A youth in whose breast hang the night-pieces of Maienthal and St. Luna,--or one who has just arrived from a watering-village,--or one who has it in mind to fall in love,--or one who, in great cities or in their great circles, must be an _idle_ spectator,--every such one is also, for that very reason, a _dissatisfied_ spectator therein, and blows into his critical pipe against the trifling company, till he himself is drawn in. But when all these causes actually meet in one and the same man, then can he find no relief against his gall-bladder nor any biliary duct, except to take some fine paper and send off to the Eymanns in St. Luna a confounded satirical letter upon what he has seen. My hero despatched the following to the Parson:-- "MY DEAR SIR AND ADOPTED FATHER:"-- "I have not had hitherto spare time enough to lift my eyes up and see what moon we have. Verily, a court wants time for virtue. The Prince carries me about with him everywhere, like a smelling-bottle, and shows up his foolish Doctor. Erelong they will not be able to endure me: not because I am good for anything,--on the contrary, I am convinced they could bear the most virtuous man in the world quite as well as the worst, and that merely because he would be an Anglicism, an _homme de fantaisie_,[201] a _lusus naturæ_,--but because I do not talk enough. Business-people never trouble themselves about any conversational or epistolary style; but with court-people the tongue is the artery of their withered life, the spiral-spring and flag-feather of their souls; they are all born critics, who look at nothing but fine turns, expression, fire, and speech. This comes of their having nothing to do; their good works are _bon mots_,[202] their exchange business consists in visiting-cards, their housekeeping is a card-party, and their agriculture a hunting-party, and the _minor service_ a physiognomy. Hence they must have other people's faults all day long in their ears as an antidote to tedious leisure, as the physicians inoculate with the itch to counteract stupidity; a court-establishment is the regular penny post-office of the smallest items of news, even about you commoners, when you happen to have done anything really ridiculous. It were to be wished that we had festivals, or card-parties, or plays, or assemblies, or _soupers_, or something good to eat, or some amusement or other; but that is not to be thought of. We have, to be sure, all these things, but only their names; the President of the Exchequer would shrug his shoulders, if we should undertake to be, four times in a year, so brilliantly happy as you are four times a month. As our week consists of seven Sundays, it follows that our amusements are only signs in the calendar, epochs of time, to which no one pays heed; and a festival is nothing but a play-room for the plans which every one has in his head, the boards on which he is to act his leading part, and the