"I reject nothing that God has given," said Euphrasie; "but truth is one, error is many. The science first to be taught, is how to discover truth—the next, how to apply it. You say the ancients applied science to other purposes than we; if they applied it to learn the qualities of their own souls, and we apply it to the comfort of our bodies merely, which is the highest object?"
"What, then, would you do?" said Adelaide, a little impatiently; "shut up our books, and sit and dream on the sea-shore on matters beyond all practical use?"
Euphrasie answered very gently, as she rose to walk to the seaside, "I am not a teacher, ma cher cousine, but I think mind has its laws as well as matter, and as on the government of our minds so much depends, even in [{34}] our researches after material knowledge, it is likely that the science of mind is more important than that of matter, and necessary for the truth-seeker to study first. But I am getting quite out of my depth; let us go and throw pebbles into the sea."
. . . . . .
Mrs. Godfrey was a kind-hearted and very reasonable woman, in the way in which she understood reasoning. She was bent on rousing her young inmate to energy and action. She was but a girl, she said—a girl of seventeen could not have been so spoiled by the insipidities of a convent as to be beyond reclaiming for the tangible world surrounding her; or was it that her thoughts were with the dead, and that the deep sorrow she had undergone had penetrated to the depths of her being? Whatever the cause, Mrs. Godfrey was dissatisfied with the result, and her motherly warmth of heart yearned to comfort the young orphan in her desolation. She let a few weeks pass away in hopes of witnessing a change, but when none came, or seemed likely to come, she thought it her duty to remonstrate with Euphrasie, the more so as the countess being now recovered sufficiently to join the family circle, Euphrasie had no plausible excuse for passing hours together in the solitude of her own chamber.
"It is not good for you, my dear, to be so much alone," said Mrs. Godfrey to her, as one day she intruded on the young girl's privacy. "Rouse your energies to some good purpose, and employ your mind in some definite pursuit; it is very injurious, I assure you, to let your faculties lie dormant so long."
Euphrasie laid aside the embroidery on which she had been employed, and answered meekly, "What shall I do to please you, my dear madam?"
"Why, exercise your mental faculties—study."
"I am most willing to do so, madam; but what shall I begin?"
"Why, languages if you will; but you know enough of these, perhaps; your own language and that of this country may content you. Or will you study German and Italian?"