seriousness of life."

Never had the forest seemed, to Eric so grand, the sunlight so clear,
the air so invigorating, the whole world so transfigured, as when he
heard this testimony from his teacher's lips. Silently he, walked by
his side, and sat with him in the forest; he would gladly have kissed
the good man's delicate hand.

At another time, Professor Einsiedel admonished Eric that he was
falling into the very error common among rich men of neglecting his own
culture.

"Living with others is good," he said; "but living with one's self is
better; and I fear you have not lived as you should with yourself."

He asked Eric plainly how far he had finished his book, and like a
school-boy who finds himself detected in laziness and neglect of duty,
Eric was obliged to confess that it had altogether dropped out of his
mind. The face of the Professor suddenly collapsed, as if it were
nothing but wrinkles; after a long silence he said,--

"You are inflicting the greatest injury on yourself and your pupil."

"On myself and my pupil?"

"Yes. You have no intellectual work of your own to counteract the daily
distractions of your profession, and, therefore, you do not bring to
your teaching the necessary freshness and elasticity. I have been a
teacher myself, and always made it a rule to preserve inviolate my own
intellectual sanctum, and in that way constantly renewed my strength.
It is one of the conditions of a proper education, that the teacher
should not be always at the disposal of his pupil. The pupil should
understand, that living side by side with him is another human being
like himself, who has his own life to nourish, and that no one has a
right to command from another the total surrender of himself and all
his powers. You must never consider yourself as a finished man; mark, I
say finished; you must keep on educating yourself. To be finished is
the beginning of death. Look at the leaves upon the trees; as soon as
one has reached its perfection, it begins to turn yellow and shrink."

The words made a deep impression upon Eric. What this man here in this
silent wood-path was saying aloud, he had often felt, but had never
been willing to confess even to himself.

"'Non semper arcum tendit Apollo,' says Virgil," Eric answered, quoting
from his teacher's favorite poet.

"Good, good! that agrees with what I say. Apollo, to be sure, is not
always bending his bow, but he never lays it aside; it remains his
inalien