Which, read successively, refreshed the soul, But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the stone, The colic and what not. _Quid multa?_ The end Was a clear class-room, and a quiet leer From grave folk, and a sour reproachful glance From those in chief who, cap in hand, installed The new professor scarce a year before; And a vast flourish about patient merit Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but sure Sooner or later to emerge in splendor-- Of which the example was some luckless wight Whom my arrival had discomfited, But now, it seems, the general voice recalled To fill my chair and so efface the stain Basel had long incurred. I sought no better, Only a quiet dismissal from my post, And from my heart I wished them better suited And better served. Good night to Basel, then! But fast as I proposed to rid the tribe Of my obnoxious back, I could not spare them The pleasure of a parting kick. _Fest._ You smile: Despise them as they merit! _Par._ If I smile, 'T is with as very contempt as ever turned Flesh into stone. This courteous recompense, This grateful ... Festus, were your nature fit To be defiled, your eyes the eyes to ache At gangrene-blotches, eating poison-blains, The ulcerous barky scurf of leprosy Which finds--a man, and leaves--a hideous thing That cannot but be mended by hell-fire, --I would lay bare to you the human heart Which God cursed long ago, and devils make since Their pet nest and their never-tiring home. Oh, sages have discovered we are born For various ends--to love, to know: has ever One stumbled, in his search, on any signs Of a nature in us formed to hate? To hate? If that be our true object which evokes Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 't is hate! Yet men have doubted if the best and bravest Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone. I had not the monopoly of fools, It seems, at Basel. _Fest._ But your plans, your plans! I have yet to learn your purpose, Aureole!