r eyes meantime
sparkling with delight, I'm sure they never held conflicting opinions
for half an hour; she can twist him around her little finger now as
well as during their betrothal, in everything concerning household
affairs, and too, she's clever enough not to meddle with things she
does not understand--his business and theories for reforming the world.
He's still strong in them, but we've silently agreed not to argue
social questions, and what he does practically is very thorough. His
care for his workmen is really exemplary, they all have a certain share
of the profits--it's a sort of joint stock company, in which the
individual stockholders give labor instead of money, a system, which
depends solely upon the good will of the capitalist, and will be
imitated only when all manufacturers become philanthropists like our
Franzel. But here all have their share of the profits, and it's
pleasant to see how they all cling to him from the foreman down to the
youngest errand boy, idolize Frau Reginchen, and spoil the black-haired
boys and little girl. And moreover the cobbler's daughter, whose father
didn't trouble her with two many arts and sciences, has become a very
clever little woman, who plays no bad part in the discussion of every
day authors, provided the conversation doesn't go above Schiller. At
least so Leah says; she still stands in as much awe of me as if I were
the Holy Ghost incarnate, and avoids all literary topics in my
presence. Nevertheless we're on very pleasant terms with each other;
she calls me her God-father and I call her Frau God-mother; you ought
to come and see our quiet life--although you could gather no new ideas
for your gastronomical work."

"I am coming," said Marquard, "I certainly will! You've roused my
appetite, I can tell you. But we've wandered a long distance from the
main topic."

"Whether or not I am happy? You know it doesn't take much to satisfy an
idealist. The world is what we make it, and I've good reasons to be
very well satisfied with it. I've no occasion to be anxious about the
ordinary wants of life, and have never regretted for a single hour,
that I gave up the professorship to take a quiet subordinate position
as teacher in a school. While imparting the precepts of Pythagoras, my
metaphysical system has time to mature, and I needn't teach anything
for which I can't be fully responsible. Ambition I never possessed.
What I have not in myself, no one can give me; I never c