“Your set over there doesn’t seem to have too much sense,” she would say. “You sound a very giddy lot. You take no interest in science, do you? I don’t suppose you’ve any of you an idea of what’s being written and done.”
“Oh, come, Aunt, some of us are awfully clever. Fan knows all about art and music. My sister-in-law paints and embroiders quite beautifully, and all our relatives are gifted.”
“Humph, art is all very well, but do you keep up with the times?”
“How do you mean, ‘keep up’?”
“I mean, child, with what’s going on in the world of thought, intellectual progress. They’re making great strides in medicine in Germany. France is doing most in mathematics. But I daresay you never heard of Professor Lautrand. He lives in Paris. Ever met him? Ever heard of him?”
“I’m afraid not, Aunt.”
“Well, there you are, one of the great spirits of the age.” And she rubbed her nose with her knitting needle. “A noble intellect. His books have opened up for me a new world. To think you could talk to him and don’t even know he’s there! Why, landsakes, Jane, if I were in your shoes I’d wait on his doorstep till my bones cracked under me.” She laughed.
“Come and visit me, dear, do, and we’ll have him to lunch every day,” I urged. At which she laughed again her young, hearty laugh, but with a wistful look in her eyes as if the light of a lovely dream glowed a moment before her.
“No, Jane, no. I’m too old to go gallivanting about Europe, but I do wish you’d take my advice. You never did take any interest in science. If you did you’d not be so dependent upon mere human beings. If you’d only study geology and biology and the history of races, you’d see that human beings are no great shakes, anyhow, and don’t count for much, save that they’ve the power of thought. Has it ever occurred to you to stop and consider how wonderful it is that you can think, and how little you avail yourself of the privilege? Go one day to the Bibliothèque Nationale, that’s what it’s called, they’ve got one of my books there, and just think for a moment that all that building is crammed full of the records of man’s thought. Stupid, most of it, you’d say, too dull to read, all those books. Well, that may be their fault and it may be yours, but it’s neither here nor there. The fact is that the recording of knowledge is a miracle.”