"One must know oneself thus well, so far," said Louise, not without a degree of confidence, "that one can be certain of doing so, before one would voluntarily unite one's fate with that of another."
"Thus well!" returned he, warmly. "Yes, prosit! Who knows thus well? You do not, dear sister, that I can assure you. Ah!" continued he, with bitter melancholy, "one may be horribly deceived in oneself, and by oneself, in this life. There is no one in this world who, if he rightly understand himself, has not to deplore some infidelity to his friend—his love—his better self! The self-love, the miserable egotism of human nature, where is there a corner that it does not slide into? The wretched little I, how it thrusts itself forward! how thoughts of self, designs for self, blot actions which otherwise might be called good!"
"Do you then acknowledge no virtue? Is there, then, no magnanimity, no excellence, which you can admire?" asked some one. "Does not history show us——"
"History!" interrupted he, "don't speak of history—don't bring it forward! No, if I am to believe in virtue, it is such as history cannot meddle with or understand; it is only in that which plays no great part in the world, which never, never could have been applauded by it, and which is not acted publicly. Of this kind it is possible that something entirely beautiful, something perfectly pure and holy, might be found. I will believe in it, although I do not discover it in myself. I have examined my own soul, and can find nothing pure in it; but that it may be found in others, I believe. My heart swells with the thought that there may exist perfectly pure and unselfish virtue. Good heaven, how beautiful it is! And wherever such a soul may be found in the world, be it in palace or in hut, in gold or in rags, in man or in woman, which, shunning the praise of the world, fearing the flattery of its own heart, fulfils unobserved and with honest zeal its duties, however difficult they may be, and which labours and prays in secrecy and stillness—such a being I admire and love, and set high above all the Cæsars and Ciceros of the world!"
During this speech the Judge, who had silently risen from his seat, approached his wife, laid his hand gently on her shoulder, and looked round upon his children with glistening eyes.
"Our time," continued the Assessor, with what was an extraordinary enthusiasm for him, "understands but very little this greatness. It praises itself loudly, and on that account it is the less worthy of praise. Everybody will be remarkable, or at least will appear so. Everybody steps forward and shouts I! I! Women even do not any longer understand the nobility of their incognito; they also come forth into notoriety, and shout out their I! Scarcely anybody will say, from the feeling of their own hearts, Thou!—and yet it is this same Thou which occasions man to forget that selfish I, and in which lies his purest part; his best happiness! To be sure it may seem grand, it may be quite ecstatic, even if it be only for a moment, to fill the world with one's name; but as, in long-past times, millions and millions of men united themselves to build a temple to the Supreme, and then themselves sank silently, namelessly, to the dust, having only inscribed His name and His glory; certainly that was greater, that was far worthier!"
"You talk like King Solomon himself, Uncle Munter!" exclaimed Petrea, quite enraptured. "Ah, you must be an author: you must write a book of——"
"Write!" interrupted he, "on what account should I write? Only to increase the miserable vanity of men? Write!—Bah!"
"Every age has its wise men to build up temples," said Henrik, with a beautiful expression of countenance.
"No!" continued the Assessor, with evident abhorrence, "I will not write! but I will live! I have dreamed sometimes that I could live——"