"No, Schiller, I swear by all that is high and beautiful, by yourself, by your poetic genius, that your 'Don Carlos' will adorn your brow with a laurel-wreath of immortality. After the lapse of centuries this tragedy will be still praised and esteemed as a masterpiece; and the entire German nation will say with pride, 'Frederick Schiller was our own! The poems which excited enthusiasm and delight throughout all Europe were written in the German language, and Frederick Schiller was a German poet!' Oh, could my spirit wing its flight earthward to hear posterity proclaim these words, and to sing the song of rejoicing on the immortal grave of him whom my spirit recognized and revered while he still trod the earth in the flesh! Schiller, something seems to tell me that I am the Muse destined to consecrate the poet with the kiss of love and of pain. What can a woman give the man she honors above all others, and for whom she entertains the purest affection, what more noble gift can she bestow upon him than the kiss of consecration from her lips? Take it, Frederick Schiller, poet of 'Don Carlos,' take from my lips the kiss of consecration, the kiss of gratitude." "Oh, Charlotte, my Muse, my friend, and let me say the grand, the divine word, my beloved! I thank you!" He entwined her slender figure with his arms; pressed her to his heart, and imprinted a long and ardent kiss upon her lips, then looked at her with sparkling eyes, and, enraptured with her blushing countenance, his lips were about to seek hers for the second time. With a quick movement, Charlotte withdrew from his embrace, and stepped back. "The sublime moment has passed," she said, with earnestness and dignity. "We again belong to the world, to reality; now, that we have done homage to the gods and muses, we must again accommodate ourselves to the rules and customs of the world." "And why, Charlotte, why should we do so? Are not those rules changeable and fleeting? What men denounce as crimes to-day, they proclaim as heroic deeds at some other time; and what they to-day brand as vice, they will perhaps praise as virtue at some future day. Oh, Charlotte, I love you, my soul calls for you, my heart yearns for you. When I look upon you, all is feeling and blissful enjoyment! Let us unite the souls which arise above earthly feeling to divine sublimity; let us unite in the godlike love in which heart responds to heart, and soul to soul. Oh, do not look wonderingly at me with those profound and glowing eyes! Charlotte, have you not long since known and divined that I loved you, and you only?"