I'm not at all offended. It's long been known that
you materialists have not classical culture enough to distinguish
between Orpheus and Morpheus. Good morning, Edwin. I'm only here to
tell you that I'm not yet fit for anything. The salt in my nature has
lost its savor, or else grown bitter. As Bitter-salt[6] it may perhaps
be of some assistance as a purgative; (pardon the wretched pun, the
times are too hard for good ones.) And then I wanted to tell you why
the tribune of the people cannot appear to-day any more than yesterday.
He's been imprisoned."

"Franzel?"

"Arrested and imprisoned. The police officers have extended their
motherly arm toward him and taken the erring child. We needn't pity
him. He's very well satisfied. My phenological science told me long ago
that he has _la bosse du martyr_.

"But the occasion, the pretext?"

"The disturbance of a public act of worship. Your reverend colleague,
Edwin, drove straight from the churchyard to the police headquarters,
to complain of the atheistical opposition he had encountered. Franzel
was doubtless already prominent in their books among the powers hostile
to repose and order, so they took advantage of the opportunity to keep
him quiet for a time. They can't do much to him, and a few weeks
imprisonment is a more merciful punishment for godless heretics, than
the wood piles of former days. I'm only afraid it will make him still
more obstinate."

"And he's right!" cried Edwin, as he started up and began to pace up
and down the room in feverish haste. "They want an open battle, they
challenge it themselves, and there will be no peace until it has been
fairly fought. How often, in this very spot, I've agreed with Franzel
that we ought not to discuss anything, except with those who hold
similar views, for certainly the truth will not be spread by arousing
superstition and folly against it. But we ought at least to retain our
right to go our own way, and much as people prattle about liberty of
conscience, when the matter becomes serious, the liberty is only for
those who think they have rented the public conscience; and we, in the
belief that the more sensible people have already yielded, are
constantly stopping half way. We submit ourselves to listen to
unmeaning formulas repeated at the most important epochs of our lives;
when a child is given to us, a tie formed for life, a loved one
restored to earth, a stranger whose every word we would fain oppose,
utters tha