ty is not courage."

"Ho, ho!" interrupted the Doctor. "Have I not already told you that I
have an aversion to all this sentimental fuss on behalf of the negroes?
I have a natural repugnance for negroes. I don't see why my reason
should brand such an innate physiological antipathy as a prejudice. It
shows prejudice, moreover, to say that all prejudices are groundless. I
could wish that we had more of such inborn dislikes, and that we did
not permit so-called civilization to rob us of those which we have. The
slave-trade is not a fine thing, it is true. If I had been a prince, I
should, after all, have ennobled the man. I should have said, 'Good
friend, take a bath; but then be merry, and the Devil take orthodoxy!'
The thing which vexes me most is, that this Professor Crutius has
obliged the nobles by firing off his article beforehand. Could he not
have waited a day longer? Then Sonnenkamp would have been one of the
nobility, and they would have been obliged to swallow it as they could.
Would not that have been much better?"

The Doctor seemed determined not to regard the matter in a serious
light. When they were leaving, however, and he had insisted on Eric's
sitting beside him in the carriage, and tying his horse on behind, he
said,--

"As for the rest of it, I acquiesce, and, to tell you the truth, on
account of your faith. You believe that the past can be atoned for by
an effort of the will; and do you really believe this man will repent?
Well, your faith shall remove me, the mountain of unbelief. We will
see."

Eric told him that he had been at Wolfsgarten, and was not a little
astonished when the Doctor said that the incongruity and want of
harmony between Clodwig and Bella had reached a crisis.

"Bella," he said, "seeks a narcotic. She studies Latin, and, while
smaller natures intoxicate themselves with brandy, she strives to stun
herself with Lord Byron's poetry. I ought not to speak of Byron. I was
once too much inspired by him, and now go to the other extreme. I
consider this sort of writing to be not wine, but--But then, as I said,
I am a heretic, and, indeed, a renegade heretic."

Seeing that Eric shrank back, he added,--

"You are horrified by my heresy; but then, it is only my individual
opinion."

The Doctor was going on to abuse Bella again in his old way. Eric said
involuntarily, how strange it seemed to him that the Doctor should be
so imbittered against her, for whom he had once shown a prefe