"Pride is not precisely the word I should prefer," Eric answered.
"But you know that the Puritans, who were exiled to the New World on account of their religious belief, were the parent-stock of that substantial, conscientious, and courageous middle class; and that they carried with them and transplanted into their new homes, as the Greeks of old times into Sicily and Italy, a complete civilization."
The manner in which Eric uttered this, touching upon a great historical series of events, suddenly gave to the conversation at table a wholly new direction. They were at once taken out of the light, brief witticisms, and piquant personalities, into an entirely different atmosphere. Roland felt this to some extent, looked proudly at Eric, and was glad that his voice and his thoughts so overmastered all.
Sonnenkamp himself recognised here the serene presence of a higher nature, which always breathed in an elevated region; he could not help feeling a certain respect for the man, and at last put the question, "How do you associate the Pilgrim Fathers in America with the Huguenots?"
"Let me briefly explain," answered Eric. "The new age has broken through the stringent lines of demarcation between different nationalities, as, for example, the Jews have become actual and constituent parts of the various peoples among whom they have been scattered. A haughty and tyrannical king drove the Huguenots out of France, and they became Germans. The emigrating Englishmen imprinted their culture upon America; the emigrating Huguenots, established among a people already civilized, were obliged to adopt the social cultus of their new fatherland. Permit me, Herr Sonnenkamp, to take you as an example."
"Me? what do you mean?"
"You emigrated to America as a German, and the German emigrants in the New World become assimilated to their adopted home, and their children are completely American."
Roland's eye glistened, but whether it was that Pranken felt himself cast in the shade by Eric, or that he endeavored to embarrass him as much as possible, he exclaimed, with an odd mingling of humor and pity,—
"It is very modest in you to place the Huguenots, who almost all belonged to the gentry, in the same category with the Jews."
"I regard it as a matter of no consequence," Eric replied, "whether my ancestors belonged to the gentry or not; they were engaged in the common occupations of business and trade, and my immediate ancestors were goldsmiths. The resemblance of the Jews with the Huguenots, however, I must maintain. Every community exiled on account of its religion, and scattered abroad, incurs thereby a double obligation: first, to keep in view, over and above all nationality, the oneness of humanity; and second, to contend against all fanaticism and all exclusiveness. There is no one religion in which alone salvation is to be found, and no one nationality comprising in itself all excellence."