Page:Stories Translated from the German.djvu/232

 wish, Laërtes—What is it?—You cannot speak of reason to the Dane (to me, the king).—You can say nothing, can demand nothing, if it be not contrary to all possibility—and speak in vain, or have your demand refused.

"Well, is it not so? It is not only the German, and their learned men, who are subject to such precipitation, who stare and look at lines with fixed eyes and yet see them not."

The Dane was ashamed, and then said; "Truly, let no one think himself standing so firmly, that he may not likewise fall. The-German has led me by a trick into this faux-pas, which is quite in character with the manner in which men are confused in this said tragedy."

"Only in a joke!" replied the German.

The reader is requested to excuse any typographical errors that may have occurred.