le black army, exactly like the roaches and beetles on
a kitchen hearth, thronged past me into the Thiergarten and through the
Brandenbourg-Gate--mere feet without any bodies--and I stood there like
a beaten cur, covering my face with my hands, and at last, in spite of
my horror, unable to keep from laughing aloud which awoke me.

"When I told the dream to my wife, she only said in her quiet way: 'Now
you see what comes of your stupid fancies, Feyertag. The vision means
nothing but: "Cobbler stick to your last!"' I made no reply, I know how
limited her views are, and women are women. But I've made a firm
resolution to have nothing more to do with shoe-making. The rest of my
life I will devote to higher purposes, caring for the head instead of
the feet, helping those whom people try to stretch on the same last
till they get moral corns--I mean grow stupid--and to getting the air,
which is called freedom of thought. I instantly said to myself: 'your
son-in-law is just the right man to aid you. You must get him, and then
set off on a journey; he has the tongue, you the money, like Moses and
Aaron, and then you can visit the various workmen's societies and
every-where provide for true culture and enlightenment.' But would you
believe that the man, who formerly made such fine speeches, and wrote
articles on every conceivable subject, can't be induced to move in the
matter. When I explained my plan to him to-day, he looked at me very
quietly, and only said: 'That's all very fine, father, but I can't help
you; my business will not permit me to go wandering about the world.'
And in the evening he took me to a workman's society he has established
here, where every thing was quiet and orderly, it must be admitted, but
where there was no display of rhetoric at all. Reinhold had brought a
book written by a certain Buckle, about civilization and the history of
the world and such things. But it was terribly prosy and
circumstantial, there was not a trace of vital questions, points of
view, and humane learning, and much of it was incomprehensible to me,
so that I wondered they all listened so quietly, as if to a sermon.
When the reading was over, I thought: 'Surely Feyertag, you ought to
open the horizon of the capital to these provincial people, and I began
very fluently to make a speech; for my friend, the assessor, had said
something like it day before yesterday, and I've long been familiar
with rhetorical tricks and practice them e