“Perhaps my fears are groundless,” Herr Heine said to the Princess. “Perhaps Bellini is not a genius after all. Besides which I have never heard a note of his music. I purposely came in this evening after it was all over. Is he a genius, Princess? What do you think?” Then he addressed himself again to Bellini: “Let us hope, my dear friend, that the world has made a mistake about you, and that you are not a genius after all. It is a bad thing to be. It is the gift of the wicked fairy. The good fairies have given you every other gift, the face of a cherub, the simplicity of a child, and the digestion of an ostrich. Let us hope the bad fairy did not come in and spoil it all by giving you genius.” Bellini laughed, but I suspect he did not appreciate the joke. Princess Belgiojoso said that Herr Heine had no right to talk like that, for he was a poet himself. “A poet, yes,” he answered, “but not a genius. That is quite a different thing. I have never been accused of that, not even in my own country.” “But no man is a prophet in his own country,” said Madame Jaubert. “I am neither a prophet in my own country nor in any one else’s,” said Herr Heine. “My countrymen think I am frivolous, and the French think I am German and heavy. When I am with people like you they think I am an old professor, and when I am with professors they consider I am a frivolous _mondain_. When I am with Conservatives I am reckoned a Revolutionary, and by Revolutionaries I am considered a Reactionary. And when I am among the geniuses,” he said, bowing with an ironical smile towards Bellini, “I become a pedant, a philosopher, and an ignoramus, almost as bad as M. Cousin.” “I wondered,” said Madame Jaubert, “whether we should get through the evening without an allusion to M. Cousin.” “When I die,” said Herr Heine, “I should like a stool to be placed on either side of my tomb, with an inscription: ‘Here lies a man who fell from Heaven between two stools.’” “Geniuses,” said M. de Musset.... (The end of the letter is missing) _P.S._--Bellini died suddenly to-day, so Herr Heine’s prophecy came true. SMITH MAJOR _Letter from a Private Schoolboy to a Public Schoolboy_ ST. JAMES, _March 4, 1885_. Dear Chinee,