Ottmar said, replying, "We will take an early opportunity of laying this matter before Saint Serapion, that we may ascertain exactly how it stands; but for the time, I think we ought to let witches alone, and go back to our subject of the 'German Devil,' as to which I would fain say a word or two. What I am driving at is--that the characteristic German manner of treating this subject is seen in its truest colour when it is a question of the Devil's manner of conducting himself in ordinary everyday life. Whenever he takes part in that, he is thoroughly 'up' in every description of evil and mischief--in everything that is terrible and alarming. He is always on the alert to set traps for the good, so as to lead as many of them as possible over to his own kingdom; but yet he is a thoroughly fair and honourably-dealing personage, abiding by his compacts and contracts in the most accurate and punctilious manner. From this it results that he is often outwitted, so that he appears in the character of a 'stupid' Devil (and this is not improbably the origin of the common expression 'stupid devil'); but, besides all this, the character of the German Satan has a strong tincture of the burlesque mixed up with the more predominant quality of mind-disturbing terror--that horror which oppresses the mind and disorganizes it. Now, the art of portraying the Devil in this distinctively German fashion seems to be very much lost. For this aforesaid amalgamation of his characteristics does not seem to occur in any of the more recent attempts at representing him. He is either shown as a mere buffoon, or as a being so terrible that the mind is revolted by him."