kindness, Cyprian, to add a
miraculous circumstance or two to your account of Serapion's death,
just to enrich the conclusion of it a little."

"When I was leaving the hut," said Cyprian, "the tame deer, which I
told you about, came up to me with great tears in its eyes, and the
wild doves hovered about me with anxious cries; and as I was
approaching the village, to give information of his death, I met some
peasants coming with a bier, all ready, who said that when they had
heard the hermit's bell tolling at an unusual time they had known that
the holy man had laid himself down to die, or was dead already. That is
all, dear Lothair, that I have to serve up by way of a subject for your
banter."

"Banter, do you say?" cried Lothair, rising. "What do you take me for,
O my Cyprianus? Am I not, like Brutus, an honourable man; just and
upright; a lover of the truth? Don't I enthusi-ize with the
enthusiasts, and phantazize with the phantazizers? Do I not rejoice
with them that do rejoice, and weep with those that weep? Just look
here, my Cyprianus! Look once again at this book, this literary
production here, crammed with incontrovertible facts, this most
excellent specimen of the common, every-day household almanac. At the
date '14th November' you find, it is true, the commonplace, every-day
name 'Levin.' But cast your eyes upon this 'catholic' column here.
There stands, in red letters,

"'SERAPION, MARTYR.'

"Consequently, your Serapion died on the very name-day of the Saint whom
he took himself to be! Come; I drink this cup to the memory of
Serapion, saint and martyr, and do you all do likewise!"

"'With all my heart!' said Cyprian, and the glasses clinked.

"Looking at the subject all round," said Lothair, "and especially now
that Theodore has so thoroughly stirred my bile with that horrible
Krespel of his, I am quite reconciled to Cyprian's Serapion. More than
that, I honour and reverence his insanity; for none but a grand and
genuine poet could have been attacked by a madness of that particular
form. I needn't advert to the circumstance--it's an old, well-worn
story--that, originally, the same word was used to denote the poet and
the seer; but it is certain that we might often doubt just as much of
the existence of real poets as of that of genuine seers, recounting in
their _extasis_ the wonders of a higher realm; or else why is it that
so much poetry, by no means to be termed 'bad' (so fa