ly applied.
Therefore I forbid you to interfere. You know nothing of the matter.
Treat him kindly, and have forbearance with his sensitiveness. That is
what I must require of you."

Greatly afflicted, Herr Frank left the doctor. Overwhelming himself
with reproaches, he wandered restlessly about the house and garden. He
saw Richard standing at the open window with folded arms, dreamy and
pale, his hair in disorder like a storm-beaten wheat-field--truly a
painful sight for the father. He went up to his room, where the small
library stood in its beautiful binding. A servant stood near him with a
basket. The works of Eugene Sue, Gutzkow, and like spirits fell into
the basket.

"All to the fire!" commanded Herr Frank.

The doctor had compared bad literature to poisonous food. The
comparison was not inapt; at least, it gave Richard the appearance of a
man in whose body destructive poison was working. He was listless and
exhausted; in walking, his hands hung heavily by his side. His eyes
were directed to the ground, as if he were seeking something. If he saw
a snail, he stopped to examine the crawling creature. He sought to know
why the snail crawls about, and, to his astonishment, found that the
snail always followed an object; which is not always the case with man,
animal of the moment, who goes about without an object. If a
caterpillar accidentally got under his foot, he pushed it carefully
aside and examined if it had been hurt. It seemed to him logical that
creeping and flying things had the same claims to forbearance and
proper treatment as man, since according to Vogt and Buechner's striking
proofs, all creeping and flying things are not essentially different
from man.

He paid particular attention to the spiders. If he came to a place
where their web was stretched, he examined attentively the artistic
texture; he saw the firmly fastened knot on the twig which held the web
apart, the circular meshes, the cunning arrangement to catch the
wandering fly. He was convinced that such a spider would be a thousand
times more intelligent than Herr Vogt and Herr Buechner, with half as
big a head as those wise naturalists. The enterprising spirit of the
ants excited not less his admiration. He always found them busy and in
a bustle, to which a market-day could not be compared. Even London and
Paris were solitary in comparison to the throng in an ant-hill. They
dragged about large pieces of wood, as also leaves and fibres, to