from what the rest did, for the builder had reported them to him
as the presumptuous saying of a young fledgling carpenter. This man was
the Prince-bishop himself. He had the young man summoned to his
presence, that he might inquire further into the import of his words,
and was not a little astonished both at his appearance and at his
general bearing and character. My kindly reader ought to know what this
astonishment was due to, and now is the time to tell him something more
about Johannes Wacht's exterior and Johannes Wacht's mind and thoughts.

As far as his face and figure were concerned, he might justly be called
a remarkably handsome young fellow, and yet his noble features and
majestic stature did not attain to full perfection until after he had
reached a riper manhood. AEsthetic canons of the cathedral credited
Johannes with having the head of an old Roman; a younger member of the
same fraternity, who even in the severest winter was in the habit of
going about dressed in black silk, and who had read Schiller's
_Fiesko_, maintained, on the contrary, that Johannes Wacht was
Verrina[3] in the flesh.

But the mysterious charm by means of which many highly-gifted men are
enabled to win at once the confidence of those whom they approach does
not consist in beauty and grace of external form alone. We in a certain
sense feel their superiority; yet this feeling is by no means an
oppressive feeling as might be imagined; but, whilst elevating the
spirit, it also excites a certain kind of mental comfort that does us
an incalculable amount of good. All the factors of the physical and
intellectual organism are united into a whole by the most perfect
harmony, so that the contact with the superior soul is like a pure
strain of music; it suffers no discord. This harmony creates that
inimitable deportment, that--one might almost say--comfort in
the slightest movements, through which the consciousness of true
human dignity is proclaimed. This deportment can be taught by no
dancing-master, by no Prince's tutor; and well and rightly does it
deserve its proper name of the distinguished deportment, since it is
stamped as such by Nature herself. Here need only be added that Master
Wacht, unflinchingly constant in generosity, truth, and faithfulness to
his burgher standing, became as the years went on ever more a man of
the people. He developed all the virtues, but at the same time all the
unconquerable prejudices, which are generally