ncy. It is not the easiest thing in
the world to get an audience with him."

"And I don't want one!" said the engraver roughly. "To me at home, in
my solitude, he is a wonderful friend whom one loves--as only a lonely
man can love a wonderful friend. No, no, you may keep your
'Excellency!'"

Ernst von Schiller, the friend of the Kirsten girls, said, modestly,
but enthusiastically: "He pervades all the relations of life--he is
stronger than all. The son of well-to-do parents, growing up in a large
city, becoming a lawyer, then holding office and rank in narrow
little Weimar, becoming a courtier, and always in comfortable
circumstances--is there a worse road for genius to travel? And yet he
has remained clear-sighted, penetrating, deep, full of kindness--he has
never grown dull and heavy."

"Ah ...!" said the engraver passionately. "Who says that? Have you
seen him sitting among the poor and miserable? Have you seen him
struggling--striving with the powers of life--fighting his way out of
darkness? Do you know anything of those mighty forces that press
thought out of a man as the winepress squeezes the juice from the
grapes? One year without money--one single year without money, without
followers--and your 'Excellency' would have become alive as God is
alive. There would never have been such a miracle seen on earth. He
would have redeemed the world, if he had been inflamed to the very
marrow; if he had sat among the wretched, among those who see the
world on the side that is in shadow. Ah, to have stood for a little
while where they stand who stretch out their arms to their
fellow-beings for help, to have wandered for awhile through cities and
villages face to face with winter, without knowing where to find
shelter or food, to have known a few good comrades among those on whom
respectable people spit ...! But now ... I'll put my hand in the fire
to show how sure I am ... I might go to his door and knock, and cry,
'Open, brother! One comes that loves you. He comes from the world that
has given you your strength, your insight, your greatness, your
wonderful goodness. Open to him, as it says in the Song of Solomon ...'
He wouldn't even say, as it goes on there, 'I have washed my feet--how
shall I defile them?' If my luck was good, I shouldn't even be let in
to where his Excellency could hear my voice! Well, all right!"

"But, my good sir," said the courtier, "what would become of his
Excellency if he undertook to receiv