"The kiss thou gavest me the holy wafer was Which my dishonored lips did purify from taint." In order to make his intrenchment as solid as possible, it will thus be seen that the poet, in this naïve work of his youth, has constructed the most improbable, most far-fetched, case in the world; for what can be more preposterous than for Paolo out of pure, simple-hearted kindliness to a despicable brother, to expose the woman he loves to the basest deception, which, moreover, annihilates his own life-happiness. But in this exaggerated example will, nevertheless, be found the type according to which, in Heyse's numerous later "novellen," with their plentiful tact and exquisite delicacy, the moral collision is constructed. Let me single out at random several examples. In "Beatrice" it is legal marriage which breaks up the love romance, a forced marriage, as unholy as the marriage of Francesca, although stronger reasons are given for it. In "Cleopatra" the young German resists the love of the fair Egyptian, as stubbornly as Kleist's Count Wetter von Strahl resists the passion of Kätchen von Heilbronn. Not until her yearning for him brings Cleopatra to the brink of the grave, is the liaison between them formed. The proud Gabrielle in the work "Im Grafenschlosse" does not allow herself to be persuaded into the "conscience marriage" with the Count, until he has jeopardized his life for her sake. The young wife in "Rafael" purchases a few hours of companionship with her lover through a lifelong incarceration in the cloister; the self-surrender of Garcinde and Lottka is ennobled by the fact that the outwardly fettered but inwardly free _ego_ was unable to conceive of a self-surrender, forbidden by circumstances, under any other conditions than those whose consequences are death. The right to the happiness of a fleeting moment is purchased by suicide. The goblet of bliss, drained by these personages, has seasoned their destiny with poison. Heyse, therefore, affirms for these _heroic_ souls the right to solve the problem of a conflict of duties in a different way than is customary for "the timid Philistine whose half-way measures are circumscribed by petty customs and considerations," and in the introduction to his "Beatrice"[16] he himself formulates his ethic heresy in the following words: "Genial, self-dependent natures can do much toward extending the boundary lines of the moral sphere, by permitting the measure of their inner power and magnitude to shine forth as an example, through their actions, just as genial artists can burst through those barriers of their art that have been handed down to them by tradition."