Richard and Ludwig left with the intention of entering Wolfgang at the forester's school. Richard and Annette now understood one another, and Richard's parting words were: "I think you will do well to remain here for some time. Your stay will be of benefit to yourself as well as to others."
Annette made no answer, but I could not help observing how her breast heaved with emotion.
She and Conny seemed also to be on excellent terms with each other.
Annette now understood how the intellectual life can be kept up, and even developed, in solitude, and, as usual, she was always delighted to find words in which to couch a new impression. She said to me, "There are hermits of education as well as of religion, and they attain the highest degree of development."
She often expressed her admiration of Conny's light hair, and endeavored to persuade her that it might be dressed in a far more effective style than the braids in which she wore it. Conny, however, did not care to act on this suggestion of Annette's.
On his return, Ludwig told me that he would not be able to remain through the summer, unless he had some fixed occupation. He was anxious to carry out a plan for a new and large builder's mill. He would be willing to superintend the erection of the building, but did not have enough ready money to undertake the enterprise. When I told him that I was no better off than he, Annette asked that she might be permitted to advance the sum. I declined, but, as Ludwig at once accepted her offer, I could make no further objection.
"Father," exclaimed Ludwig, with unwonted enthusiasm, "I firmly believe that water-power will assist us to solve the great labor question.
"What we are about to undertake makes me, in many respects, feel both free and happy. I hope to be able to set the two great levers of our age--enterprise and economy--in operation. I felt the so-called social question as a personal affront. I asked myself, 'Are you so old that you need fear a great change? In your younger years, you felt offended when you heard the old ones say, that is overdone, or utopian or demagogical, or whatever it might be, but now you use these very terms yourself.' I honestly examined myself in this, and felt obliged to act as I have done.
"If we domesticate industry, and open new sources of profit to those who dwell in the neighborhood, we are strengthening the best possession we have in this woodland region--our love of home.
"Love of home is a life artery, which, if not killed, is at least compressed by emigration.