“I am listening to you so quietly that I don’t interrupt you—­even when you talk absurd nonsense.  How can one look doleful and disagreeable if honest, highly constituted men indulge in conversation with each other for a few hours after hard work?  I delight in this harmless enjoyment, in which people forget all the cares of the day.  Here people shake off the burdens of their vocation and the accidents of their lot.  Here am I, a poor devil enjoying the society of the minister’s friends, and admiring the same beautiful eyes as he does.”

“The harmless enjoyments of which you speak are exactly the signs by which one may recognize the vegetative lives of the savage and the animal.  A serene enjoyment is what naturally appertains to the lower forms of life when they are satiated, and in no danger of being tracked for their lives.  The oldest drawings on the subject always represent men with a foolish serene smile.  So the privilege of development is to rejoice in a satisfied stomach and untroubled security, and all through his life to know no other care or want but comfort of body.”

“At last I understand you.  The artist’s ideal is the ‘Penseroso,’ and in order to recognize the highly developed man he must be furnished with a proof of his identity, so that the meaning of the creature may not be lost to sight for a moment.”

“You may put it in the joking way, but I really mean it.  I don’t forget how much of the animal is still in us.  Of course one wants relaxation.  But I don’t want to look on while animals feed.  Recovery after hard intellectual work means, in your sense, the return for some hours to animal life.  Now I prefer the painful ascent of mankind to the comfortable, backward slide into animal nature.  If I wished to pose as a statue for you it would have to be ‘Penseroso’ while eating or drinking, or with a foolish, smiling mask indicating animal contentment.”

“Very well.  Let us also abolish the public announcement of eating, drinking, dancing and other performances, as the remnants of barbarism or of original animal nature, and let us introduce the universal duty of philosophy.  A soiree of Berlin bankers—­sub specie oeiernitatis—­that would do very well, and you must take out a patent for it.”

“Students’ jokes, my friend, are not arguments.  I am quite in earnest in what I say, and I feel melancholy when I see Loulou and the others playing about like thoughtless animals.”

“I am going to speak seriously about the joke now, and show you another side to the question.  Is it not in the highest degree foolish of a young man without position, to set against him men who carry the sign of recognition from their king, and the esteem of their fellow-citizens?  Cannot the example of the consideration they enjoy spur us to endeavors to attain the same?  Cannot your acquaintance with them be made useful?”

Wilhelm shook his head.  “No, I prefer all these distinguished men when they are doing their own work.  They do not interest me here, because they have laid aside all the characteristics which make distinguished people of them.  I think they lower their dignity when I see these statesmen, heroes of campaign, representatives of the people, laughing, joking, and playing together like any little shopkeeper after closing hours.”