himself did not think of,
at least not distinctly, and which he must nevertheless admit to be
good and appropriate. The author sees a character which was born in his
own most inmost elements, appearing before him in a shape new and
strange to him. Yet this shape is by no means foreign to the elements
of the genesis of the character, nay it does not seem now possible that
it could have assumed a different form; and he feels a glad
astonishment over this thing, which is really his own, although it
seems so different; just as if he had suddenly come upon a treasure in
his garret, whose existence he had not dreamt of."

"There," said Ottmar, "spoke my dear kind-hearted Sylvester, who does
not know the meaning of the word 'vanity,' that vanity which has
stifled many a great and true talent. There is one writer for the stage
who once said, without the slightest hesitation, that there are no
actors capable of understanding the soul which dwells within him, or of
representing the characters which he creates. How wholly otherwise was
it with our grand and glorious Schiller, who once got into that state
of delighted surprise of which Sylvester speaks, when he saw his
Wallenstein performed, and declared that it was then, for the first
time, that he had seen his hero visibly in flesh and blood before his
eyes. It was Fleck, the for ever unforgettable hero of our stage, who
played Wallenstein then."

"On the whole," said Lothair, "I am convinced, and the instance which
Ottmar has given confirms me, that the writer on whom, in the depths of
his soul, the true recognition and comprehension of art, and with them,
that worship which they give to the creating formative spirit of the
universe, have arisen in light, cannot lower himself to the degraded
idol-cult, which worships only its own self as being the Fetish that
created all things. It is very easy for a great talent to be mistaken
for real genius. But time dispels every illusion: talent succumbs to
the attacks of time, but they have no effect on true genius, which
lives on in invulnerable strength and beauty. But, to return to our
Sylvester, and his theatre-piece, I must declare to you that I cannot
understand how any one can come to the heroic decision to permit a
work, for which he is indebted to his imagination, and to fortunate
creative impulses, to be acted before him on the slippery, risky,
uncertain boards of the stage."

The friends laughed, thinking that Lothair was, a