There is something really imposing in a man who clearly and fluently expresses his ideas to other people; their own thought is brought to light, and they are thankful for the boon. But most persons are imposed upon by the "Sir Oracle" who gives them to understand, "I am speaking of things which you do not and cannot comprehend;" and the Sir Oracles carry so much the greater weight of influence.
The men, and more particularly the Justice and the school-director, shrugged their shoulders. Eric's enthusiasm and his unreserved unfolding of his own interior life had in it something odd, even wounding to some of the men. They felt that this strange manner, this extraordinary revelation of character, this pouring out of one's best, was attractive to the ladies, and that they, getting in a word incidentally and without being able to complete a thought, or round off a period, were wholly cast into the shade. The Justice, observing the beaming eyes of his daughter and of the forester's wife, whispered to the school-director, "This is a dangerous person."
The company broke up into groups. Eric stood with Clodwig in the bow-window, and they looked out upon the night. The lightning flashed over the distant mountains, sometimes lighting up a peak in the horizon, sometimes making a rift in the sky, as if behind it were another sky, while the thunder rolled, shaking the ceiling and tinkling the pendent prisms of the chandelier.
"There are circumstances and events which occur and repeat themselves as if they had already passed before us in a dream," Clodwig began. "Just as I now stand here with you, I stood with your father in the Roman Campagna. I know not how it chanced, but we spoke of that view in which the things of the world are regarded under the aspect of the infinite, and then your father said,—methinks I still hear his voice,—'Only when we take in the life of humanity as a whole do we have, as thinkers, that rest which the believers receive from faith, for then the world lives to us as to them, in the oneness of God's thought. He who follows up only the individual ant cannot comprehend its zigzag track, or its fate as it suddenly falls into the hole of the ant-lion, who must also get a living. But he who regards the anthill as a whole—'"
Clodwig suddenly stopped. From the valley they heard the shrill whistle of the locomotive, and the hollow rumbling of the train of cars.
"But at that time," he continued after a pause, and his face was lighted up by a sudden flash of lightning, "at that time no locomotive's whistle broke in upon our quiet meditation."
"And yet," said Eric, "I do not like to regard this shrill tone as a discord."
"Go on, I am curious to hear why not."
"Is it not grand that human beings continue their ordinary pursuits in the midst of nature's disturbances? In our modern age an unalterable system of movements is seen to be continually operating upon our earth. May it not be said that all our doing is but a preparation of the way, a making straight the path, so that the eternal forces of nature may move in freedom? The man of this new age has the railroad to serve him."
Clodwig grasped Eric's hand. Bright flashes of lightning illumined the beaming face of the young man and the serene countenance of the old count. Clodwig pressed warmly Eric's hand, as if he would say, "Welcome again! now art thou truly mine." Love, suddenly taking possession of two hearts, is said to make them one; and is it not also true of friendship?