think of sundry great
misfortunes in the world, about which I have heard people talking at
times, then indeed there does not seem to be very much in what I have
had to go through: yet for little things like me a little misfortune
is quite big enough. Now is not it a real grievance that I must never
hear music? that I don't know how people look, or how they feel, when
they are dancing? Ah, dearest Edward, the other day, when we were
taking a drive, we passed by the little inn over yonder on the other
side of the town, where the country folks were having a dance: their
jumping about, the sound of the fiddles, the strange glee in the airs
made such an odd impression on me, I cannot tell whether I felt glad,
or sad to the very bottom of my heart. Here in our neighbourhood we
must never have any music, either in the inn or anywhere else. Then
when I hear of plays and operas, I cannot quite persuade myself that
such wonderful things are really and truly to be found in the world.
The lights, the numbers of finely drest people, and then a real stage,
and a whole story acted upon it, which I am to believe to be true: can
there be anything more curious? And is not it then a grievous
affliction, that I am to grow old here, without ever in my whole life
catching a single short glimpse of all these grand doings? Tell me,
dear Edward, you too are a good man, is this wish of mine, are those
sights themselves very sinful? Herr Eleazar indeed says they are, and
my dear fatherly uncle thinks the same of them, and hates everything
of the sort: but the king and the magistrates allow them, and learned
people approve them, and write and compose the things that are to be
acted: can all this then be so very wicked?"

"My dear child," said Edward with the utmost friendliness, "how sorry
I am that I cannot procure you even this innocent pleasure! But you
know yourself how strict Herr Balthasar is in all these matters."

"O yes," she replied: "why the miners in our town here must never even
hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the
gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the
house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being
told that such a number of thoughts and fancies, and all that one is
fond of dreaming about in many a lonesome hour, are impious sins. At
such times I muse over all sorts of little stories about the loveliest
spirits, and beautiful vallies, and how the mi