but a piece of
vanity, the besetting sin of the artist who admires his own works,
however hideous they may be? Look you, this is the whole juggle,
wrapped up in a mystic veil to work on our fears. And shall I, too, be
fooled like an infant? Up then! and to thy work manfully. I will root
up from my path whatever obstructs my progress towards becoming the
master. Master I must be, that I may extort by force what I cannot win
by affection.*

*[This soliloquy in some parts resembles that of Richard, Duke of
Gloster, in Shakespeare's Henry VI., Act V. Sc. 6.]

[Exit.]

SCENE II.--A Tavern on the Frontier of Saxony.

CHARLES VON MOOR intent on a book; SPIEGELBERG drinking at the table.

CHARLES VON M. (lays the book aside). I am disgusted with this age of
puny scribblers when I read of great men in my Plutarch.

SPIEGEL. (places a glass before him, and drinks). Josephus is the book
you should read.

CHARLES VON M. The glowing spark of Prometheus is burnt out, and now
they substitute for it the flash of lycopodium,* a stage-fire which will
not so much as light a pipe. The present generation may be compared to
rats crawling about the club of Hercules.**

*[Lycopodium (in German Barlappen-mehl), vulgarly known as the
Devil's Puff-ball or Witchmeal, is used on the stage, as well in
England as on the continent, to produce flashes of fire. It is
made of the pollen of common club moss, or wolf's claw (Lycopodium
clavatum), the capsules of which contain a highly inflammable
powder. Translators have uniformly failed in rendering this
passage.]

**[This simile brings to mind Shakespeare's:
"We petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about."
JULIUS CAESAR, Act I., Sc. 2.]

A French abbe lays it down that Alexander was a poltroon; a phthisicky
professor, holding at every word a bottle of sal volatile to his nose,
lectures on strength. Fellows who faint at the veriest trifle criticise
the tactics of Hannibal; whimpering boys store themselves with phrases
out of the slaughter at Canna; and blubber over the victories of Scipio,
because they are obliged to construe them.

SPIEGEL. Spouted in true Alexandrian style.

CHARLES VON M. A brilliant reward for your sweat in the battle-field
truly to have your existence perpetuated in gymnasiums, and your
immortality laboriously dragged about in a schoolboy's satchel. A
precious