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.