Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/437

Rh which might easily have led them into gloom, or with mysticism, which might easily have led them into the dark. This class, too, was respectable and numerous: all men of honour and capacity understood each other, and were of the like persuasion, as well as of the same mode of life.

Lerse, likewise our fellow boarder, also belonged to this number: a perfectly upright young man, and, with limited gifts of fortune, frugal and exact. His manner of life and housekeeping was the closest I ever knew among students. He was, of us all, the most neatly dressed, and yet always appeared in the same clothes; but he managed his wardrobe with the greatest care, kept everything about him clean, and required all things in ordinary life to go according to his example. He never happened to lean anywhere, or to prop his elbow on the table; he never forgot to mark his table-napkin; and the maid always had a bad time of it when the chairs were not found perfectly clean. With all this, he had nothing stiff in his exterior. He spoke cordially, with precise and dry liveliness, in which a light ironical joke was very becoming. In figure he was well built, slender, and of fair height: his face was pock-pitted and homely, his little blue eyes cheerful and penetrating. As he had cause to tutor us in so many respects, we let him be our fencing-master besides, for he drew a very fine rapier; and it seemed to give him sport to play off upon us, on this occasion, all the pedantry of this profession. Moreover, we really profited by him, and had to thank him for many sociable hours, which he induced us to spend in good exercise and practice.

By all these peculiarities, Lerse completely qualified himself for the office of arbitrator and umpire in all the small and great quarrels which happened, though but rarely, in our circle, and which Salzmann could not hush up in his fatherly way. Without the external