"I think," said Flemming, "that it is very much like Jean Paul's grandfather,--in the highest degree poor and pious²."

 

"Bravo!" exclaimed the Baron. "That is the best criticism I have heard upon the book. For my part, I dislike the thing as much as Goethe did. It was once very popular, and lay about in every parlour and bed-room. This annoyed the old gentleman exceedingly; and I do not wonder at it. He complains, that at one time nothing was sung or said but this Urania. He believed in Immortality³; but wished to cherish his belief inquietness. He once told a friend of his, that he had, however, learned one thing from all this talk about Tiedge and his Urania; which was, that the saints, as well as the nobility, constitute an aristocracy. He said he found stupid women, who were proud because they believed in Immortality with Tiedge, and had to submit himself to not a few mysterious catechizings and tea-table lectures on this point; and that he cut them short by saying, that he had no objection whatever to enter into another state of existence hereafter, but prayed only that he might be spared the honor of meeting any of those there, who had believed in it here; for, if he did, the saints would flock around him on all sides, exclaiming, Were we not in the right? Did we not tell you so? Has it not all turned out just as we said? And, with such a conceited⁴ clatter⁵ in his ears, he thought that, before the end of six months, he might die of ennui⁶ in Heaven itself."

 

"How shocked the good old ladies must have been," said Flemming.

 

"No doubt, their nerves suffered a little; but the young ladies loved him all the better for being witty⁷ and wicked; and thought if they could only marry him, how they would reform him."

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