The Progressionists, and Angela. Part 40

I thank you."

A formal bow was Frank's answer. Hamm stood smiling, his searching glance alternating between the stately young man and Angela. But in the manner of both he observed nothing more than reserve and cold formality.

Angela left the room. The a.s.sessor sat down on the sofa and poured out a gla.s.s of wine.

Eliza sat on her father's knee. Richard observed the beautiful child with her fine features and golden silken locks that hung about her tender face. The winning expression of innocence and gentleness in her mild, childish eyes particularly struck him.

"A beautiful, lovely child," said he involuntarily, and as he looked in Siegwart's face he read there a deep love and a quiet, fatherly fondness for the child.

"Eliza is not always as lovely and good as she is now," he returned.

"She has still some little faults which she must get rid of."

"Yes, that's what Angela said," chattered the little one. "Angela said I must be very good; I must love to pray; I must obey my father and mother; then the angels who are in heaven will love me."

"Can you pray yet, my child," said Richard.

"Yes, I can say the 'Our Father' and the 'Hail Mary.' Angela is teaching me many nice prayers."

She looked at the stranger a moment and said with childish simplicity,

"Can you pray too?"

"Certainly, my child," answered Frank, smiling; "but I doubt whether my prayers are as pleasing to G.o.d as yours."

"Angela also said we should not lie," continued Eliza. "The good G.o.d does not love children who lie."

"That is true," said Frank. "Obey your sister Angela."

Here the young man was affected by a peculiar emotion. He thought of Angela as the first instructor of the child; placed near this little innocent, she appeared like its guardian angel. He saw clearly at this moment the great importance of first impressions on the young, and thought that in after life they would not be obliterated. He expressed his thoughts, and Siegwart confirmed them.

"I am of your opinion, Herr Frank. The most enduring impressions are made in early childhood. The germ of good must be implanted in the tender and susceptible heart of the child and there developed. Many, indeed most parents overlook this important principle of education.

This is a great and pernicious error. Man is born with bad propensities; they grow with his growth and increase with his strength.

In early childhood, they manifest themselves in obstinacy, wilfulness, excessive love of play, disobedience, and a disposition to lie. If these outgrowths are plucked up and removed in childhood by careful, religious training, it will be much easier to form the heart to habits of virtue than in after years. Many parents begin to instruct their children after they have spoiled them. Is this not your opinion, Herr a.s.sessor?"

Hamm was aroused by this sudden question. He had not paid any attention to the conversation, but had been uninterruptedly stroking his moustache and gazing abstractedly into vacancy.

"What did you ask, my dear Siegwart? Whether I am of your opinion?

Certainly, certainly, entirely of your opinion. Your views are always sound, practical, and matured by great experience, as in this case."

"Well, I can't say you were always of my opinion," said Siegwart smiling; "have we not just been sharply disputing about the Peter-pence?"

"O my dear friend! as a private I agree with you entirely on these questions; but an official must frequently defend in a system of government that which he privately condemns."

Frank perceived Hamm's object. We wished to do away with the unfavorable impressions his former expressions might have made on the proprietor. The reason of this was clear to him since he had discovered the a.s.sessor's pa.s.sion for Angela.

"I am rejoiced," said Siegwart, "that we agree at least in that most important matter, religion."

Frank remembered his father's remark, "The Siegwart family is intensely clerical and ultramontane." It was new and striking to him to see the question of religion considered the most important. He concluded from this, and was confirmed in his conclusions by the leading spirit of the Siegwart family, that, in direct contradiction to modern ideas, religion is the highest good.

"Nevertheless," said Siegwart, "I object to a system of government that is inimical to the church."

"And so do I," sighed the a.s.sessor.

Richard took his departure. At home, he wrote a few hasty lines in his diary and then went into the most retired part of the garden. Here he sat in deep thought till the servant called him to dinner.

"Has Klingenberg not gone out yet to-day?"

"No, but he has been walking up and down his room for the last two hours."

Frank smiled. He guessed the meaning of this walk, and as they both entered the dining-room together his conjecture was confirmed.

The doctor entered somewhat abruptly and did not seem to observe Richard's presence. His eyes had a penetrating, almost fierce expression and his brows were knit. He sat down to the table mechanically, and ate what was placed before him. It is questionable whether he knew what he was eating, or even that he was eating. He did not speak a word, and Frank, who knew his peculiarities, did not disturb him by a single syllable. This was not difficult, as he was busily occupied with his own thoughts.

After the meal was over, Klingenberg came to himself. "My dear Richard, I beg your pardon," said he in a tone of voice which was almost tender.

"Excuse my weakness. I have read this morning a scientific article that upsets all my previous theories on the subject treated of. In the whole field of human investigation there is nothing whatever certain, nothing firmly established. What one to-day proves by strict logic to be true, to-morrow another by still stronger logic proves to be false. From the time of Aristotle to the present, philosophers have disagreed, and the infallible philosopher will certainly never be born. It is the same in all branches. I would not be the least astonished if Galileo's system would be proved to be false. If the instruments, the means of acquiring astronomical knowledge, continue to improve, we may live to learn that the earth stands still and that the sun goes waltzing around our little planet. This uncertainty is very discouraging to the human mind. We might say with Faust,

"'It will my heart consume That we can nothing know.'"

"In my humble opinion," said Frank, "every investigator moves in a limited circle. The most profound thinker does not go beyond these set limits; and if he would boldly overstep them, he would be thrown back by evident contradiction into that circle which Omnipotence has drawn around the human intellect."

"Very reasonable, Richard; very reasonable. But the desire of knowledge must sometimes be satiated," continued the doctor after a short pause.

"If the human mind were free from the narrow limits of the deceptive world of sense, and could see and know with pure spiritual eyes, the barriers of which you speak would fall. Even the Bible a.s.sures us of this. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, 'We see now through a gla.s.s in an obscure manner, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know as I am known.' I would admire St. Paul on account of this pa.s.sage alone if he never had written another. How awful is the moral quality of the human soul taken in connection with its future capacity for knowledge. And how natural, how evident, is the connection. The human mind will receive knowledge from the source of all knowledge--G.o.d, in proportion as it has been just and good. For this reason our Redeemer calls the world of the d.a.m.ned 'outer darkness,' and the world of the blessed, the 'kingdom of light.'"

"We sometimes see in that way even now," said Frank after a pause. "The wicked have ideas very different from those of the good. A frivolous spirit mocks at and derides that which fills the good with happiness and contentment. We might, then, say that even in this life man knows as he is known."

The doctor cast an admiring glance at the young man. "We entirely agree, my young friend; wickedness is to the sciences what a poisonous miasma and the burning rays of the sun are to the young plants. Yes, vice begets atheism, materialism, and every other abortion of thought."

Klingenberg arose.

"We will meet again at three," said he with a friendly nod.

Richard took from his room _Vogt's Physiological Letters_, went into the garden, and buried himself in its contents.

CHAPTER V.

THE PROGRESSIVE PROFESSOR.

When Frank returned from the walk, he found a visitor at Frankenhohe.

The visitor was an elegantly dressed young man, with a free, self-important air about him.

He spoke fluently, and his words sounded as decisive as though they came from the lips of infallibility. At times this self-importance was of such a boastful and arrogant character as to affect the observer disagreeably.

"It is now vacation, and I do not know how to enjoy it better than by a visit to you," said he.