ormentor here, and read through my Thekla's letter, while, in
the meantime, my brother-in-law, Netz, will be happy to grow more
intimately acquainted with you. Hereafter I will at leisure welcome you
to Schweidnitz, and you shall tell me all about our friends at
Gitschin."

She left the room with her son. Tausdorf looked after for awhile, and
then seemed lost in thought. After a short pause, Netz renewed the
conversation by saying, "You are a native of Bohemia, then?"

Tausdorf courteously replied, "My father settled some years ago in the
hereditary domains of Austria as an imperial feodatory. I have the
honour to be a native of Silesia."

"Does any business call you back to your native land?" asked Netz, with
increasing cordiality: "If I can serve you in any thing, you have only
to say so; I know from my brother's own mouth that you were his very
good friend."

"I thank you for your kind proffers. For the present I have only to
commend myself to your neighbourly good-will, for I think of settling
shortly in the vicinity of Schweidnitz."

"You will be heartily welcome to us, though you will find but sorry
comfort now in this country."

Tausdorf was astonished.--"How so?"

"Oh, the burghers have got the upper hand of us nobles. Their wealth,
their absurd privileges, have made them arrogant. A pitiful burgomaster
of Schweidnitz will think himself greater than the emperor; and as to
us, the whole mob of them look upon us with contempt. They need us not,
they fear us not, and where they can do us any annoyance, they do it
with delight."

"The purse-pride of the citizens is, no doubt, particularly disgusting;
but to be candid, we should not too severely judge the industrious
mechanic, the clever merchant, the dexterous artist, or the man of
learning, even though the consciousness and the satisfaction of their
hardly-earned property should lead them too far. Our pride of birth,
when carried to excess, is also a hateful vice; and we have much less
to advance in its defence, because that on which we pride ourselves is
only _inherited_, and not _earned_. For the rest, I have always thought
that in these eternal feuds between the nobles and the citizens, the
wrong was to be found on both sides; the right is always in the middle,
and both parties can attain it only by mutual forbearance."

"There you judge wrongly of these Silesian pedlers," exclaimed the wild
Bieler: "If a noble were only to yield a finger to them, the