had become grave and silent. "I must admit," he
said, "that in this little tale or 'prank'--for I don't know what else
to call it--of Lothair's there predominates an attempt, often more or
less successful, at a certain sort of amusing _naivete_, very
appropriate to the character of the German Devil. Also, that when he
talks about the Devil's jumping over the streets hand in hand with
respectable townfolk and of the 'chestnut brown schismatic,' who might
turn out a quaint and ugly _savant_, though never a nice, natty,
spick-and-span Member of Council, we see the curvets and the caprioles
of the same little Pegasus which was bestridden by the author of
'Nutcracker.' Still, I think that he ought to have got on the back of a
horse of a different colour; and, indeed, I cannot say what the reason
exactly is why the pleasantly comic impression which the earlier part
of the story produces vanishes away into nothingness; whilst, out of
this nothingness, there ultimately develops a certain something which
becomes most uncanny and unpleasant; and the concluding words, which
are intended to do away with this feeling, do not succeed in doing away
with it."

"Oh, thou most sapient of all critics," Lothair cried, "who dost such
high honour to this most insignificant thing of all the insignificant
things which I have ever written down as to dissect it carefully with
magnifying glasses on nose, let me tell you that it served me as an
anatomical study long ago. Did I not style it a mere product of a mood
of caprice? Have I not anathematized it myself? However, I am glad that
I read it to you, because it gives me an opportunity of speaking my
mind concerning tales of this kind. And I am sure that my Serapion
Brethren will agree with me. In the first place, Ottmar, I should
like to trace out for you the germ of that unpleasant--or, better,
'uncanny'--feeling which you were conscious of when you were at first
beginning to see what you have called the 'amusing _naivete_' of it.
Whatever grounds the good old Hafftitz may have had for telling us that
the Devil passed a certain time leading the life of a townsman of
Berlin, this remains for us a wholly 'fanciful' or 'fantastic'
incident. And the quality of the 'supernatural'--the 'spookishness' (to
use an expression now not unfamiliar)--which is a leading
characteristic of that tremendous 'principle of negation'--that 'spirit
which eternally denies and destroys'--is, by reason of the (in a
man