“What! Gellert, of Leipzig! Men with ideas like that don't live now; there may have been such, a thousand years ago, in holy lands, not among us; those are the words of a saint of old.”
“And I tell you they are by Gellert, of Leipzig, of whom your brother has told us; in fact, he was his tutor, and have n't you heard how pious and good he is?”
“I would n't have believed that such men still lived, and so near us, too, as Leipzig.”
“Well, but those who lived a thousand years ago were also once living creatures: and over Leipzig is just the same heaven, and the same sun shines, and the same God rules, as over all other cities.”
“Oh! yes, my brother has an apt pupil in you!”
“Well, and why not? I 've treasured up all he told us of Professor Gellert.”
“Professor!”
“Yes, Professor!”
“A man with such a proud, new-fangled title could n't write anything like that!”
“He did n't give himself the title, and he is poor enough withal! and how hard it has fared with him! Even from childhood he has been well acquainted with poverty: his father was a poor minister in Haynichen, with thirteen children; and Gellert, when quite a little fellow, was obliged to be a copying office-clerk: who can tell whether he did n't then contract that physical weakness of his? And now that he 's an old man, things will never go better with him; he has often no wood, and must be pinched with cold. It is with him, perhaps, as with that student of whom your brother has told us, who is as poor as a rat, and yet must read; and so in winter he lies in bed with an empty stomach, until day is far advanced; and he has his book before him, and first he takes out one hand to hold his book, and then, when that is numb with cold, the other. Ah! tongue cannot tell how poorly the man must live; and yet your brother has told me, if he has but a few pounds, he does n't think at all of himself; he always looks out for one still poorer than he is, and then gives all away: and he 's always engaged in aiding and assisting others. Oh! dear, and yet he is so poor! May be at this moment he is hungry and cold; and he is said to be in ill-health, besides.”