Never had the forest seemed, to Eric so grand, the sunlight so clear, the air so invigorating, the whole world so transfigured, as when he heard this testimony from his teacher's lips. Silently he, walked by his side, and sat with him in the forest; he would gladly have kissed the good man's delicate hand.
At another time, Professor Einsiedel admonished Eric that he was falling into the very error common among rich men of neglecting his own culture.
"Living with others is good," he said; "but living with one's self is better; and I fear you have not lived as you should with yourself."
He asked Eric plainly how far he had finished his book, and like a school-boy who finds himself detected in laziness and neglect of duty, Eric was obliged to confess that it had altogether dropped out of his mind. The face of the Professor suddenly collapsed, as if it were nothing but wrinkles; after a long silence he said,—
"You are inflicting the greatest injury on yourself and your pupil."
"On myself and my pupil?"
"Yes. You have no intellectual work of your own to counteract the daily distractions of your profession, and, therefore, you do not bring to your teaching the necessary freshness and elasticity. I have been a teacher myself, and always made it a rule to preserve inviolate my own intellectual sanctum, and in that way constantly renewed my strength. It is one of the conditions of a proper education, that the teacher should not be always at the disposal of his pupil. The pupil should understand, that living side by side with him is another human being like himself, who has his own life to nourish, and that no one has a right to command from another the total surrender of himself and all his powers. You must never consider yourself as a finished man; mark, I say finished; you must keep on educating yourself. To be finished is the beginning of death. Look at the leaves upon the trees; as soon as one has reached its perfection, it begins to turn yellow and shrink."
The words made a deep impression upon Eric. What this man here in this silent wood-path was saying aloud, he had often felt, but had never been willing to confess even to himself.
"'Non semper arcum tendit Apollo,' says Virgil," Eric answered, quoting from his teacher's favorite poet.
"Good, good! that agrees with what I say. Apollo, to be sure, is not always bending his bow, but he never lays it aside; it remains his inalienable attribute."