spoke, in a
clear, ringing voice, words which to Wolfframb were incomprehensible.
On looking round the chamber, which was full of books and quantities of
extraordinary-looking apparatus, Wolfframb saw in one corner a little
old pallid mannikin, scarce three feet high, sitting upon a tall stool,
busied in writing down, as hard as he could, all that the master was
saying, on a leaf of parchment, with a silver pen. When this had been
going on for a considerable time, the master's glance fell upon
Wolfframb, and, stopping in his walk, he stood still in the centre of
the chamber. Wolfframb greeted him with pleasant verses, in a light
playful style, explaining that he was come to be edified by Klingsohr's
masterly skill and knowledge, and begging him to respond to him in a
similar vein, so as to display his powers. The master measured him from
head to foot with a wrathful glance, and said:

"'"Heyday! and who may you be, young sir, who have the impertinence to
come here, pitting yourself against me with your idiotic rhymes, as if
actually having the overweening presumption to challenge me to a
prize-singing? Ah! I see! you can be none other than Wolfframb of
Eschinbach, the most unfledged, ignorant laic of those who style
themselves masters of the singer's craft up on the Wartburg. No, no,
boy! You will have to grow a little ere you can hope to pit yourself
against me."

"'Wolfframb had not looked for a reception of this kind. His blood
boiled at Klingsohr's insulting words. He felt the power with which the
heavens had gifted him awaking within him more vividly than was usual.
He looked the master straight in the eyes, gravely and firmly, and
said:

"'"Master Klingsohr, you do not well in assuming this hard and bitter
tone, in place of answering me kindly and frankly, as I addressed you.
I know you are my superior in science, and probably also in the
singer's craft; but that does not justify you in these arrogant
vauntings, which you ought to think beneath you. I tell you to your
face, Master Klingsohr, that I now believe that, as the people say, you
have power over evil spirits, and intercourse with infernal beings,
through the unholy arts which you practise. It is because you can call
up dark spirits from the abyss that your mastership is so great. The
mind of man stands aghast at them, and it is the terror of them which
makes you prevail; not that profound love which streams forth from a
pure singer's soul into the he