world than this,
which with all its _petites miseres_, is only too familiar to us?
Instead of that, village tales have now become fashionable, and all the
fuss, is made about them. Who can be interested in reading how Christen
seeks a wife and obtains now a well-kept farm, and now a neglected one?
And the principal point is always about a few hundred thalers more or
less; when they are obtained, the story ends. That--you must not be
offended by my frankness--is what seemed so strange to me in Werther:
narrow commonplace surroundings, ordinary, provincial people, and the
heroine--I will say nothing about the bread and butter--but has she a
lofty, noble soul? Does she love Werther or not? And if she does--but
you're smiling. I'm probably saying very stupid things. Teach me, if it
seems worth while. It's so tiresome always to think for one's self, in
doing which of course one is always right."

"My dear Fraeulein," said he, "I have hitherto had very little
inclination to disturb people who were in perfect harmony with
themselves, even if I felt differently. Why should they not have the
right to devote their attention solely to the beautiful and brilliant?
I only wish you might belong to the favored few, who during their whole
lives never see the wrong side of the world. He who has once become
familiar with it, is certainly interested in finding even amid the
narrow, commonplace limits of this miserable existence treasures and
blessings, which fill his heart and make his life lovely. But you--"

"You are very much mistaken," she gravely interrupted. "I have already
told you that I too know what it is to sit in the shadow and feel no
ray of warmth from the sun that illumines the fairy castles of others.
But it is for that very reason, that I do not wish to be reminded in
books of what I have already had a sufficient experience of in my life,
and found by no means amusing or poetical. And however it maybe with
outward cares, their charms and pleasures; the inward poverty, the
miserable, half developed, embittered, starved feelings, the oppression
beneath which human souls drag out such a painful existence--will you
assert that these also are fitting themes for the poet's art?"

He was just beginning to reply, with a sense of secret surprise at the
gloomy, dismal feeling underlying her words, when the striped waistcoat
appeared at the door of the dining room. The dwarf had evidently just
brushed his tow colored wig, fastened