“Ah! that is enough. I understand perfectly. Your system is illustrated by a story in Munchausen’s travels.” Fichte’s expression at this announcement was a study; but the lady went on: “He arrived once on the banks of a wide river, where there was neither bridge nor ferry, neither boat nor raft; and at first he was in despair. But an idea struck him, and taking hold of his own sleeve, he jumped himself over to the other side. Now, Monsieur Fichte, is not this exactly what you have done with your _Ego_?” This speech charmed everybody except Fichte himself, who never forgave Madame de Staël, or at least so Ticknor’s informant said, and it is easy to believe him. During the remainder of 1808, and the whole of 1809 and 1810, Madame de Staël remained alternately at Coppet and Geneva, working steadily at the _Allemagne_. It was only about this time that she acquired habits of sustained occupation. Her father had entertained so strong and singular an objection to seeing her engaged in writing, that, rather than pain him, she used to scribble at odd hours and in casual positions—sometimes, for instance, standing by the chimney-piece. In this way she was able to hide her work as soon as he appeared, and thus spare him the annoyance of supposing that he had interrupted her. She talked so continually that it was a marvel how she ever wrote at all; and her friends used often to wonder where and how she planned her works. But the truth seems to have been that they sprang full grown from her brain, after having been unconsciously developed there by perpetual discussion. During the years above mentioned society at Coppet, although normally composed as of old by Schlegel, Sismondi, Constant (for a time), Madame Récamier, and Bonstetten, was varied once more by new and interesting visitors. Among these was Madame Le Brun, who not only painted a portrait of Madame de Staël, but noted many things which now afford pleasant glimpses of the life at the Château. Of course, like everybody else who sojourned as a guest at Coppet, she fell under the spell of the hostess. Byron himself some years later recorded how much more charming Madame de Staël was in her own house than out of it; and she seems to have possessed the art of dispensing her hospitality, which was royal, with as much grace as cordiality. Among the new figures in these years at Coppet were Werner and Oehlenschläger. Both were poets and cursed with the irritability of the genus, so that their mutual exasperation was great, and Madame de Staël had some trouble to keep the peace between them. Sismondi in one of his letters described Werner as a man of many intellectual gifts, who considered himself the apostle of Love and bound to preach it in his wanderings through the world. Occasionally his utterances were a little puzzling to sober-minded people, who were too much taken aback by his mystical mixtures of passion, sentiment, and piety to be always ready with an answer.