r and Vincenz agreed in this, and added that Theodore had
committed a breach of Serapiontic rule by speaking so fully on a
subject to some extent strange to the other brethren, in this manner
giving himself up to impulses of the moment, and damming up the flow of
other communications.

Cyprian, however, look Theodore's part, maintaining that the subject on
which, for the most part, he had been speaking, might be thought to
possess such an amount of interest (though, as far as he himself was
concerned, he must say it was of an uncanny character) that even those
to whom the person to whom it had referred had never been known, could
not but feel themselves very much attracted and affected by it.

Ottmar thought that he could have felt a certain amount of interest
about it if it had been written in a book. Cyprian said that the
_sapienti sat_, was enough as regarded it.

In the meantime, Theodore had gone into the next room, and now came
back with a veiled picture, which he placed on a table against the
wall, setting two candles in front of it. All eyes were bent upon it,
and when Theodore quickly removed the cloth from before it an "Ah!"
came from all their lips.

It was the author of the 'Soehne des Thales,' a life-size half-length,
a most speaking likeness, as if it had been stolen out of a
looking-glass.

"Is it possible!" cried Ottmar, enthusiastically. "Yes, from under
those bushy eyebrows there gleams from the dark eyes the strange fire
of that unlucky mysticism which dragged the poet to his destruction.
But the goodness, the kindliness, the lovableness and the talents which
beam out of the rest of his features, and this charmingly 'roguish'
smile of real humour which plays about the lips, and seems to try
unsuccessfully to hide itself in the long, projecting chin, which the
hand is stroking so quietly. Of a truth I feel myself more and more
drawn to this mystic, who grows the more human the longer one looks at
him."

"We all feel the same," cried Lothair and Vincenz.

"Yes, yes," cried the latter, "those sorrowful, gloomy eyes get
brighter. You are right, Ottmar, he grows human--_homo factus est_.
See, he looks with his eyes--he smiles; presently he will say something
that will delight us; some heavenly jest; some fulminating sally of wit
is playing about his lips. Out with it, out with it, good Zacharias!
Stand on no ceremony! We are your friends, master of reserved irony!
Ha! Serapion Brethren! let us ele