, and not myself," answered Goethe, smiling. "There still
remains a good portion of folly in me, and it must sometimes thunder
and flash, but I hope the atmosphere of my soul will become clearer,
and over the crater a more lovely garden will spread out, in which
beautiful, fragrant flowers will bloom, useful and profitable for my
friends and myself. Sometimes I long for this as for the promised land;
then again it foams and thunders in me like fermenting must, which,
defying all covers and hoops, would froth up to heaven in an immense
source of mad excitement!"

"Let it froth and foam, and spring the covers, and burst the old casks,"
cried the duke; "I delight in it, and every infernal noise you make, the
prouder I am to recognize that from this foaming must will clear itself
a marvellous wine, a delicious beverage for gods and men, with which the
world will yet refresh itself, when we are long gone to the kingdom of
shades--to the something or nothing. You know, Wolf, I love you, and I
am proud that I have you! It is true that I possess only a little
duchy, but it is large enough to lead an agreeable and comfortable
existence--large enough for a little earthly duke, and the great king of
intellects, Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Let us return to our dear home,
for I acknowledge to you I sigh for Weimar. I long for the dear little
place, where every one knows me and greets me, and even for my dogs and
horses."

"And I," said Goethe, "I really mourn for my Tusculum, which I owe to
the generous, kind duke; for the balcony of my little cottage, where,
canopied by the blue, starry vault of heaven, I dream away the lonely
May nights."

"Is there nothing else you sigh for but the summer-house at Weimar?"

"No!" cried Goethe, and an indescribable expression of rapture and
delight was manifest in his whole manner.

"No, why should I deny it, how could I? It would be treason to the
Highest and most Glorious. No, I long for my muse, my mistress, my--"

"Beloved!" interrupted the duke. "I pray you not to be so prudish,
so reserved. Have the courage to snap your fingers at this infamously
deceitful moral code, and proud and distinguished as you are, elevate
yourself above what these miserable earthworms call morality. For the
eagle there is a different law than for the pigeon. If the eagle soars
aloft through the ether to his eyry, bearing a lamb in his powerful
claws, has he not a right to it--the right of superiority and power by