Then she left the apartment, and after her son hasten’d quickly,
Hoping somewhere to find him, and with her words of affection
Gladden his heart, for he, the excellent son, well deserved it. 
Smilingly, when she had closed the door, continued the father
“What a wonderful race of people are women and children. 
All of them fain would do whatever pleases their fancy,
And we’re only alow’d to praise them and flatter them freely. 
Once for all there’s truth in the ancient proverb which tells us: 
He who moves not forward, goes backward! a capital saying!”

Speaking with much circumspection, the druggist made answer as follows
“What you say, good neighbour, is certainly true, and my plan is
Always to think of improvement, provided tho’ new, ’tis not costly. 
But what avails it in truth, unless one has plenty of money,
Active and fussy to he, improving both inside and outside? 
Sadly confined are the means of a burgher; e’en when he knows it,
Little that’s good he is able to do, his purse is too narrow,
And the sum wanted too great; and so he is always prevented. 
I have had plenty of schemes! but then I was terribly frighten’d
At the expense, especially during a time of such danger. 
Long had my house smiled upon me, decked out in modish exterior,
Long had my windows with large panes of glass resplendently glitterd. 
Who can compete with a merchant, however, who, rolling in riches,
Also knows the manner in which what is best can be purchased? 
Only look at the house up yonder, the new one:  how handsome
Looks the stucco of those white scrolls on the green-colour’d panels! 
Large are the plates of the windows—­how shining and brilliant the panes are,
Quite eclipsing the rest of the houses that stand in the market! 
Yet at the time of the fire, our two were by far the most handsome,
Mine at the sign of the Angel, and yours at the old Golden Lion. 
Then my garden was famous throughout the whole country, and strangers
Used to stop as they pass’d and peep through my red-colourd palings
At my beggars of stone, and at my dwarfs, which were painted,
He to whom I gave coffee inside my beautiful grotto,
Which, alas! is now cover’d with dust and tumbling to pieces,
Used to rejoice in the colour’d glimmering light of the mussels,
Ranged in natural order around it, and connoisseurs even
Used with dazzled eyes to gaze at the spars and the coral. 
Then, in the drawing-room, people look’d with delight on the painting,
Where the prim ladies and gentlemen walked in the garden demurely,
And with pointed fingers presented the flowers, and held them. 
Ah, if only such things were now to be seen!  Little care I
Now to go out; for everything needs to be alter’d and tasteful,
As it is call’d; and white are the benches of wood and the palings;
All things are simple and plain; and neither carving not gilding