e do"), this ostentation must flourish
on the stage preeminently, and consequently that the special care of the
management must be for "the color of the beard with which a part is
played" and for the truthfulness of the costumes which are designed by
sworn historians and sewed by scientifically instructed tailors. And
this is indispensable. For if Maria Stuart wore an apron belonging to
the time of Queen Anne, the banker, Christian Gumpel, would with justice
complain that thereby all illusion was destroyed; and if Lord Burleigh
in a moment of forgetfulness should don the hose of Henry the Fourth,
then the War-Councilor Von Steinzopf's wife, _nee_ Lilienthau, would not
get the anachronism out of her head for the whole evening.... But little
as this young man had comprehended the conditions of the Berlin drama,
still less was he aware that the Spontini Janissary opera, with its
kettledrums, elephants, trumpets, and gongs, is a heroic means of
inspiring our enervated people with warlike enthusiasm--a means once
shrewdly recommended by Plato and Cicero. Least of all did the youth
comprehend the diplomatic significance of the ballet. It was with great
trouble that I finally made him understand that there was really more
political science in Hoguet's feet than in Buchholz's head, that all his
_tours de danse_ signified diplomatic negotiations, and that his every
movement hinted at state matters; as, for instance, when he bent forward
anxiously, stretching his hands out wide and grasping at the air, he
meant our Cabinet; that a hundred pirouettes on one toe without quitting
the spot alluded to the German Diet; that he was thinking of the lesser
princes when he tripped around with his legs tied; that he described the
European balance of power when he tottered hither and thither like a
drunken man; that he hinted at a Congress when he twisted his bended
arms together like a skein; and finally, that he sets forth our
altogether too great friend in the East, when, very gradually unfolding
himself, he rises on high, stands for a long time in this elevated
position, and then all at once breaks out into the most terrifying
leaps. The scales fell from the eyes of the young man, and he now saw
how it was that dancers are better paid than great poets, and why the
ballet forms in diplomatic circles an inexhaustible subject of
conversation. By Apis! how great is the number of the esoteric, and how
small the array of the esoteric frequenters