ing nothing_, my dear Doctor,' said Walstein,
'you will think that you have discovered the cause of my disorder. But
perhaps you will only mistake an effect for a cause.'

'Do you read?'

'I have lost the faculty of reading: early in life I was a student, but
books become insipid when one is rich with the wisdom of a wandering
life.'

'Do you write?'

'I have tried, but mediocrity disgusts me. In literature a second-rate
reputation is no recompense for the evils that authors are heirs to.'

'Yet, without making your compositions public, you might relieve your
own feelings in expressing them. There is a charm in creation.'

'My sympathies are strong,' replied Walstein. 'In an evil hour I might
descend from my pedestal; I should compromise my dignity with the herd;
I should sink before the first shaft of ridicule.'

'You did not suffer from this melancholy when travelling?'

'Occasionally: but the fits were never so profound, and were very
evanescent.'

'Travel is action,' replied Schulembourg. 'Believe me, that in action
you alone can find a cure.'

'What is action?' inquired Walstein. 'Travel I have exhausted. The world
is quiet. There are no wars now, no revolutions. Where can I find a
career?'

'Action,' replied Schulembourg, 'is the exercise of our faculties. Do
not mistake restlessness for action. Murillo, who passed a long life
almost within the walls of his native city, was a man of great action.
Witness the convents and the churches that are covered with his
exploits. A great student is a great actor, and as great as a marshal or
a statesman. You must act, Mr. Walstein, you must act; you must have an
object in life; great or slight, still you must have an object. Believe
me, it is better to be a mere man of pleasure than a dreamer.'

'Your advice is profound,' replied Walstein, 'and you have struck upon a
sympathetic chord. But what am I to do? I have no object.'

'You are a very ambitious man,' replied the physician.

'How know you that?' said Walstein, somewhat hastily, and slightly
blushing.

'We doctors know many strange things,' replied Schulembourg, with a
smile. 'Come now, would you like to be prime minister of Saxony?'

'Prime minister of Oberon!' said Walstein, laughing; ''tis indeed a
great destiny.'

'Ah! when you have lived longer among us, your views will accommodate
themselves to our limited horizon. In the meantime, I will write you a
prescription, provided you promise to comp