ut, in gold or in rags, in man or in woman, which,
shunning the praise of the world, fearing the flattery of its own heart,
fulfils unobserved and with honest zeal its duties, however difficult
they may be, and which labours and prays in secrecy and stillness--such
a being I admire and love, and set high above all the Caesars and Ciceros
of the world!"

During this speech the Judge, who had silently risen from his seat,
approached his wife, laid his hand gently on her shoulder, and looked
round upon his children with glistening eyes.

"Our time," continued the Assessor, with what was an extraordinary
enthusiasm for him, "understands but very little this greatness. It
praises itself loudly, and on that account it is the less worthy of
praise. Everybody will be remarkable, or at least will appear so.
Everybody steps forward and shouts I! I! Women even do not any longer
understand the nobility of their incognito; they also come forth into
notoriety, and shout out their _I!_ Scarcely anybody will say, from the
feeling of their own hearts, _Thou!_--and yet it is this same _Thou_
which occasions man to forget that selfish _I_, and in which lies his
purest part; his best happiness! To be sure it may seem grand, it may be
quite ecstatic, even if it be only for a moment, to fill the world with
one's name; but as, in long-past times, millions and millions of men
united themselves to build a temple to the Supreme, and then themselves
sank silently, namelessly, to the dust, having only inscribed His name
and His glory; certainly that was greater, that was far worthier!"

"You talk like King Solomon himself, Uncle Munter!" exclaimed Petrea,
quite enraptured. "Ah, you must be an author: you must write a book
of----"

"Write!" interrupted he, "on what account should I write? Only to
increase the miserable vanity of men? Write!--Bah!"

"Every age has its wise men to build up temples," said Henrik, with a
beautiful expression of countenance.

"No!" continued the Assessor, with evident abhorrence, "I will not
write! but I will live! I have dreamed sometimes that I could live----"

He ceased; a singular emotion was expressed in his countenance; he
arose, and took up a book, into which he looked without reading, and
soon after stepped quietly out of the house.

The entertainment in the family this evening was, spite of all that had
gone before, very lively; and the result, which was expressed in jesting
earnestness, was, that ever