of their power, appears to them the highest happiness; and
this happiness ought to be accorded to them all the more readily, from
the fact that most of them cannot live without it. Only they ought to
be just enough to look at the matter also from the opposite point of
view, where an individual only feels conscious of his powers and gifts
when in the free enjoyment of an apparently fruitless repose. When I
lie on my back and make pictures in the smoke of my cigar, or gaze upon
the works which great creative beings have produced in times gone by,
am I not, in my way, putting to good use that buried treasure within me
in which you were so good as to believe? and making of this individual,
whom his friends accuse of culpable laziness, the very thing for which
he was really fitted and intended--a perfectly harmonious and happy
man? Once in a while, indeed, the vulgar prejudice seizes even me, and
I suddenly grow tremendously active. But after the paroxysm has lasted
a week, at the longest, I suddenly see the folly of the proceeding and
throw the unfinished daub into some dark closet, among other embryos
of immortal works. Ah! my dear friend, there is so much struggling, and
pushing, and producing going on, that a quiet, inoffensive art-lover of
my disposition might well be tolerated as a salutary antidote to this
epidemic of activity."

"We will let this old apple of discord drop for to-day," interrupted
Jansen, smiling. "I won't yet give up my old bet that some fine day you
will cease to take comfort in this bed that you have stuffed with
sophisms, and will begin to seek your happiness in some other way. But
in the meanwhile you might certainly show yourself at my place again. I
should like to know what you would say to my dancing girl; and besides,
I have done all sorts of other things since you were there."

"I will come, Hans. You know how I delight to take to heart the
frightful example of industry that I see in your saint-factory. By the
way--isn't next Saturday 'Paradise?'"

"Certainly. The last before the autumn. Most of the fellows have
already begun to make their preparations for the summer vacation, and
in fourteen days we three shall probably be almost the only ones who
still hold out in the city."

They left the studio, the painter accompanying them as far as the gate
of the front yard, and taking leave of Felix with great cordiality and
the hope that he should see him often.

"What is this about 'Paradise