"And Lothair is right," answered Cyprian, "if he holds that the fiercest storms of life cannot blow out the flame which blazes forth from the inner spirit,--that the bitterest adversities, the keenest misfortunes fight in vain against the inner heavenly might of the soul, which only bends the bow to deliver the arrow with the greater power. But how were it if in the first inner germ of the embryo there lurked the poisonous parasite larva, the worm, which, developing along with the beautiful blossom, gnaws at its life, so that it bears its death within itself? No storm is then needed for its destruction." "In that case," said Lothair, "your genius would be wanting in the first condition indispensible to the tragic-poet who would enter upon life free, and in possession of his powers. I mean that such a poet's genius must be absolutely healthy--sound--free from the slightest ailment, such as psychic weakness, or, to use your language, anything such as congenital poison. Who could, and can, congratulate himself more on such a soundness of mental constitution than our grand Gœthe, mighty father of us all? It is with such an unweakened strength as his, with such an inward purity, that heroes are begotten, such as Goetz von Berlichingen and Egmont! And if we cannot, perhaps, admit such a heroic power (in quite the same degree) in our Schiller, there is, on the other hand, that pure sun-glance of the inner soul beaming round his heroes in which we, beneficently warmed, feel as powerful and strong as their creator. And we must not forget the Robber Moor, whom Ludwig Tieck, with perfect justice, calls the Titanic creation of a young and daring imagination. But we are getting far from the tragic poet whom you were speaking of, Cyprian, and I hope you will tell us at once to whom you allude, although I fancy I have a strong idea?" "I was very nearly breaking in upon your conversation, as I did once before, with strange words and sayings," answered Cyprian, "which you would not have understood, inasmuch as you were not seeing the images of my waking-dream. Nevertheless, I cry out 'No! Since the days of Shakespeare there never stalked such a Being across the stage as this superhumanly terrible, gruesome old man!' And that you may not remain a moment longer in doubt on the subject, I add at once that no modern poet can congratulate himself on such a loftily tragic and powerful creation as the author of the Söhne des Thales."