When an æsthetic once hailed him as "the creator of an original, German kind of ideal, romantic art," Schwind repeated very slowly, weighing each word: "'An original, German kind of ideal, romantic art.' My dear sir, to me there are only two kinds of pictures, the sold and the unsold; and to me the sold are always the best. Those are my entire æsthetics." Or a noble amateur comes to him with the request that he would take him just for a few days into his school, and instruct him especially in his masterly art of drawing in pencil. Whereupon Schwind: "It does not require a day for that, my dear Baron; I can tell you in three minutes how I do it, I can give you all the desired information at once. Here lies my paper,--kindly remark it, I buy it of Bullinger, 6 Residenz Strasse; these are my pencils, A. W. Faber's, I get them from Andreas Kaut, 10 Kaufinger Strasse; from the same firm I have this indiarubber too, but I very seldom use it, so that I use this penknife all the more, to sharpen the pencils; it's from Tresch, 10 Dienersgasse, and very good value. Now, I have all these things lying together on the table, and a few thoughts in my head as well; then I sit down here and begin to draw. And now you know all that I can tell you." Again he asks "to be decorated with an order," because he "is ashamed to mix in such a naked condition with his bestarred confrères," and after the bestowal of the desired decoration he says: "I wore it only once, at the last New Year's levée, but I vowed at the same time that six horses should not drag me there again. Before, there was at any rate a beautiful queen there, and then the court ladies laughed at one; but amongst men only, the stupidity of it is not to be endured." When he grumbles over commissions which have been given to others, and adds good-temperedly, "Indeed, I'm an envious fellow"; when he paints the most delicate pictures and then growls, "What am I to do with the things, if nobody buys them?" when he indulges in outbursts of wrath, and a minute later has forgotten again the abusive words which the others spitefully bring up against him years afterwards,--then here, too, his happy humour forces its way everywhere, that divine naïveté which forms the soul of his and of all true art. [Illustration: RETHEL. DEATH AT THE MASKED BALL.] [Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ RETHEL. DEATH THE FRIEND OF MAN.]