Prince Valerian, too, created much amusement. He had always retained that insatiable desire for knowledge, which he had displayed on his first day at Wolfsgarten; but Weidmann was as indefatigable in his answers as the Prince in his questions.
Teaching had acquired a new impressiveness for Roland. He was a member of society. He heard questions answered which he himself had not proposed, and, when he subsequently asked these same questions of himself, the replies sank into his heart more deeply than the answers to his own inquiries used to do. Weidmann's teachings were always clear and definite. They fixed attention on the subject exclusively, never on the teacher, insomuch, that Weidmann's own worth was often quite overlooked.
A stream so clear that its bed is plainly visible frequently appears shallower than it really is; and so it was with Weidmann. He was not brilliant; but he had genuine common sense.
There was always unusual excitement at Mattenheim when a letter arrived from Dr. Fritz; and Weidmann said openly, that, since storms were abroad in the world, he trusted that the tempest which had broken over America might clear the air in Europe.
Encouraged by this remark, Knopf related how it had been represented to Louis XIII. that he could never convert savage nations, and bring them into the church, without first enslaving them: now, however, he said, the heathen were brought into the church, but the little matter of freeing them afterwards was forgotten.
Frau Weidmann deprecated this sort of discussion before Roland, but comforted herself with the thought that her husband must have some deliberate purpose in it all.
And, in fact, it was Weidmann's design to lead Roland to a full consideration of this question. He knew the sophistry of the world, and how accessible to such sophistry is a heavy heart. He had often in the commercial town heard intelligent and philanthropic people discuss the question of the slave-trade, and offer all manner of palliations for it. Roland must feel to the full the anguish of having to work out the solution of this problem as best he could. With a vehemence altogether unusual, Weidmann expressed his indignation that any one should ever justify the trading in human beings endowed with speech and reason, as if they were inanimate things.
It was, however, impossible to brood long over any one thought amid the far-reaching and many-sided activity of the place. Moreover, the laying-out of a new village upon the lately-purchased domain afforded manifold occupation.
Weidmann particularly enjoyed the carrying out of this plan. He admonished the younger men that it was a misfortune not to have arable land connected with a vineyard, not only because crops sometimes fail, but because the smaller vine-dresser, who must sell in the autumn, is underpaid for his petty crop. A peasant who has wheat or potatoes to sell receives the same fixed price for a given amount of produce as others do whose crops are large; but it was not so with grape-culture.
Knopf was very urgent that the village should not be one of those tiresome colonial settlements built exactly in a straight line: and the architect consoled him by pointing out that the meandering brook, and the church upon the hill hard by, gave an effect of grouping by no means geometrical.