese dogs A breed of small lapdogs popular among the nobility and clergy in the 17th century., Little Heart and Lucky, I nevertheless allowed the courageous male pigeon (*) to keep its place, partly because the circumstance seemed curious from a natural history perspective, and partly to paint my hero’s weakness with a single stroke: namely, that he occasionally considered things concerning himself to be more interesting than they actually were. For I dare as little to declare him entirely free from a certain dose of vanity as I do from an attachment to some superstitious opinions of his age; likewise, an undeniable—and not always well-founded—sullenness and ill-humor in his final years is evident.

(*) P. 277.