miserable enough at any rate for Friedrich.

In truth, he felt at last that every misfortune that he could invent
was lost in the depths of the real sorrow which oppressed his own
life, and out of this knowledge came an idea for his ballad. What a
fool never to have thought of it before!

He would write the history--the miserable bitter history--of a great
man born to a small way of life, whose merits should raise him from
his low estate to a deserved and glorious fame; who should toil, and
strive, and struggle, and when his hopes and prayers seemed to be at
last fulfilled, and the reward of his labours at hand, should awake
and find that it was a dream; that he was no nearer to Fame than ever,
and that he might never reach it. Here was enough sorrow for a
tragedy. The ballad should be written now.

The next day. Friedrich plunged into the bookseller's shop.

"Well, now, what is it?" smiled the comfortable little bookseller.

"I want some paper, please," gasped Friedrich; "a good big bit if I
may have it, and, if you please, I must go now. I will come and clean
out the shop for you at the end of the week, but I am very busy
to-day."

"The condition of the shop," said the little bookseller,
grandiloquently, with a wave of his hand, "yields to more important
matters; namely, to thy condition, my child, which is not of the best.
Thou art as white as this sheet of paper, to which thou art heartily
welcome. I am silent, but not ignorant. Thou wouldst be a writer, but