gia. When my grandmother was a
child there ruled over this country a very wise and good prince who
because of his goodness and wisdom had prevailed upon great poets then
living to come and dwell in his city. And because he was so exceedingly
wise and was so beloved and honored by all, poets and scholars came
from all sides, lived in the prince's city, and wrote there such
splendid works that the whole world marveled. Even today what these men
thought and wrote is the most beautiful thing that we know, and it will
remain so for a long, long time to come. About these men everything
conceivable has been often told and accurately described, and people
will talk of them centuries hence. But by their side there dwelt in the
city in those days many men of whom nowadays no more mention is made.
They too experienced joys and sorrows; they too had their day, felt
deeply, were glad and sad, and had hearts like the others."

Among these mute, inglorious personages of the great time belong the
daughters of Councillor Kirst in Wuensch Street, Rose and Mary, two
wide-awake, mischievous lassies who are the heroines of the book. Young
Ernst von Schiller, the second son of the prematurely deceased poet, is
their playmate; they make fun of August von Goethe as he goes a-wooing;
they quarrel with the sour-visaged boor, Arthur Schopenhauer, as they
go in and out of his mother's house, the novelist's; old Madam
Kummerfeld, a former actress who in her youth had as Juliet inspired
the Leipsic student Goethe, is their teacher in the art of sewing as
well as making a courtly bow--which latter accomplishment they have
occasion to practise when one day in the park they almost knock down
the corpulent Grand Duke by running against him, and are then treated
by him to good things to eat. With his knowledge they slip into the
theatre without tickets, and when they have witnessed a performance of
_Tasso_ at which Goethe is present, they are so impressed that they
follow the poet as, wrapped in his cloak, he strides home in the
darkness, and for a while they continue to stare up admiringly at
his lighted windows. Nevertheless, at the next moment they scramble
over the wall of the neighboring house and help themselves to the
beautiful lilies which bloom in old Wieland's garden. In these stories
the historical personages, which with artistic discretion are kept in
the background, constitute after all only a decorative element; in the
foreground happy yout