“Ah, I see; so the young poets will be divided into painters of scenery, tailors of costume, leaders of conversation, comedians, and tragedians, and the novel passes through the hands of each, like the pictures at Campe’s in Nuremberg, where one draws the sky, the other the earth, this one roofs, and that one soldiers, where one paints green, the other blue, the third red, the fourth yellow.”
“And in this way harmony and uniformity would be reached, just as they are in Walter Scott, where all characters have a striking family resemblance. And we’ll have a pocket-edition as cheap as possible; we can count on forty thousand.”
“And the title shall be: ‘The History of Germany, from Hermann the Cheruskian to 1830, in one hundred historical novels!’”
Herr Salzer shed tears of emotion. Having recovered, he seized my hand. “Well, am I not as enterprising as anybody?” he said. “Think of the talk it will make. But to you, most excellent friend, I am indebted for aid in bringing forth this giant thought. Pick out the handsomest book in my shop, and in token of my gratitude I name you to be—one of the twenty-four!”
Wilhelm Hauff.
“HE PUT THE ORANGE ON THE TABLE BEFORE HIM.”
MOZART’S JOURNEY TO PRAGUE.
IT was in the autumn of the year 1787 that Mozart, accompanied by his wife, undertook the journey to Prague to supervise the performance of Don Juan.
“The waggon drawn by three horses,” writes the Baroness von T. to her friend, “a stately chaise of reddish yellow, was the property of a certain old Frau Generalin Volkstett, who was fond of setting her relations to the Mozart family, and the kindnesses she bestowed upon the same in the right light.” This hasty description of the vehicle in question can easily be enlarged upon by any connoisseur of the taste of those days. The reddish-yellow chaise was decorated on each side with bouquets of flowers in their natural colours; the edges of the doors bore narrow gilt mouldings; the whole could not by any means boast the glassy varnish of to-day’s Vienna mode; the body was not fully rounded, though drawn in below with a bold, coquettish curve; then there was a high top with stiff leather curtains, which, for the time being, were pushed back.