The elemental conflict of his and my dissimilar components raged louder and louder: but I say no more about it--every additional word would have the appearance of an act of vindictiveness. This, however, I may at all events say: happy is every daughter who may read my works while her father is awake (very few such daughters, however, recognise this truth). Unhappy is every dependent of an Oehrmann, because he will be starved, as a greyhound is, that he may be the more nimble at running (I do not mean on the piano with his fingers), as the dancers' children get nothing to eat that they may spring the better! And fortunate are all needy persons who have nothing to do with him; because Jacob Oehrmann gives to everyone just as much moral, as he possesses mercantile, credit, to which recruit-measure of worth he has been habituated by his fellow-tradesmen, who measure each other with yard-measures of metal. The only people who find favour in his sight are those who are complete paupers, and this because they serve as pedestals for his charity; for the alms which he distributes in the name of the town and out of its exchequer, he looks upon as his own. Peace be with him! At that time I had not taken a part myself in celebrating the peace-festival of the soul which I have described in the Fruit-piece of this book, and I had read but little of what I have there written concerning the year of Jubilee which ought to last as long as the Long Parliament in our hearts with respect to all our moral debtors; for if I had I should not even have contradicted Herr Pigtail. I vexed him, I am sorry to say, once more by my parting speech to his daughter (for I wished him and her my wishes both together and at once, so that it might not appear which was for which). "Herr Pigtail, and mademoiselle, I bid you a long farewell. No more shall I be able, in elysian evenings, to relate to you any of my biographies (shorn of the digressions); and the feast days and the holidays, as well as the eves thereof, will come and will go, but he who has caused you such vivid emotions will come no more. May fate send thee books instead of bookmakers, sometimes stir thy dull heart with a poetic throb, heave thy still breast with tender sighs prophetic of the future--bring to thy eyes some gentle tear drops, such as an andante causes to flow, and lead thee on through the hot, toilsome summer days, not to an after summer, but to a flowery tuneful spring. And so, good night."