"I know them, all," answered the queen, excitedly; "in such a matter, no stranger should dare to breathe a word of--" "Then, Your Majesty, I've nothing more to say, and humbly beg leave to withdraw." "No, no! Speak on--I must hear you." "Must? You must not." "Wish, or must, it's all the same. You're always saying that there's no such thing as free will, and with monarchs it is certainly so." "Your Majesty," said Gunther, in a gentle voice, "the high resolve you have formed was not an act of your will. It is the natural and inevitable consequence of a chain of events and impressions, which have been shaped by your temperament. Fervent natures are always afraid lest they cannot do enough for themselves and for the world. They would like, with every hour--nay, with every breath--to make others happy, or impress the world with some great thought." "So you, too, can flatter." "I never flatter. I simply take the diagnosis which, in your case, is not flattering. This excess of sensibility is not health--" "So you consider my mood as unhealthy--" "We should not use that term.--But I entreat you. Your Majesty! this tone, with either of us, is hardly--" "Speak on. I like to hear you. I don't feel hurt that you know of this. I regard you as part of the daylight that was to ripen my resolve." "Well then, all that is to ripen must needs be subjected to currents of air and even to storms. But I shall bring you no storm, and shall not even speak of the fact that whoever deserts the faith into which he was born, insults his parents; nor shall I tell you that the ceremonies to which we have been accustomed from youth, are the soul's mother-tongue. All that does not address itself to the mind. Mind and reason are the parents of conscious man. It is our duty to live up to our convictions, and I can, therefore, find no fault with a change of religion based upon conviction. But it seems to me, Your Majesty, that your change of faith is simply superficial or, if it be deeper, only from love for your husband. You know, however, that I view all these things from an entirely different standpoint. I believe I know the spring in paradise, whence flows the stream that on earth is divided into so many little rivulets; and these again, to use the words of my friend Eberhard, Countess Irma's father, furnish the power for the mills that grind out sermons. Your Majesty knows that the legend of the four streams that flowed from the tree Igdrasil, which is found in the most beautiful of all books, the Bible, is also to be found in our old German Saga." "Very well--but I beg of you, my dear friend, spare me your literary curiosities."