Ernestine listened thoughtfully. "Well, then, if I may not offer you a support, I can at least offer your son the means of pursuing his studies. My library, my apparatus, are at his disposal. I hope he will not refuse to make use of them in his leisure hours."
"That indeed is a favor that I accept most gladly, although I can never hope to repay it! I thank you in my son's name. You will know the happiness of having restored to a human being what he most prizes,--his hopes for the future."
"You amaze me more and more," cried Ernestine with warmth, "as you afford me an insight into the depth and cultivation of your mind. What self mastery it must have cost you to live here among these savages!"
The old man smiled. "Living among them, one gradually grows like them in some things, and is no longer shocked. At first, to be sure, I thought myself too good for them. But my faith soon taught me that no one is too good for the post God has assigned him. When I was a student I delighted in the theatres, and visited them frequently. Once, as I was leaving the manager's room, I heard him lamenting the obstinacy of one of his corps. 'He utterly refuses to take a subordinate part. Good heavens! they cannot all play principal parts!' The man never dreamed of the serious lesson he had taught me. 'All cannot play principal parts,' I said to myself whenever the demon of arrogance assailed me, and I gave myself, heart and soul, to the subordinate role that had fallen to me on the stage of life. I soon desired no better lot than to hear some day my Master's 'Well done, good and faithful servant!'"
"All cannot play first parts," murmured Ernestine. "I too, Father Leonhardt, will ponder these words." She sat silent for awhile, then passed her hand across her brow. "No! to be nothing but a subordinate, a figure that appears only to vanish again, occupying attention for one moment, but just as well away,--no, that I could not endure!" She sprang up, and walked to and fro.
"My dear Fräulein----"
"Father, call me Ernestine,--it is so pleasant to hear one's first name from those whom one values."
"Certainly, if you desire it. Then, my dear Ernestine, I was going to answer you by saying that no one who fulfils the duties of life conscientiously is 'as well away.' As far as the world is concerned, it may be so; but we must not seek to have the world for our public, or to find the sole delight of life in its applause. It is not modest to imagine one's self an extraordinary person, destined to enchain the attention of nations upon the stage of the world."
Ernestine blushed deeply.
Leonhardt continued: "Every one finds associates amongst whom to play a principal part, and in whose applause satisfaction is to be found. For these few he is no subordinate, for them he does not 'appear only to vanish again.' Is not a wife, or a husband, to whom one may be everything, worth living for?"