raperies, a perspective all
askew, they have painted a work in the style of the great old German
masters. Dead-minded imitators of that description are like the country
lad who holds his bonnet before his face while the Paternoster is being
sung in church, and says if he doesn't remember the words, he knows the
tune."

The goldsmith said much more that was true and beautiful on the subject
of the noble art of painting, and gave Edmund a great many valuable
hints and lessons; so that the latter, much impressed, asked how it had
been possible for him to acquire so much knowledge on the subject
without being a painter himself; and why he went on living in such
seclusion, and never brought his influence to bear on artistic effort
of all descriptions.

"I have told you already," the goldsmith said, in a gentle and serious
tone, "that my ways of looking at life, and at things in general, have
been rendered exceptionally acute by a long--aye, a marvellously
long--course of experience. As regards my living in seclusion, I know
that wherever I should appear, I should produce a rather extraordinary
effect, as a result, not only of my nature in general, but more
especially of a certain power which I possess; so that my living
quietly in Berlin here might not be a very easy matter. I keep thinking
of a certain person who, in many respects, might have been an ancestor
of mine: so marvellously like me in every respect, in body and mind
too, that there are times not a few when I almost believe (perhaps it
may be fancy) that I am that person. I mean a Swiss of the name of
Leonhard Turnhaeuser zum Thurm, who lived at the court of the Elector
Johann Georg, about the year 1582. In those days, as you know, every
chemist was supposed to be an alchemist, and every astronomer was
called an astrologer; so Turnhaeuser was very probably both. It is
certain, at all events, that he did most wonderful things, and, _inter
alia_, was a very marvellous doctor. Unfortunately, he had a trick of
putting his finger in every pie, and getting conspicuously mixed up in
all that was going on. This made him envied and hated; just as people
who have money and make a display with it, though it may be never so
well earned, bring enemies about their throats. Thus it came about that
people made the Elector believe that Turnhaeuser could make gold, and
that, if he did not do so, he had his reasons for so abstaining. Then
his enemies came to the Elector and said--'