"Oh, certainly!" replied Veronica. "Don't you know our young celebrities? See, that one yonder is the tender lyric poet, D----, a sensitive, foreboding soul; the stout, broad-shouldered man is the bold, patriotic bard, B----; and the pale aristocrat, with the bent head, is the poet T----, a very talented person. You have surely heard of the enthusiastic reception of his first tragedy. I only fear his intellect is developing too rapidly. Sooner or later this premature growth will make it sickly, and that would be a pity. There is splendid material in him, which, by the forcing system of our times, would be made to shoot upwards too quickly to form a stout, healthy trunk, from whence the productive power is always freshly supplied. The young man is only twenty-four years old, and his work is already much more massive than Schiller's first attempts; but he accomplishes a remarkable amount in his department, and is a noble, estimable man. These are the poor victims of our times, where the utmost is extorted from every one." "You are right," replied _Heinrich_. "I am familiar with young T--'s work, and, like you, think it unnaturally mature for his years. Schiller and Goethe themselves won their way by degrees to what is recognized as the highest stand-point. But our young people want to be born upon this height and begin where they ended. It is perfectly comprehensible that they don't wish to remain where they begin, but struggle on and test the powers of their young intellects, as Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller did when they gradually raised themselves above the inferior performances and requirements of their times." "That is just what I always say," cried Veronica; "and this runs through all circles of society. Our young people no longer have any _simplicity_, and I think this is the glass case beneath which the young plants of the soul should grow, with all their faults and excrescences, until they are strong enough to bear without injury the storms of life and the shears of negation. Without simplicity there are no illusions, and without illusions there is no youth! You will perhaps find here a circle which answers to my demand in this respect. True, there are only a few poets of importance among them, but these compensate me for all the famous, keen, analytical minds which pluck the fragrant rose to find faults its calyx would have concealed, and give us only the purified but empty branch of thorns. You see I am not called the Sensitive Plant without reason." "Yes, yes," said _Heinrich_, with a kindly smile, "we must learn from you how to keep young!"