"In truth, since I have myself heard the enchantress, I am bewitched like the others, and no longer know what I say. But as in the twilight of a dream I remember, that before my soul's transmigration I was of the opinion that we Germans, who are so hard to rouse to enthusiasm, who begin to be intoxicated when others are getting over the headache,--it was my opinion that we ought not to yield up our virgin hearts to the first charming apparition. For though beautiful, it is not unfading; though delightful, it does no solid good. I remember I held it to be thoughtless extravagance. But now I think otherwise, and I say: It is lovely; let us enjoy the moment, and why refuse to enjoy it? why sacrifice it to the future? Who knows how long it will be before we are again permitted thus loudly to utter our admiration and pay our homage to a divinity of our own free choice, and not imposed on us by accident? And now I desire to praise this enchantress, who has transformed an entire nation; but where shall I find the words? Even the endless array of mere paper words that we have created in Frankfort since our senses were taken from us, even these are exhausted. One might offer a prize of a hundred ducats for the invention of a new adjective, never before employed, and nobody could gain the prize. "They have called her the lovely, the incomparable, the heavenly, the adorable, the celestial maiden, the darling Henriette, the gracious child, the heroine of song, the daughter of the gods, the dear songstress, the Pearl of the German Opera. To all these epithets, I say, Yes, with all my heart. Even the severest judges have given their verdict; her charming person, her playing, her singing can be compared to everything that is lovely, for such a union of all these gifts of Nature and Art was never found in any other singer. To this, also, I assent, though the rareness of this union did not delude me; for with all my efforts, I could not see and hear her at the same time, and I had to think of her points of excellence one by one, together, in order to arrive at the sum of her worth. But of one thing I am certain, and that is that what could raise the whole of a German work-day city into such a festal excitement, without the command of either the almanac or the police, must be something admirable, something beautiful. To praise our songstress then, let me speak of the excitement she has produced, for such universal intoxication, even if not to the credit of the drinker, is to the glory of the wine. "With a little variation, Henriette Sontag could say with Caesar: 'I came, they saw, I conquered.' But triumph went before her, and the battle was only a game for the celebration of the victory.