old actor, and took his side with so much zeal, that the manager (burdened, moreover, since that celebrated evening, with the curse of ludicrosity), found himself compelled to close his theatre, and betake himself elsewhere. Several respectable townsmen, with the innkeeper at their head, met, and collected a considerable sum of money for the old actor, enough to enable him to have done for ever with the worries of the stage, and end his days in comfort in the place. But marvellous, nay, unfathomable, is the mind of an actor! Before a year was over he suddenly disappeared, nobody knew whither, and presently he was discovered travelling with a strolling company, quite in the same subordinate position from which he had so recently shaken himself clear." "With a very slight 'moral application,'" said Ottmar, "this tale of the old actor belongs to the moral codex of all stage-players, and of those who desire to become players." During this, Cyprian had risen silently, and, after walking once or twice up and down the room, taken his position behind the window curtain. Just when Ottmar ceased speaking, a blast of wind came suddenly howling and raging in. The lights threatened to go out; Theodore's writing-table seemed to become alive; hundreds of papers flew up, and were wafted about the room; the strings of the old piano groaned aloud. "Hey, hey!" cried Theodore, as he saw his literary notices, and who knows what other written matter, at the mercy of the raging autumn storm. "Hey, hey, Cyprianus, what are you about?" And they all set to work to keep the lights in, and shield themselves from the thick snowflakes which came swirling in. "It is true," said Cyprian, shutting the window, "the weather won't let one look to see what it is." "Tell me," said Sylvester, taking the wholly absentminded and deeply preoccupied Cyprian by both hands, and forcing him to sit down again in the seat he had left, "only tell me--that is all I ask--where have you been? In what distant region have you been wandering? for far, far away from us has that restless spirit of yours been bearing you again." "Not so very far away from you as you may suppose," answered Cyprian. "And, at all events, it was your own conversation which opened the door for my departure. You had been saying so much about Comedy, and Vincenz was stating his conclusion (justly resulting from experience), that amongst us the fun which plays with itself is lost. It occurred to me that, on the other hand, many real talents have displayed themselves in tragedy, in more and most recent times, and along with this thought I was struck by the remembrance of a writer who began, with genuine, high-aspiring genius, but suddenly, as if carried away by some fatal eddy, went under, so that his name is scarcely ever heard of." "There," said Ottmar, "you were going in exact opposition to Lothair's principle--that true genius never goes under."