"You must read the whole book, father, and then those others there."
"But, Richard, you must not read books that rob man of all dignity."
"Of course not. I should do as the ostrich. When he is in danger, he sticks his head into the bushes not to see the danger. A prudent plan. But I cannot close my eyes to the light, even if that light should destroy my human respect."
Greatly afflicted, Herr Frank returned to the doctor.
"Great God! in what a condition is my poor Richard!" said the oppressed father.
"He will, I hope, be rescued. My stay at Frankenhöhe was to end with the month of May; but I cannot forsake a young man whom I love, in this helpless state of mental delirium."
"I do not understand the condition of my son; and your words give me great anxiety. Have the goodness to tell me what is the matter with Richard, and how it came about."
"It would be very difficult to make your son's condition clear to you. In you there is only business, lucrative undertakings, speculative combinations. The bustle of the money market is your world. You have no idea of the power of an intellectual struggle. You know the thoughtful, intellectual nature of your son; and here I begin. In the first place, I will remind you that Richard wishes to be governed by the power of deduction. With him fantasies and passions retreat before this force, although usually in men of his years, and even in men with gray hair, clearness of mind and keen penetration are often swept away by the current of stormy passions. Richard's aversion to women is the result of cool reflection and inevitable inference, and therefore on this question I do not dispute his views. I know it would be useless, and I know that the study of a pure feminine nature would overcome this prejudice. The same force of logical inferences places Richard in this unhappy condition. He read the writings of the materialist. There he found the physiological proofs that man is a beast. From these proofs Richard drew all the terrible consequences contained in those destructive doctrines. As the intellectual life predominates in him, and as he has a strong repugnance to materialistic madness, his nature must be stirred in its profoundest depths. If Richard succumbs, he will act in his habitual consistent manner. All moral basis lost, morality would be foolishness to him, since it is useless for beasts to curb the passions by moral laws. As with immortality disappears man's eternal destiny, it would be foolish to 'fight the giant fight of duty.' If he is convinced that man is a beast, he will live like a beast--although he might cloak his conduct with the varnish of decency--and thus suddenly would the sensible Richard stand before his astonished father a ruined man. This is one view; there is still another," said the doctor hesitatingly. "I remember in the course of my practice a suicide who wrote on a slip of paper, 'What do I here? Eat, drink, sleep, worry, and fret; much suffering, little joy; therefore--' and the man sent a bullet through his head. This suicide thought logically. This earthly life is insupportable; it is foolishness to a man who thinks and is at the same time a materialist."
"What prospects--horrible!" cried Herr Frank, wringing his hands. "Accursed be those books; and I am the cause of this misfortune!"
"The involuntary cause," said Klingenberg consolingly. "You now have a firm conviction of the devastating effects of those bad books. But how many are there who consider every warning in this connection an exhibition of prejudice or narrow-mindedness! How few readers are so modest as to admit that they want the scientific culture to refute a bad book, to separate the poison from the honey of sweet phrases and winning style! How few can see that they cannot read those bad books without detriment! No one would sit on a cask of powder and touch it off for amusement; and yet those hellish books are more dangerous than a cask full of powder. To me this is incomprehensible. Poisonous food is always injurious; yet thousands and millions drink greedily from this poisonous stream of bad reading which deluges all grades of society."