when, after they have with difficulty learned to feel
their needs, you can only give them such very doubtful assistance? You
aim to produce an artificial thirst, and then all you can offer them to
assuage it, is a pear; for the fountains that flow for us, will, as
matters now appear, long remain sealed to them."

"Edwin is right!" exclaimed Mohr, speaking for the first time without
his sarcastic curl of the lip. "The people are asleep, dreaming all
sorts of things, and Franzelius Gracchus goes about like Macbeth, and
murders sleep. I've never understood how anybody can be so inhuman as
to rouse a person who is slumbering. But that's the preaching of these
humanitarians! You're just as selfish as the priests. For the sake of
making the people see, you drum them out of bed at three o'clock in the
morning."

"And suppose they are grateful to us for it? Suppose a nightmare has
oppressed or bad dreams tormented them?" exclaimed the printer
vehemently. "And that's just the case with the people. Their sleep
under the night cap of superstition is no longer so sound and
refreshing as it was a hundred years ago. All sorts of voices have
startled them, and now they are slumbering in the dusk of morning and
do not know whether it is time to rise. But why do I talk of this to
you? You don't understand the times, you've never felt the pulse throbs
of humanity stir your heart, with all your knowledge and good,
intentions, you're--"

"Say no more, Franzel," whispered Balder. "You're excited; why should
we utter angry words in the parting hour,--if you really intend to take
leave of us? That we shall meet again, and before much time has passed,
I'm perfectly sure."

"You--I will never lose you!" murmured the deeply agitated enthusiast,
in a tone audible only to Balder. "You're right," he added aloud. "It's
sad enough to feel that our paths must diverge. We should not make the
inevitable unnecessarily difficult. Farewell, Edwin. I could almost
envy you the power of keeping to yourself what you consider an
intellectual possession; for to be sure, 'he who is foolish enough not
to guard his own heart'--but--it's useless: _alus inserviendo
consumor_. Adieu, Mohr. With you--"

He was about to add something, but thought better of it and left the
room. On reaching the entry he paused a moment, as if waiting for some
one. He was not disappointed. Balder followed him, on the pretext that
he had something more to say. But he only pressed hi