and his eyes suddenly beamed with pleasure--"Eva! no! I
believe so too. To see her dance is to see living harmony. Ah! it
enlivens my mind if I only see her figure, her gait, her slightest
movement; and then to know that all this harmony, all this beauty, is
not mere paint--not mere outside; but that it is the true expression of
the soul! I find myself actually better when I am near her; and I have
often a real desire to thank her for the sentiments which she instils
into me. In fact, she is my benefactress; and I can assure you that it
reconciles me to mankind and to myself, that I can feel thus to a
fellow-creature. I cannot describe how agreeable it is, because commonly
there is so much to vex oneself about in this so-called masterpiece of
the Creator!"

"But, best friend," said Evelina, "why are you so vexed? Most people
have still----"

"Ah, don't go and make yourself an _ange de clemence_ for mankind," said
he, "in order to exalt secretly yourself over me, otherwise I shall be
vexed with you; and you belong to the class that I can best endure. Why
do I vex myself? What a stupid question! Why are people stupid and
wearisome, and yet make themselves important with their stupidity? And
wherefore am I myself such a melancholy personage, worse than anybody
else, and should have withal such a pair of quick eyes, as if only on
purpose to see the infirmities and perversions of the world? There may,
however, in my case be sufficient reason for all this. When one has had
the fancy to come into the world against all order and Christian usage;
has seen neither father nor mother beside one's cradle; heard nothing,
seen nothing, learned nothing, which is in the least either beautiful or
instructive--one has not entered upon life very merrily. And then, after
all, to be called Munter![11] Good heavens! Munter! Had I been called
Blannius, or Skarnius, or Brummerius, or Grubblerius, or Rhabarberius,
there might have been some sense in the joke; but Munter! I ask you now,
is it not enough to make a man splenetic and melancholy all the days of
his life? And then, to have been born into the world with a continual
cold, and since then never to have been able to look up to heaven
without sneezing--do you find that merry or edifying. Well, and then!
after I had worked my way successfully through the schools, the dust of
books, and the hall of anatomy, and had come to hate them all
thoroughly, and to love that which was beautiful in na