ar," Vincenz said.
"Whenever our great prophet consoles his neighbours with the
announcement that the winter is not going to be at all severe, but
principally of a southerly character, everybody rushes away in alarm,
and buys all the wood he can cram into his cellar. The weather-prophet
is a wise and highly-gifted man, whom we can thoroughly trust, so long
as we expect the exact reverse of what he predicts."

"Those autumnal storms always make me thoroughly wretched," said
Sylvester; "I always feel depressed and ill whilst they are going on;
and I think you feel the same, Theodore."

"Oh, indeed I do," answered Theodore; "this sort of weather always
makes----"

"Splendid!--delightful beginning of a meeting of the Serapion Club!"
intercalated Lothair. "We set to work to discuss the weather, like a
parcel of old women round the coffee-table."

"I don't see," said Ottmar, "why we should not talk about the weather;
the only reason you can object to it is that talking about it seems to
be an observance of a kind of rather slovenly old custom, which has
resulted from a necessity to say something or other when there happens
to be nothing else in people's minds to talk about. What I think is
that a few words about the weather and the wind make a very good
beginning of a conversation, whatsoever its nature may turn out to be,
and that the very universality of the applicability of this as the
beginning of a conversation prove how natural it really is."

"As far as I am concerned," said Theodore, "I don't think it matters
a farthing how a conversation commences. But there is one thing
certain--that, if one wants to make some very striking and clever
beginning, that is enough to kill all the freedom and unconstraint
which may be termed the very soul of conversation. I know a young
man--I think he is known to you all, as well--who is by no means
deficient in that mobility of intellect which is absolutely necessary
for good conversation; but he is so tormented, particularly when ladies
are present, by that kind of eagerness to burst out with something
brilliant and striking at the very outset of a talk, that he walks
restlessly about the room; makes the most extraordinary faces in the
keenness of his inward torment; opens his lips, and--cannot manage to
utter a syllable."

"Cease, cease, base wretch!" Cyprian cried, with comic pathos, "do not,
with murderous hand, tear open wounds which are barely healed. He is
speaking of me