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Professor Einsiedel quoted some Greek words out of Plato to Eric, which expressed the joy one feels in a beautiful animated youth; then he patted the boy on the shoulder, thanked him for the offer of the dog, and said that as he did not like to bid goodbye in the rush, he would now bid them farewell before the train arrived. He considered that those who were waiting at the station had already started on their journey, and taking Eric aside, he said in a voice trembling with emotion, —

"You are well enough off, and you must also marry, for the apostle Paul says, 'Whoever careth for the things that are of the world ought to marry.'" He requested him to write more particularly concerning Clodwig's antiquities, then shook him by the hand. Roland also extended his hand to the professor.

Eric looked after the little man going away, who was in his eyes a walking temple of the spirit of wisdom; and the good little man rubbed his tender hand on his coat, for Roland had pressed it a little too hard.

The train came thundering in. The leave-taking was hurried. Roland kissed repeatedly the mother and aunt, and Sonnenkamp kissed the mother's hand.

His mother said in a low tone to Eric on taking leave, —

"You are forsaking me. I am at rest, I know you are not forsaking yourself, and so you are still with me. Go, then; hold thyself within thyself, and me in thee, and it will be well with thee, and well with me."

In the railway-car the Major bent towards Eric and whispered, —

"I have learned something about your father."

"What is it?"

"Something good for you and for me. Your father, who has gone to the eternal home, belonged to our brotherhood. It is your right to claim assistance, and my duty to give it. I only beg that you will never thank me; we are not allowed to thank one another."

At the first station the Major took Eric aside, and asked him whether he had made a positive agreement as to salary, indemnification at dismissal, and pension after the completion of the tutorship. Eric treated the subject with indifference, and the Major gave him to understand that he had full power to grant all his demands. He advised Eric to strike now while the iron was hot. But Eric not seeming at all disposed to take up with the advice, the Major desisted, murmuring to himself, —

"Here now, Fräulein Milch is always saying that I am not practical; and here now is a man who is so learned, and can turn himself round and face about seven times before I can get up on my feet, and he is ever so much less practical than I am." The Major was almost delighted that Eric was so unpractical; he could tell Fräulein Milch all about it.

On the way the diamond ring was redeemed, and Eric said to Roland, —

"Let your father take the ring; I would prefer that you would not wear a ring for the future."

Roland gave the ring to his father, and the Major said, humming to himself, —

"He has him! He has him by bit and curb."

It was evening when they drove by the small vine-covered house. Roland pointed out the house to Eric with glistening eyes, but uttered no word. They drove into the grounds of Villa Eden, where the air was laden with the fragrance of roses, for all the roses in Sonnenkamp's garden were in fresh bloom.

"We have it," cried the architect from the castle to the Major, as he was getting out.

"Have what?"

"We have found the castle-spring."

"And we have him," cried the Major, pointing to Eric.

And from this day, the Major began many of his stories with the words, —

"At the time I rode with Herr Sonnenkamp in the extra train."

BOOK V

CHAPTER I.
HIGH ABOVE

The rosebuds in the garden had opened in the spring night, and rare flowers blossomed out in the soul of the youth.

With transcendent delight, Roland welcomed his recovered teacher to the house. He went in high spirits to his mother's room, but she was so exhausted that he could not see her. He forgot Fräulein Perini's distant reserve towards him, and announced to her jubilantly, that Eric was there, and would now remain; she was just to say so to his mother.

"And have you no inquiries to make about the Chevalier?"

"No: I know that he is gone; he was not with me even when he was here. Ah, forgive me, I don't know what I am saying! O, why does not the whole world rejoice!"

Roland's rejoicing received the first check when Fräulein Perini said, that no one could estimate correctly the inconsolable distress which his mother had suffered from his flight.

The boy stood still, but he felt assured that now all would go well; that everybody must now be well and strong.

He came across Joseph in the court, and joyfully informed him that he now was acquainted with his native city; he nodded to all the servants, he greeted the horses, the trees, the dogs; all must know and rejoice in the fact that Eric was here. The servants looked at Roland in astonishment, and Bertram, the coachman, drew his long beard through the fingers of both hands, and said, —

"The young master has got, during these two days, a man's voice."

Joseph smilingly added: —

"Yes, indeed, a single day at the University has made him a different being. And what a being!"

In fact, Roland was wholly different. He returned to his home as from a voyage; yes, even as from another world: he could not comprehend how everything should appear so changed, illuminated so brightly; he had been alone with himself, and had gained possession of himself in solitude.

Eric had made no definite agreement about his salary, and Sonnenkamp said to the Major, smiling: —

"These enthusiastic Idealists have a concealed policy. The man does as people do when they are invited to dinner; they let themselves be served by the host and hostess with some nice dish, and so receive a larger stare than they would have helped themselves to."

Eric had only made one demand, that he should inhabit with Roland the house-turret, remote from all noise, and furnishing an extensive prospect. This was granted, and Eric felt himself strangely free in these handsome, spacious rooms, with their outlook upon the river and the landscape.

How confined is one's life in those small, close apartments of the University-town, and yet how far the spirit can extend itself beyond that narrow enclosure! And these carpets, this elegant furniture, how soon will it become an ordinary thing, forgotten and unconsidered, like the wide view of the landscape! It seemed to Eric as free, as inspiring, and as commanding, as if – he himself laughed when the comparison came into his mind – as if he were living on horseback. We can go very comfortably over hill and vale with a light walking-staff, but to sit on horseback, and course away, with a double, triple strength united to our own, and elevating us above the ordinary level, this is a rare exhilaration.

Roland came to Eric, and he expressed to the boy his joy at the beautiful and peaceful life they would live here; but Roland begged: —

"Give me something to do, something right hard; try and think of something."

Eric perceived the boy's state of excitement; sitting down near him, he took his hand, and showed him that life seldom furnished a single deed on which one could employ the whole strength of his voluntary powers; they would work quietly and steadily, and make each other wiser and better. The boy was contented, and looked at Eric as if he would, with his eyes, draw him into his soul, and make him his own. Then he lightly touched Eric's shoulder, as if to be newly assured that he was really with him.

Now they put things in order, and Roland was glad to render all kinds of assistance. In spite of his former deliberation, Eric had entered upon the new relation so unexpectedly, and plunged into it so suddenly, that he had hardly settled upon anything. Then there was so much to be discussed with his mother, deciding what he would take with him, and what he would leave behind, that they postponed all to a future arrangement by letter.

When temporary order was established, Eric complied with Roland's request to go with him upon the platform of the tower. They sat down here, and looked about, for a long time, in every direction. Eric could not restrain himself from telling the boy how new and beautiful all life appeared to him. They had formerly built castles upon the heights, for strife, for feuds, and for robbery of travellers upon the highway; but we, we work with the powers of nature, we endeavor to gain wealth, and then we withdraw, and place our dwelling upon an elevated site, in some lovely valley, and desire to take in only the eternal beauty, which no one can take away. The great river becomes a highway, along which industrious and noble men erect their habitations. The generations after us will be obliged to say that, at this time, men began to pay loyal homage to nature, as had never before been paid in the history of humanity; this is a new religion, even if it has no outward form, and shall never acquire any.

"Go on speaking, go on, on further," said Roland, nestling up to Eric; he could not say that he would like to hear just the sound of his voice; he closed his eyes and cried again: "Go on speaking!" Eric understood the imploring call, and went on to relate, how, when he stood for the first time upon the Righi, looking at the setting sun, he had been impressed with the thought whether there might not be some form, some service, by which the devotional feelings of these assembled spectators, in this temple of nature, might find expression. He had learned that this was impossible, and perhaps was not needful: nature imparts to each one a joy of his own, and joy in nature to each a private feeling of devotion, in which no others can share. Then extolling the happiness of being able thus in one's own house, on a tower erected by one's self, to appropriate the world, and the beauty of the earth, he showed how wealth, its pursuit, and its possession might be the basis of a grand moral and social benefit. Riches, he explained, were only a result of freedom, of the unfettered employment of activities, and must have only freedom as their resultant product.

Roland was happy; he did not comprehend the whole, but he felt, for the first time, that wealth was neither to be despised nor to be gloried in. All his teachers, hitherto, had endeavored to impress upon him either the one view or the other.

Joseph came to the tower, and asked whether Eric and Roland wished to dine together in their room; he was answered in the affirmative. They were happy, sitting together, and Roland cried: —

"We two dwell upon an island; and if I ever live in the castle, you must also live with me. Do you know what one thing more I want?"

"How! you want one thing more?"

"Yes; Manna ought to be with us. Don't you think she is now thinking of us?"

"Probably not of me."

"Yes, indeed! I have written to her about you, and this evening I am going to write again, and tell her everything."

Eric was puzzled, for a moment: he did not know what he ought to do. Ought he to restrain the boy from writing about him? There was no reason for doing so, and he would not disturb Roland's impartial candor.

CHAPTER II.
A SPIRIT'S VOICE BY NIGHT

Roland was writing in his room, and, as he wrote, frequently uttering the words aloud to himself. Eric sat silent, looking at the lamp. What was the use now of wishing? He stood in front of the unpacked books; there were but few. During the last fifteen minutes before going to the train, he had gone once more into his father's study, and locked up the papers left by him; glancing his eye around the library, he took down a book, the first volume of Sparks's handsome edition of the works of Benjamin Franklin. This volume contained the autobiography and the continuation of the life. Some leaves were inserted in the handwriting of his father.

And now he read, on this the first night of his new occupation, these words, —

"Look at this! Here is a real man, the genius of sound understanding and of steadfast will. Electricity is always here in the atmosphere, but does not concentrate itself and become visible lightning.

"This is genius. Genius is nothing but electricity collected in the atmosphere of the soul.

"With this book a man would not be alone, if he were alone on an island; he would be in the midst of the world.

"No philosopher, no poet, no statesman, no artisan, no member of the learned professions, and yet all of these combined in one; a pet son, with Nature for his mother and Experience for his nurse; an outcast son, who, without scientific guidance, finds by himself all medicinal herbs in the wild woods.

"If I had a youth to educate, not for any special calling, but that he might become a genuine man and a good citizen, I would place my hands upon his head and say, 'My son, become like Benjamin Franklin – no, – not this; develop thine own being, as Benjamin Franklin developed his.'"

Eric rested his chin upon his hand, and gazed out into the darkness of the night.

What is that? Are there miracles in our life? He looked to the right and to the left, as if he must have heard the voice of his father; as if he had not written, but was speaking the words, – My son, become like Benjamin Franklin!

Eric, with great effort, continued his reading: —

"It is indeed well for us to form ourselves after the first men of the old world, the period of generative, elementary existence; the characters of the Bible and of Homer are not the creations of a single, highly endowed mind, but they are the embodiments of the primitive, national spirit in distinct forms, and embrace a far wider compass than the span of individual existence.

"Understand me well. I say, I know in modern history no other man, according to whose method of living and thinking a man of our day can form himself, except Benjamin Franklin.

"Why not Washington, who was so great and pure?

"Washington was a soldier and a statesman, but he was not an original discoverer of the world within himself, and an unfolder of that world from his own inner being. He exerted influence by ruling and guiding others; Franklin, by ruling and guiding himself.

"When the time shall ever come, and it will come, that battles shall be spoken of as in this day we speak of cannibals; when honorable, industrious, humane labors shall constitute the history of humanity, then Franklin will be acknowledged.

"I would not willingly fall into that sanctimonious tone, the remnant of pulpit oratory, that comes out in us whenever we approach the eternal sanctities; and I hope our tone must be wholly different from that of those who claim to speak in the name of a spirit which they themselves do not possess.

"God manifested himself to Moses, Jesus, Mohammed in the solitude of the desert; to Spinoza in the solitude of the study; to Franklin in the solitude of the sea." (This last clause was stricken out, and then again inserted.) "Franklin is the man of sober understanding, who knows nothing of enthusiasm.

"The world would not have much beauty if all human beings were like Franklin; his nature is wholly destitute of the romantic element, (to be expressed differently," was written in the margin, and attention called to it by a cross,) "but the world would have uprightness, truthfulness, industriousness, and helpfulness. Now they use the word love, and take delight in their beautiful sentiments; but you are permitted to speak about love when you have satisfied those four requirements." (This last sentence was underlined with red ink.)

"In Franklin there is something of Socrates, and there is specially noticeable a happy vein of humor; Franklin enjoys also a good laugh.

"Franklin is, through and through, good prose, intelligible, transparent, compact.

"We do not have to educate geniuses in the world. Every genius trains himself, and can have no other trainer. In the world we have to form substantial, energetic members of the common weal. What thou dost specially, whether thou makest shoe-pegs or marble statues, is not my business but thine.

"We shall never be in a right position in regard to the world, if we do not believe in purity, in the noblest motives; the inmost of humanity is revealed to us only on this condition. There is no better coat-of-mail against assaults, than faith in the good which others do, and which one is to do himself; one hears then, within, the inspiring tones of martial music, and marches with light and free step onward through the contest of life.

"It is the distinguishing and favorable feature in Franklin's life, that he is the self-made man; he is self-taught, and has discovered by himself the forces of nature and the treasures of science; he is the representative of those, who, transplanted from Europe to America and in danger of deterioration and decay, attained a wholly new development.

"If we could have, like antiquity, a mythological embodiment of that world which is called America, which carried with it the gods of Europe, – I mean those historical ideas which the colonists carried over with them, and yet freely adopted into their own organic life, – would you have these ideas embodied in a human form, – here stands Benjamin Franklin. He was wise, and no one taught him; he was religious, and had no church; he was a lover of men, and yet knew very well how bad they were.

"He not only knew how to draw the lightning from the clouds, but also the stormy elements of passion from the tempers of men; he has laid hold of those prudential maxims which are a security against destruction, and which fit one for self-guidance.

"The reason why I should take him for a master and a guide in the education of a human being, is this: – he represents the simple, healthy, human understanding, the firmly established and the safe; not the erratic spirit of genius, but those virtues of head and of heart which steadily and quietly promote man's social happiness and his moral well-being.

"Luther was the conqueror of the middle ages; Franklin is the first in modern times to make himself. The modern man is no longer a martyr; Luther was none, and Franklin still less. No martyrdom.

"Franklin has introduced into the world no new maxim, but he has expressed with simplicity those which an honest man can find in himself.

"In what Franklin is, and in what he imparts, there is nothing peculiar, nothing exciting, nothing surprising, nothing mysterious, nothing brilliant nor dazzling; it is the water of life, the water which all creatures stand in need of." (Here it was written on the margin, – Deep springs are yet to be bored for, and to be found here) "The man of the past eighteenth century had no idea of the people, could have none, for it was wrung and refined out of the free thinking that prevailed even to the very end of the century, even to the revolution.

"He who creates anew stands in a strange and hostile, or, at least, independent attitude towards that which already exists.

"Franklin is the son of this age; he recognizes only the in-born worth of men, not the inherited. (Deeper boring is yet to be done here)."

With paler ink, evidently later, it was written, —

"It is not by chance, that this first not only free-thinking, – for many philosophers were this, – but also free-acting man was a printer.

"In the sphere of books lies not the heroism, – I believe that the period of heroic development is past, – but the manhood of the new age.

"Because our influence is exerted through books, there can be no longer any grand, personal manifestation of power." (Here were two interrogation-points and two exclamation-points in brackets, and there was written in pencil across this last remark, – "This can be better said.")

Then at the conclusion there was written in blue ink, —

"Abstract rules can form no character, no human being, and can create no work of art. The living man, and the concrete work of art contain all rules, as language contains all grammar, and these are the good and the beautiful.

"He who knows the real men who have preceded him, so that they live again in him, enters into their circle; he sets his foot upon the holy ground of existence, he is consecrated through the predecessors who trode it before him."

And again, in a trembling hand, there was written, at a late period, clear across the previous writing: —

"Whoever takes a part in the up-building of the State and the community, whoever fills an office and makes laws, whoever stands in the midst of the science of his time, becomes antiquated in the course of the new civilization that succeeds him; he is not, by virtue of his position, an archetypal pattern of the coming age. He only is so, who discerns, clears up, lays hold of and establishes anew, those eternal laws of the human spirit, which are the same from the beginning and throughout all time; therefore Franklin is not a pattern, but rather a method."

And now, finally, came the words, which were twice underlined: —

"My last maxim is this: – 'Organic life, abstract laws!' We can make brandy out of grain, but not grain out of brandy. He who understands that, has all that I have to say."

Eric had read so far, and now he leaned back, and endeavored to form an idea of his father's thought, and to catch the whole meaning of these often half-expressed utterances.

He felt as if he were walking upon a mountain-top in the midst of clouds, and yet seeing the path and the goal.

He placed his hand upon the manuscript leaves, and a happy smile came over his countenance; then he arose, and almost laughed aloud, for the expression of the architect, on his arrival, occurred to him.

"We have it!"

"Yes," he cried, "I have it, I have the spring, from which clear, sparkling water shall flow forth for Roland and for me."

He found no rest; he opened the window, and looked out for a long time on the night. The air was full of the fragrance of roses, the sky full of the glory of stars; occasionally a nightingale sang, and then ceased, while in the distance, where the river was dammed up, the frogs kept up a noisy croaking.

Now Eric heard a man's voice – it is the voice of Pranken below on the balcony – which was saying in a loud tone, —

"We attach much, too much importance to it. Such a family-tutor ought properly to wear a livery; that would be the best."

"You are very merry to-day," replied Sonnenkamp.

"On the contrary, very serious; the sacred order of things, without which neither society nor the state can exist, has a sure support in the differences of rank being maintained, if each one shows his particular class. Service – "

Eric closed the window softly; he deemed it unworthy to listen.

The nightingales sang outside in the thicket, and the frogs croaked in the swamp.

"Each sings in its own way," said Eric to himself, as he thought of the cheering words of his father, and the expression of the young baron.