“Yes, I am Johannes Muller,” said the latter, and the smile had already returned to his lips. “I thank your excellency for this salutary question.”
“What do you mean by that, sir?” asked Thugut, wonderingly. “Why do you call my question salutary?”
“Because it involves a good lesson, your excellency, and because it informs me that they are wrong who, from motives of mistaken benevolence, would persuade me that I was a well-known person, and that everybody in Vienna was familiar with my name. It is always wholesome for an author to be reminded from time to time of his insignificance and littleness, for it preserves him from giving way to pride, and pride is always the first symptom of mental retrogradation.”
Thugut fixed his eyes with a sullen air on the countenance of the savant. “Do you want to give me a lesson?” he asked, angrily.
“By no means, your excellency,” said Johannes Muller, calmly; “I only wished to mention the reason why I was grateful to you for your question. And now I trust your excellency will permit me the question—to what am I indebted for the honor of being called to your excellency?”
“Well, I wished to make your acquaintance, Mr. Aulic Councillor,” said Thugut. “I wished no longer to remain the only inhabitant of Vienna who had not seen the illustrious historian of Switzerland and the author of the ‘Furstenbund.’ [Footnote: “The League of the Princes,” one of the celebrated works of Johannes von Muller.] You see, sir, I know your works at least, even though I did not know your person.”
“And your excellency did not lose any thing by not knowing the latter, for it is a person that is not worth the trouble to become acquainted with. We men of learning are less able to speak with our tongues than with our pens, and our desk alone is our rostrum.”
“And there you are a powerful and most impressive orator, Mr. Aulic Councillor!” exclaimed Thugut, in a tone of unaffected and cordial praise.
An air of joyful surprise overspread the gentle face of Johannes Muller, and he cast a glance of heart-felt gratitude on the minister.
Thugut noticed this glance. “You are surprised that I am able to appreciate your merits so correctly and yet suffered years to elapse without inviting you to call on me? I am a poor man, overburdened with business and harassed with the dry details of my administration, and the direction of political affairs leaves me no leisure to be devoted to literature.”