[_Taking the hands of both._ Octavio--Max Piccolomini! O saviour names, and full of happy omen! Ne'er will her prosperous genius turn from Austria, While two such stars, with blessed influences Beaming protection, shine above her hosts. 15 _Max._ Heh!--Noble minister! You miss your part. You came not here to act a panegyric. You're sent, I know, to find fault and to scold us-- I must not be beforehand with my comrades. _Octavio._ He comes from court, where people are not quite 20 So well contented with the duke, as here. _Max._ What now have they contrived to find out in him? That he alone determines for himself What he himself alone doth understand? Well, therein he does right, and will persist in 't. 25 Heaven never meant him for that passive thing That can be struck and hammered out to suit Another's taste and fancy. He'll not dance To every tune of every minister. It goes against his nature--he can't do it. 30 He is possessed by a commanding spirit, And his too is the station of command. And well for us it is so! There exist Few fit to rule themselves, but few that use Their intellects intelligently.--Then 35 Well for the whole, if there be found a man, Who makes himself what nature destined him, The pause, the central point to thousand thousands-- Stands fixed and stately, like a firm-built column, Where all may press with joy and confidence. 40 Now such a man is Wallenstein; and if Another better suits the court--no other But such a one as he can serve the army. _Questenberg._ The army? Doubtless! _Octavio (aside)._ Hush! suppress it, friend! Unless some end were answered by the utterance.-- 45 Of him there you'll make nothing. _Max._ In their distress They call a spirit up, and when he comes, Straight their flesh creeps and quivers, and they dread him More than the ills for which they called him up. The uncommon, the sublime, must seem and be 50 Like things of every day.--But in the field, Aye, there the Present Being makes itself felt. The personal must command, the actual eye Examine. If to be the chieftain asks All that is great in nature, let it be 55 Likewise his privilege to move and act In all the correspondencies of greatness. The oracle within him, that which lives, He must invoke and question--not dead books, Not ordinances, not mould-rotted papers. 60