authoritarian?'

'I? God bless me, no!' said Gotthold. 'I am a red, dear child.'

'That brings me then to my next point, and by a natural transition. If I
am so clearly unfitted for my post,' the Prince asked; 'if my friends
admit it, if my subjects clamour for my downfall, if revolution is
preparing at this hour, must I not go forth to meet the inevitable?
should I not save these horrors and be done with these absurdities? in a
word, should I not abdicate? O, believe me, I feel the ridicule, the
vast abuse of language,' he added, wincing, 'but even a principulus like
me cannot resign; he must make a great gesture, and come buskined forth,
and abdicate.'

'Ay,' said Gotthold, 'or else stay where he is. What gnat has bitten you
to-day? Do you not know that you are touching, with lay hands, the very
holiest inwards of philosophy, where madness dwells? Ay, Otto, madness;
for in the serene temples of the wise, the inmost shrine, which we
carefully keep locked, is full of spiders' webs. All men, all, are
fundamentally useless; nature tolerates, she does not need, she does not
use them: sterile flowers! All--down to the fellow swinking in a byre,
whom fools point out for the exception--all are useless; all weave ropes
of sand; or like a child that has breathed on a window, write and
obliterate, write and obliterate, idle words! Talk of it no more. That
way, I tell you, madness lies.' The speaker rose from his chair and then
sat down again. He laughed a little laugh, and then, changing his tone,
resumed: 'Yes, dear child, we are not here to do battle with giants; we
are here to be happy like the flowers, if we can be. It is because you
could, that I have always secretly admired you. Cling to that trade;
believe me, it is the right one. Be happy, be idle, be airy. To the
devil with all casuistry! and leave the state to Gondremark, as
heretofore. He does it well enough, they say; and his vanity enjoys the
situation.'

'Gotthold,' cried Otto, 'what is this to me? Useless is not the
question; I cannot rest at uselessness; I must be useful or I must be
noxious--one or other. I grant you the whole thing, prince and
principality alike, is pure absurdity, a stroke of satire; and that a
banker or the man who keeps an inn has graver duties. But now, when I
have washed my hands of it three years, and left all--labour,
responsibility, and honour and enjoyment too, if there be any--to
Gondremark and to--Seraphina-