And in almost similar words Toinette, once so blinded by aristocratic display, expresses the following fundamental thought: "There is but _one_ genuine nobility: to remain true to one's self. Ordinary mortals are guided by what people say, and beg others for information regarding how they themselves should be. He who bears within himself the true rank, lives and dies through his own grace, and is, therefore, sovereign."[9] Genuine nobility is the stamp borne by the entire race of beings that has sprung from this poet's brain. They all possess it from the peasant to the philosopher, and from the fisher-maiden to the countess. The simple barmaid in "Der Reise nach dem Glück" expresses a conception of life fully coinciding with what has just been stated;[10] and any one who will take the pains to turn over the leaves of Heyse's works will discover that the little word "vornehm" (noble), or an equivalent, is always one of the first the author brings forward as soon as he makes any attempt to characterize or to extol. It is sufficient to examine a single volume of his "novellen" to see how the word "vornehm" is applied to the external appearance, look and bearing: in "Mutter und Kind" (Mother and Child); in "Am todten See" (On the Dead Lake); in "Ein Abenteuer" (An Adventure).[11] Or in order to be convinced of the thrilling significance of this characteristic, it is only needful to glance through Heyse's two romances. In his "Kinder der Welt" all the personages that appeal to the sympathies of the reader, respectively call each other noble spirits: Franzelius styles Edwin and Balder "the true aristocrats of humanity"; Edwin in his most extravagant transports of passion can find no more exalted praise for Toinette and Lea than that they bear the impress of nobility, and when Toinette, after her interview with Lea, acknowledges the latter to be the worthy wife of Edwin, it is the same expression which as a matter of course presents itself to her; in her letter, she designates Lea "Edwin's _noble_, wise, and most charming life companion."[12] And in the romance "Im Paradiese," the first draught of which we doubtless possess in the versified fragment "Schlechte Gesellschaft" (Bad Society), the so-called "bad" coterie of artists is represented throughout as the truly good and noble, in contrast with the so-called aristocratic society.[13] Not one of the artists is an aristocrat, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. Their origin, like that of the heroes in "Kinder der Welt," is extremely insignificant. But their nobility lies in the blood; they belong to the chosen ones of the earth, who act wisely and rightly, not from a sense of duty, or through the wearisome conquering of evil propensities, but because of their natures. What Toinette somewhere calls "the honest intention to put humanity to no shame," is represented, too, in the romance "Im Paradiese" as the natural nobility, in contradistinction to that