eat 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 the
depravity and pollution of this world.

Yes, my father was a happy man, and I cannot deny that the elixir
had much to do with his good fortune, for it forced him to reveal his
innermost thoughts and to show people frankly what was passing in his
mind, thus opening up to them a sunny, pure, and beautiful world which
their dull eyes would never have discovered for themselves.

Therefore the best sought him out and made friends with him, and the
more he prospered the wiser and better he grew.

One would imagine that the man t