the people has been the great task of our lives; we have toiled for it, and in its cause endured indescribable misery, at home as in exile--but the poet's refined and sensitive nature revolts at every near personal contact with the people, and still more repugnant is the mere thought of its caresses, from which may Heaven preserve us! A great democrat once remarked that if a king had taken him by the hand, he would immediately have thrust it into the fire to purify it. In the same manner I would say, if the sovereign people vouchsafed to press my hand, I would hasten to wash it. The poor people is not beautiful, but very ugly; only that ugliness simply comes from dirt, and will disappear as soon as we open public baths, in which His Majesty may gratuitously bathe himself. ...It required no great foresight to foretell these terrible events so long before their occurrence. I could easily prophesy what songs would one day be whistled and chirped in Germany, for I saw the birds hatching that in after-days gave tone to the new school of song. I saw Hegel, with his almost comically serious face, like a setting hen, brooding over the fatal eggs; and I heard his cackling; to tell the truth, I seldom understood him, and only through later reflection did I arrive at an understanding of his works. I believe he did not wish to be understood. ...One beautiful starlight night, Hegel stood with me at an open window. I, being a young man of twenty-two, and having just eaten well and drunk coffee, naturally spoke with enthusiasm of the stars, and called them abodes of the blest. But the master muttered to himself, "The stars! Hm! hm! the stars are only a brilliant eruption on the firmament." "What!" cried I; "then there is no blissful spot above, where virtue is rewarded after death?" But he, glaring at me with his dim eyes, remarked, sneering, "So you want a _pourboire_ because you have supported your sick mother and not poisoned your brother?" At these words he looked anxiously around, but was reassured when he saw that it was only Henry Beer.