"The best part of it is inborn," answered Kohle, quietly going on with his sketching. "You must know that I came into this world as poor as a church-mouse, and endowed with so small a proportion of all the goods and gifts that fall to the share of so-called fortunate mortals, the first-born and favorite children of Mother Nature, that, in my boyhood, I had little pleasure in life, and would have parted with it very cheaply. But then I discovered that I possessed something which out-weighed all the glittering treasures in the world--such as beauty, wealth, wit, or great intellect. I mean the ability to dream with my eyes wide open, and to interpret my dreams for myself. The actual world, with its joys and splendors, was as good as closed against a poor devil like myself. How could such a wretched creature as this Philip Emanuel Kohle, this lean, yellow ragamuffin in poor clothes, who stumbled awkwardly through the world, and who could neither fascinate women nor impress men, have the impudence to take his place at the bounteous table at which the children of fortune felt at home? So I held myself aloof, and earnestly and zealously set to work to evolve a second world from my dreams--one which belonged to me, and from which no one could bid me depart--a world which was far more beautiful, sublime, and perfect, than the actual world about me. And as I wasted no time or strength on anything else--neither in wretched money-getting, nor in foolish ambition, nor even in hopeless love affairs--my nature grew up straight and true, and in the greatest development of which it was capable, which is by no means the case with every one; and I could not help laughing in my sleeve, when I noticed that I passed among my friends for a simpleton and a narrow-minded fool. The truth is, my simpleness was the very thing that contributed most to my secret contentment, when I saw how seldom the manifold desires and restless striving of others led to happiness. '_Chi troppo abbraccia, nulla stringe_,' say the wise Italians. I embrace nothing but my art; but I embrace it the more passionately because it exists for me alone. There you have the whole secret. There is a juster apportionment of good and evil in this world than we are willing to admit in our hours of depression." Felix was silent. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he envied him. Yet he felt at once how thoroughly right this quiet man was in his last assertion. He felt that he would not, for all the peace in the world, have given up his own miserable condition; for, at the same time that it gave him the keenest anguish, it brought with it the certainty that so charming a creature as his lost love was still in the world, and had been brought so painfully near to him again.