took good heed not to disturb the
germinating seed by exposing it to the light.

One evening, when they were sitting upon the castle, the sun had
already gone down, and the tops of the mountains only were tinged with
the glowing sunset, while the village, with its blue slate-roofs
and the evening smoke rising straight in the air, seemed like a
dream--Roland said,--

"I should like to know, how it is that no castles are to be found in
America."

Eric repeated with pleasure Goethe's verses,--

"America, to thee is given
A better fate than here is found!
No mouldering castle-towers hast thou,
No monumental columns fallen;
No gloomy shadows of the past,
No vain and useless strife
Becloud thy heavens serene.
To-day suffices with its good;
And, sing your children in poetic strains,
Be it on higher themes
Than robbers, knights, and haunting ghosts."

Roland learned them by heart, and wanted to know more of Goethe.

In their quiet walks Eric repeated to him many of Goethe's poems, in
which not man, but nature herself seems to have produced the
expression. The towering spirit of Goethe, with Hiawatha and Crassus,
was now added to the sedate and unexciting study of Benjamin Franklin.

Roland felt deeply the influence of the various moral and spiritual
elements in whose circle he lived: Eric was able to quote apt passages
from the classic poets of antiquity, as well as of his own country to
his pupil. This revealed to Roland's perception the double
manifestation of all life, and made him long for the real and true.

One day, when Eric and Roland were sitting on the boundary of a field,
they saw a hare which ate a little, ran off, and then ate again. Roland
said,--

"Timid hare! yes, why shouldn't he be timid? he has no weapons of
attack or of defence; he can only run away."

Eric nodded, and the boy went on.

"Why are dogs the enemies of hares?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can understand how the dog and the fox are enemies; they can
both bite: but why a dog should hate and pursue a hare, that can do
nothing but run, I can't understand." In spite of all his knowledge,
Eric often found himself in a position where nothing but conjecture
could help him; he said,--

"I think that the dog in a wild state found his chief food in the
defenceless animals, as the fox does. The dog is really a tame cousin
of the fox; education has changed him only s