To be sure, I cannot subscribe to Student Grip's somewhat youthful wild ideas about sending him to be an apprentice in England (or even so far as to the American Free States!) inasmuch as a mechanic cannot here obtain a respected rank in society, such as is said to be the case in the above named lands.
Still, much of this, it seems to me, is worth taking into serious consideration.
I sometimes almost doubt whether, old as I am, nevertheless I might be too young. Call it the fruit of inner development or simply an attraction, but the thoughts of the young always exert an enlivening and strengthening influence on my hope of life. Still, I never reconcile myself to the thought that our ideals must inevitably, by a kind of natural law, become exhausted and weakened and break from age like any old earthenware.
And when I see a young man like Grip judged so severely by the so-called practical men—not, so far as I understand, for his ideas of education, but because he would sacrifice himself and put them in operation—I cannot avoid giving him my whole sympathy and respect.
Now he has abandoned law and devoted himself to the study of philology; for, he says, in this country no work is of any use without a sign-board, and he will now try to get a richly gilded one in an excellent examination, seize hold of untrodden soil, like the dwarf birches upon the mountain, and not let go, even if a whole avalanche comes over him.
When it is considered that he must work hard and teach several hours daily only to be able to exist, I cannot but admire his fiery courage and—true, I have not many with me—wish him good luck.
Ma sat pondering.
Then she cut out the page which spoke of Jörgen. It might be worth while, if opportunity offered, to show it to Jäger. In the simplicity of her heart, she really did not know what to think.