s depths of the subterranean kingdoms. It must suffice if I
enable you to look into the interior mechanism of the springs which the
poet has placed within it to set this production of his into due
activity of movement. According to historical tradition, the earliest
'culture' of the ancient Prussians was originated by their king,
Waidewuthis. He introduced the rights of property. The fields were
divided, and agriculture carried on. He also gave the nation a form of
religious worship, inasmuch as he himself carved three graven images,
to which sacrifices were offered beneath an ancient oak-tree, where
they were set up; but a terrible power grasped hold of him (though
himself all-powerful, the god of the nation which he ruled), those rude
graven images, carved by his own hands, that the people's force and
will might bow down before them as embodiments of a higher energy,
suddenly awoke into life. And what inflamed those senseless images thus
into life was the fire which the Satanic Prometheus stole from Hell.
Rebellious thralls of their Lord and Maker, those idols began to wield
against himself the weapons with which he had armed them. And thus
commences the monstrous conflict of the Superhuman principle with the
Human. I do not know if I have been intelligible to you--if I have
quite succeeded in representing to you the poet's colossal idea; but,
as Serapion Brethren, I would charge you to look deep down, as I have
done, into the terrible abyss which the poet has opened and disclosed,
and feel the terror and awe which overwhelms me even now as I think of
that Waidewuthis."

"And in truth," said Theodore, "our Cyprian has turned quite white;
which of course proves how the whole grand sketch of the extraordinary
picture which the poet displayed before him--but from which he has
shown us only one of the principal groups--has stirred his inner soul.
But, as regards Waidewuthis, I think it would have been sufficient to
say that the poet, with astonishing power and originality, conceived
this Daemon with so much grandeur, power, and might, so gigantic a
figure, that he appears quite worthy of the contest, and that the
triumph, the glory of Christianity must beam forth all the brighter in
consequence. It is true that in many of his characteristics, the old
monarch appears to me as if he were--to speak with Dante--the Imperador
del Doloroso Regno in person, walking on earth. The catastrophe of his
overthrow, that triumph of Chri