_I._--Let us think well of man, and not trouble ourselves if what we say of him may sound a little bizarre. Everybody admits that the poet must be born. Does not every one ascribe to genius a creative power, and no one thinks he is repeating a paradox? We do not deny it to works of fancy; but the inactive, the worthless man will not become aware of the good, the noble, the beautiful, either in himself or others. Whence came it, if it did not spring from ourselves? Ask your own heart. Is not the method of intercourse born with intercourse? Is it not the capacity for good deeds that rejoices over the good deed? Who ever feels keenly without the wish to express that feeling? and what do we express but what we create? and in truth, not once only, that it may exist and there end, but that it may operate, ever increase, and again come to life, and again create. This is the god-like power of love, of the singing and speaking of which there is no end, that it reproduces at every moment the noble qualities of the beloved object, perfects it in the least particulars, embraces it in the whole, rests not by day, sleeps not by night, is enchanted with its own work, is astonished at its own restless activity, ever finds the familiar new, because at every moment it is re-created in the sweetest of all occupations. Yes, the picture of the beloved cannot grow old, for every moment is the moment of its birth. The maid returned from lighting the stranger. She was highly satisfied with his liberality, for he had given her a handsome _pourboire_; but she praised his politeness still more highly, for he had dismissed her with a friendly word, and, moreover, called her “Pretty Maid.” I was not in a humor to spare him, and exclaimed: “Oh, yes! I can easily credit that one who denies the ideal should take the common for the beautiful.” FOOTNOTES: [3] Alois Hirt, protagonist of the theory of the “characteristic.” [4] Schiller. ON TRUTH AND PROBABILITY IN WORKS OF ART _A Dialogue_ (1798) In a certain German theatre there was represented a sort of oval amphitheatrical structure, with boxes filled with painted spectators, seemingly occupied with what was being transacted below. Many of the real spectators in the pit and boxes were dissatisfied with this, and took it amiss that anything so untrue and improbable was put upon them. Whereupon the conversation took place of which we here give the general purport. _The Agent of the Artist._--Let us see if we cannot by some means agree more nearly. _The Spectator._--I do not see how such a representation can be defended. _Agent._--Tell me, when you go into a theatre, do you not expect all you see to be true and real? _Spectator._--By no means! I only ask that what I see shall appear true and real. _Agent._--Pardon me if I contradict even your inmost conviction and maintain this is by no means the thing you demand.