rable lot of fellows as you made out.'

'Ah, sir,' said I, 'your poetical "high soul" won't sin by allowing
such a song to be poetry at all, just as your pietist finds the Lord's
Prayer too simple and straightforward for him.' 'There have been fools
in every age, sir,' said another, 'and every one is bound to clean the
pavement opposite his own door only; but as we are upon the subject of
the present times, tell us what has happened this year on the earth.'

'If I thought it would interest the ladies and gentlemen----' 'Go on,'
cried Roland, 'and as far as I am concerned you may begin 500 years
back, for I see nothing from my pedestal but cigar-makers, vintners,
priests, and old women, and they don't make history, or didn't in my
days.'

'First of all then, concerning German Literature ...'

'Stop for Heaven's sake, man! Do you think we are going to listen to
trash like that?' cried Peter. 'Poetasters and public-house squabbles!'

I was startled. If these people were not interested by our magnificent
literature, if Goethe had no charms for them, what was the use of
speaking to them at all?

I tried again. 'It was only last autumn that the stage was----' Howls
of laughter drowned my voice. 'We want facts, man, history and facts
only; do you suppose we care who spins your comedies and who hisses
them?'

'Ah, sir,' I replied, 'you're sadly out of fashion. So's History. We
have in fact only the Diet at Frankfurt. Among our neighbours it's true
there's occasionally something--for instance, the Jesuits are up again
in France, and it looks uncommonly as if the Jacobins were up in
Russia.' 'Stuff!' cried one, 'you mean vice versa.' 'No, I don't.'
'Well, that's odd.' 'And is there no war?' 'Just a little firespitting
going on in Greece against the Turks.' 'Ha!' cried the Paladin,
smashing a few planks of the table with his stone fist, 'that is good!
By my sword, that is good! I have been angry for centuries at the
tameness of Christendom while Greece is in chains. You live, sir, in a
fine time, and your race is nobler than I thought. I retract my
previous vituperation. So the knights of France and Germany, of Spain
and England have set out again as erst under Richard of the Lion-heart,
to fight the infidel? The fleets of Genoa cover the Mediterranean? the
Oriflamme is raised on high within sight of the towers of Stamboul, and
the banner of Austria floats over the foremost ranks. Ha! in such a
case I would fain bestride o