n evenings took such a hold on
my whole being that, when the brethren so suddenly dispersed themselves
over the world, my life felt to me as weary, stale, flat and
unprofitable as the melancholy Prince Hamlet's did to him."

"Forasmuch as no spirit has arisen from the grave, revisiting the
glimpses of the moon, to incite you to revenge," said Ottmar, with a
laugh, "and as you are not called upon to send your sweetheart
to a nunnery, or to thrust a poisoned rapier into the heart of a
murderer-king, I think you ought not to give way to Prince Hamlet's
melancholy, and should consider that it would be the grossest
selfishness to renounce every league of alliance into which
congenially-minded people enter because the storms of life possess the
power of interfering with it. Human beings ought not to draw in their
antennas at every ungentle touch, like supersensitive insects. Is the
remembrance of hours passed in gladsome kindly intercourse nothing to
you? All through my journeyings I have thought of you continually. On
the evenings of the meetings of the Serapion Club (which, of course, I
supposed to be still in full swing) I always took my place amongst you,
in spirit; assimilated all the delightful and entertaining things going
on amongst you (entertaining you, at the same time, with whatever the
spirit moved me to contribute to you). But it is absurd to continue in
this vein. Is there, in Lothair's mind, really the slightest trace of
that which his momentary 'out-of-tuneness' has made him say? Does he
not himself admit that the cause of his being out of tune is merely the
fact of our having been dispersed?"

"Theodore's illness," said Lothair, "which nearly sent him to his
grave, was not a matter, either, calculated to put me into a happy
state of mind."

"No," said Ottmar, "but Theodore is well again; and as to the Serapion
Club, I cannot see why it should not be considered to be in full
working order, now that three of the Brethren are met together."

"Ottmar is perfectly right," said Theodore; "it is a matter of
indisputable necessity that we should have a meeting, in true
Serapiontic fashion, as early as possible. The germ which we form will
sprout into a tree full of fresh life and vigour, bearing flowers and
fruit--I mean that that bird of passage, Cyprian, will come back:
Sylvester will soon be unhappy, there where he is, away; and when the
nightingales cease singing, he will long for music of another kind; and