l
the fantastic matter which we have so long been going on spinning and
accumulating might have a considerable tendency to induce confusion of
head, if not headache and feverishness."

"We should all do the best we can," said Theodore. "But let no one deem
that his own particular qualities and powers constitute the norm of
what the human understanding is to have laid before it. For there are
people--good sensible folks enough in other respects--who are so easily
made giddy in their heads that they think the rapid flight of an
awakened imagination is the result of an unsound condition of mind. So
that such people say, of this or the other writer, that he only writes
when he is under the influence of intoxicating drinks, and attribute
his imaginative writings to over-excited nerves, and a certain amount
of deliriousness thence arising. But everybody knows that although a
condition of mind raising from either of those causes can give rise to
a happy thought, or fortunate idea, it is impossible that it can yield
perfect and finished work, because that demands the very quietest study
and consideration."

On this evening Theodore had set before his friends some remarkably
superior wine sent to him by a friend on the Rhine. He poured what
remained of it into the glasses, and said:--

"I cannot explain why it should be so; but a melancholy foreboding
comes upon me that we are going to part for a long time, and may,
perhaps, never meet again. But surely the remembrance of those Serapion
evenings will long live in our minds. We have given free play to the
capricious promptings of our fancy. Each of us has spoken out what he
saw in his mind's eye, without supposing his ideas to be anything
extraordinary, or giving them forth as being so, knowing well that the
first essential of all effective composition is that kindly
unpretendingness which is the thing that has the power to warm the
heart and please the mind. If Fate is about to part us, then let us
always faithfully follow the rule of Saint Serapion, and vowing this to
each other, drink this last glass of our wine."

What Theodore suggested was accordingly done.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STANFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Serapion Brethren., by
Ernst Theordor Wilhelm Hoffmann

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SERAPION BRETHREN. ***

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