"Really, sir!—but your conversation is very instructive Who, pray, was Sir Galahad?—for I have read Ariosto, and know about Orlando."
"Sir Galahad is that myth of the middle age, Charles, who went about searching for the holy Graal—the cup which our Saviour drank from in his last supper; which Joseph of Arimathea collected his precious blood in. You will understand that I merely repeat the monkish tradition."
"Well, what sort of a knight was this Sir Galahad; and why do you hold him up as superior to Orlando and Amadis?"
"Because he saw the true course, and loved woman as an earthly consoler, did not adore her as a god. Read how he fought and suffered many things for women; see how profoundly he loved them, and smiled whenever they crossed his path; how his whole strength and every thing was woman's. Was she oppressed? Did brute strength band itself against her? His chivalric arm was thrown around her. Was she threatened with shame, or hatred and wrong? His heart, his sword, all were hers, and he would as willingly pour out his blood for her as wander on a sunny morning over flowery fields."
"Well," said Hoffland, "he was a true knight. Have you not finished?"
"By no means. With love for and readiness to protect the weak and oppressed woman—with satisfaction in her smiles, and rejoicing in the thanks she gave him—the good knight's feelings ended. He would not give her his heart and adore her—he knelt only to his God. He refused to place his arm at her disposal in all things, and so become the tool of her caprice; he would not sell himself for a caress, and hold his hands out to be fettered, when she smiled and offered him an embrace. A child before God, and led by a grand thought, he would not become a child before woman, and be directed by her idle fancies. He was the 'knight of God,' not of woman; and he grasped the prize."
Hoffland listened to these earnest words more thoughtfully.
"Well," he said, "so Sir Galahad is your model—not the mad worshipper of woman, Orlando!"
"A thousand times."
"Ah! we have neither now."