y devising new schemes of torture for his victims. I suffered
my host to talk largely of his town and its people; and probably such
a listener rarely presented himself, for he certainly improved the
occasion. He assured me, with a gravity that vouched for the conviction,
that the capital, though by no means so dear as London or Paris,
contained much, if not all, these more pretentions cities could boast.
There was a court, a theatre, a promenade, a public fountain, and a new
jail, one of the largest in all Germany. Jenny Lind had once sung at the
opera on her way to Vienna; and to prove how they sympathized in every
respect with greater centres of population, when the cholera raged at
Berlin, they, too, lost about four hundred of their townsfolk. Lastly,
he mentioned, and this boastfully, that though neither wanting organs
of public opinion, nor men of adequate ability to guide them, the
Kalbbratoners had never mixed themselves up in politics, but proudly
maintained that calm and dignified attitude which Europe would one day
appreciate; that is, if she ever arrived at the crowning knowledge of
the benefit of letting her differences be decided by some impartial
umpire.

More than once, as I heard him, I muttered to myself, "Potts, this is
the very spot you have sought for; here is all the tranquil simplicity
of the village, with the elevated culture of a great city. Here
are sages and philosophers clad in homespun, Beauty herself in
linsey-woolsey. Here there are no vulgar rivalries of riches, no
contests in fine clothes, no opposing armies of yellow plush. Men are
great by their faculties, not in their flunkeys. How elevated must be
the tone of their thoughts, the style of their conversation! and what a
lucky accident it was that led you to that goal to which all your wishes
and hopes have been converging!--For how much can a man live--a single
gentleman like myself--here in your city?" asked I of my host.

He sat down at this, and, filling himself a large goblet of my
wine,--the last in the bottle,--he prepared for a lengthy _seance_.

"First of all," said he, "how would he wish to live? Would he desire
to mingle in our best circles, equal to any in Europe, to know Herr von
Krugwitz, and the Gnadige Frau von Steinhaltz?"

"Well," thought I, "these be fair ambitions." And I said, "Yes, both of
them."

"And to be on the list of the court dinners? There are two yearly, one
at Easter, the other on his Highness's birth