"Charity, that is to say love and compassion, the two expressions in which are summed up all the joys and miseries of human life, are two virtues, ennobling and consoling man. Let the rich man be charitable to the servant he has subjected to his will, toward the poor man who begs of him. Let him say every day, as he awakes, every night as he prepares himself for repose, that the more powerful he has been made by Providence, the greater is the obligation he is under to aid and protect those around him. In his turn, let the poor man be charitable to the rich; let him know that no rock of marble, no gilded platform can rescue the prince from mortal anxiety, and that human grief is found beneath the imperial purple as well as wrapped in rags, and that often the noble, surrounded by riches and at the festal board, is forced to envy the humble hut and obscure repose of the coal-burner.
"If ever," pursued Eric, with an accent of enthusiasm, "I shall be called to expound the word of God, this especially shall be the text of my sermons: Charity! Charity! By charity I do not mean the habit of extending the hand, which by a kind of instinctive motion, lets alms fall in the blind man's basket, nor the graceful action of a lady who at certain hours leaves the saloon to visit the garret. True charity consists not so much in material aid as in the gifts of the heart; and every individual, humble as he may be, may perform a precious act of charity. To pay correct esteem to a poor man who has been calumniated; to revive hope in a mind overpowered by misfortune and tortured by doubt; to console by kind words a soul mistaken and suffering from errors; each of these is a charity. To be mild and kind to all who approach you, to be indulgent to those blinded by the glitter of prosperity, to be kind and affectionate even when an effort is required to be so, to open a sympathizing heart to all complainings, to all diseases, to all human errors, is the way to gain daily the choicest opportunities of charity. To be charitable is to be good. One of your illustrious writers, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, said, 'Were every one to regulate his own house, order would be the law of nature.' We may also say, were each one to do good, universal happiness would be certain."
"Dear, dear Eric," said Alete, clasping his hand. Then as if she reproached herself for this emotion, she suddenly withdrew it and said, "You need not get into the pulpit to preach a very edifying sermon. You treat us already as your future parishioners, and honor my cousin in the same manner. Since you have begun, will you not complete his education? That beautiful France, the wit and learning of which is so much extolled, exhibits a haughty disdain of the science of other lands. I am sure my cousin knows very little of the history of Sweden,—that magnificent chronicle which in its royal genealogies dates from the deluge. You can teach him. My learned sister Ebba will also teach him Swedish, the most beautiful and harmonious tongue in the world, and certainly the oldest, since savans have proven that Adam and Eve spoke it in Paradise. I also wish to do my duty, and will guide my cousin in the study of natural history of grouse and briar-cock, and the aromatic plants which grow on our hillsides."
"You jest," said Ireneus, "but I seriously adopt your proposition."
"Bah! bah!" cried M. de Vermondans. "He would be a pretty Captain of Lancers if he were to subject himself to pedagogues, like a school-boy, and study themes and versions like a college lad."
"Excuse me, my dear uncle, the most unpleasant thing in the world to me is to be idle. Since circumstances condemn me to inactivity, I would, if possible, employ my time usefully. I shall be very grateful to Eric and my cousins, if they will give me the instruction I need so much. I shall be delighted to study the history of Sweden, a language spoken by persons I love better than any in the world, and the products of the soil of Which Alete is the amiable Buffon."
"So be it," said M. de Vermondans, who, in spite of his eclecticism in politics, had, with a strange mental contradiction, preserved in relation to certain things very deeply rooted ideas, "So be it. In my time people took up no such fancies—more than one emigre passed ten years of his life in a foreign country, and never learned to speak its language. The young men of our times are not like those of to-day. The world, which when I knew it was so gay and careless, which from its very recklessness and its choleric daring was so interesting, now looks to me like a vast school. Its atmosphere, formerly impregnated with perfumes, is now saturated with the atmosphere of dusty tomes and damp newspapers. We meet with no one but persons anxious either to teach or learn. What will become of us if we give way to this pedantic pride? If we surrender to this anxiety to analyze everything? If we go on so, to suit us, God will be compelled to make a new world, to give occupation to the lofty fancies of naturalists and physical philosophers, who seem to me to have weighed and examined this thoroughly.
"Bah! bah! Mademoiselle the philosopher," said M. de Vermondans, as he saw Ebba smile, "I am not ignorant that just now I talk very much like a heretic. You have delighted in reading a multitude of books. I excuse you, however, because you never boast of your acquisitions.
"You do not belong to those blue-stockings, and I have met many such, who, as soon as you approach them, throw at your head the name of a poet like a bomb-shell, and exhibit the wealth of their arsenal by firing a philosophical cannon, or algebraic chain shot.
"May God almighty keep me from those women who forget in this manner the natural graces of their sex. Let him protect me from those Laureates who can see no natural phenomenon without crying out with stupid satisfaction, 'I know the reason.'