er a good master.

He was a virtuous youth, with a simple heart, and a disposition so gay
that the unfortunate forgot their sorrow whenever he appeared.

Even as a child--so I have heard my grandmother say--he was so cheerful
and contented despite their bitter poverty, that he made up a little
prayer for himself in which he used to thank God for having created him.

This man, then, grew up to be truehearted and sincere without the elixir,
but he made use of it, none the less, when it came into his possession,
and it proved a great blessing to him. As a light-hearted and modest
youth--so diffident that he was timid in his intercourse with older
persons--he wandered over the Alps, with only fifty thalers in his pocket
and a small knapsack on his back, to Rome where he was received into the
studio of one of the most distinguished painters, as apprentice. This
latter very soon became jealous of the great talent exhibited by my
father and a competition occurring, exerted all his influence to keep the
prizes from the German competitors and have them awarded to Italian
artists of much less merit.

My father, unable to overcome his fatal shyness by any effort of will,
had not the courage to withstand this unfairness until he was called home
by his mother for his twenty-fifth birthday, and made use of the elixir.

This not only gave him the resolution, but forced him to proclaim the
truth aloud, and to call injustice by its right name.

Owing to his accusations there was a thorough investigation of the
affair, a new judge was appointed who awarded the first prize at once to
Johannes Ueberhell, the said prize consisting of a magnificent
commission. Having thus achieved an opportunity of proving his worth, he
rose quickly to eminence in his profession, and came to be a famous
master while he was still a young man.

In later life also he owed nothing but good to the elixir, for his soul
was as pure as crystal, and his thoughts of others were so kindly that he
could safely speak out everything that was in his mind.

His eyes perceived only the beautiful in the universe; and the beautiful
and the true were one with him; so that he made others see and hear
nothing save what was lovely and ennobling. Whenever any debasing or evil
influence approached him he would trample upon it with all the fierceness
of a true Ueberhell; but such conflicts seldom occurred, for his nature
was so exalted that it carried him unconscious through t