"I committed an indiscretion this morning, and found upon your table the essay that you have withheld from me for so long. I assure you, Ernestine, I was actually astounded! It is far beyond anything you have ever done before,--it will be a perfect bomb-shell in the scientific world!"
Ernestine dropped the handle of the door and looked sadly at him. "Do you think so?" She shook her head. "They will not pay it any attention."
"Oh, you are mistaken. It must make its mark. Be easy upon that point. How did such a magnificent thought occur to you?"
"As such thoughts always occur,--if it can only be verified!"
"Oh, most certainly it can be verified. I'll warrant its correctness. Girl, there is a great future in store for you. I thought I knew you, but you continually surprise me by your genius."
"Oh, uncle, I scarcely dare to hope. I know now how men despise the attainments of learned women. There is no use in talking or writing unless I can adduce proofs, irrefragable proofs, that are accessible to all. The science of to-day demands facts, and, if I cannot procure them, I can never convince these prejudiced minds."
"Be assured that every one who reads that paper of yours will be spurred on to make experiments in the matter. Leave it to those practised in technicalities to work out the demonstration. The merit of the idea will always be yours."
"And even if they find it worth the trouble to investigate the matter, and then do it so carelessly that they do not arrive at the desired result, it will always be thought a mere hypothesis, and I a learned fool. Madame du Châtelet was laughed at for publishing her novel idea that the different colours of the spectrum gave out different degrees of heat. What did it profit her that Rochon, forty years afterwards, hit on the experiments that yielded the proof of her hypothesis?[[1]] She had long been mouldering in the grave, and not a laurel had ever been laid upon it. Oh, this is a miserable existence! How long must we toil on thus, step by step?"
Involuntarily she left the door of her room, and approached her uncle.
He took her clasped hands, and felt that she was again within his power. "Until there is a woman with sufficient force to withstand a man. They are all Brunhildas,--these mighty heroines. They fall victims to the Siegfrieds who master them. You, Ernestine, are perhaps the only woman capable of accomplishing the task calmly and with a clear mind. You succumb to no inferior passion, but keep your eyes fixed steadily on the mark. You will shatter the prejudices of the world, and no human being will dream who aided you in your work, I have long forgotten how to think and act for my own advantage. You are my pride, something more than my child,--the child of my mind. Your education is my work, your honour is my honour. Come then, I have been thinking of it, and believe I have hit upon an experiment that will demonstrate your idea."