Read "On the Heights" by Berthold Auerbach online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
So one can go away, after all, and leave the motley monotony called "the world" behind. Farewell, thou palace, and furnish thy inmates with their daily pleasures. Farewell, ye streets, filled with shops and offices, towers and churches, theaters, music halls and barracks. May fashion be gracious and favor you with customers, clients, guests, applause, and fostering laws. Vanish, frail frippery! I feel like a bird flying from the housetop, out into the wide world. How foolish to remain in the cage when the door is always open. Thou, great bailiff who holds the world captive -- thy name is custom!
Thus thought Irma to herself, while seated in the carriage and driving out into the open world.