xcellent, humane, democratic way of looking
at things--"

"A depressing prospect, certainly! So the longer our nation goes on
freeing itself from prejudices and conforming to true ideas of
humanity, the less hope will there be that we shall ever be able to cut
a good figure on the stage?"

"On the contrary, I think then is the time when we shall really first
begin. Self-respect is one of the most important requisites even in the
acting of a comedy. When we have once taken our place among the nations
of Europe, when we have rid ourselves of our dullness and tactlessness
in our dealings with the outside world, when we cease to be such
wretched crawlers that we will go through any humiliation for our
daily-bread's sake, and cannot conduct ourselves like gentlemen, then
you will see how quickly we shall find the art of acting infused into
our blood--we who have been for so many centuries mere zealous animals.
To be sure, in regard to tragedy it is a question whether we shall ever
succeed, in our better days, in attaining sufficient earnestness and
reverence to enable us to keep in mind the fact that, as old Goethe
says, 'awe is mankind's best quality'--"

He seemed about to talk still further of his hopes and fears; and
Felix, to whom many of these ideas were new, and to whom the speaker,
with his unselfish warmth, grew more and more attractive as he went on,
would gladly have listened half through the night. But the door was
noisily thrown open, and Rosenbusch made his appearance on his friend's
threshold arrayed in a costume the comicality of which irresistibly
swept away all these serious considerations.

He had had his red beard shaved off, leaving only a diminutive mustache
and a pair of side whiskers; his flowing hair was elegantly arranged;
he wore an old-fashioned black coat, and a tall stove-pipe hat, brushed
smooth and shining.

"You may well laugh!" cried he, knitting his brows tragically at his
friends. "If you only knew how a man felt who was yesterday in
Paradise, and to-day is forced to get himself up in such a toilet as
this, as if he were going to his execution. The executioner's minion,
who cut my hair, has just left me. Whoever wishes to have a lock of
hair of the celebrated battle-painter Maximilian Rosenbusch will find
them lying about, like useless wool, on the floor of the adjoining
room. O Delila, for whom I have suffered this! O Nanny, for whose sake
I cut my noble hair!--for whom I dress myse