He said, "Herr Schmidt, can a man conceive of God as having enjoyment?"
"If you were God, the all-creative, the eternal power, the inconceivable master, would you not make for yourself pleasure, when you could make or mar all things? Does it shock you? Or has the thought of your church the clipped wings of an eagle that must ever stumble on the earth and yearn for the free flight of the heavens? Terrible shears are creeds."
De Courval was new to such comments. He felt hindered by all the child home-rule of habit, and the discipline of limiting beliefs held the more stringently for the hostile surroundings of neighbors and kinfolks of the Church of Rome.
The German was of no mind to perplex him. He had some clearly defined ideas as to what as a gentleman he could or could not do. As to much else he had no ruling conscience, but a certain kindliness which made him desire to like and be liked of men, and so now, with something akin to affection, he was learning to love the grave young noble to whom he owed a life endowed by nature with great power of varied enjoyment.
"We will talk of these things again," he said. "Once I was speaking of the making of men, and I said, 'If the father of Shakspere had married another woman, or his wife a year later, would "Hamlet" ever have been written?'"
De Courval laughed. "I do not know 'Hamlet.'"
The German looked around at him thoughtfully and said: "Is that indeed so? It is a sermon on the conduct of life. When once I spoke of this and how at birth we are fortuned, the king said to me, I think—" and he broke off his sentence. "You must not take me too seriously, De Courval. This is mere gossip of the imagination. I have lived too much in France with the philosophers, who are like Paul's men of Athens."
"I like it," said De Courval, pleased, puzzled, flattered, and immensely curious concerning the man at his side; but decent manners forbidding personal questions, he accepted the German's diversion of the talk and asked, "Who is that across the street?"
"A good soldier, General Wayne, and with him the Secretary of War, Knox. It is said he is one of the few whom Washington loves. He is a lonely man, the President, as are the kings of men, on thrones or elsewhere."
"To be loved of that man would be worth while," said his companion. He was to see him again in an hour of distress for himself and of trouble and grief for the harassed statesman.