Ernestine looked at him with surprise. "But how can this ability avail us, if we are not allowed to enlarge the bounds of the sphere within which we are so unkindly confined at present?" "That sphere does not seem to me contracted. I think it so noble, so elevated, that the loftiest talent may well content itself within it, if it be rightly understood." "But if a woman, if I--forgive my presumption,--am especially endowed beyond other women, should I not, with the power, possess also the privilege of transcending the usual bounds?" "You would then possess the privilege of ennobling your sex, of showing it what it could accomplish within its own sphere,--you would possess the power to be first among women, but not to become a man." Ernestine looked down sadly. "Have you read my essay?" "Yes." "Do you think it deserved the prize?" "Yes." "And yet you would deny me the right to accomplish tasks usually assigned to men." "You have accomplished one such. How far your kind uncle may have assisted you in your labor we will not ask." Again Ernestine's eyes drooped. Johannes continued: "Probably you yourself are not aware of the answer to such a question,--at all events, the victory over the other competitors for the prize was slight, and by no means difficult. But do you imagine, Fräulein Hartwich, because the instinct of your genius has answered this one question, that you can lord it over the boundless domain of science? Have you the least suspicion of the magnitude of what you propose?" "I believe I have learned enough to know what there is for me to learn." "Do not deceive yourself with regard to your aim. You wish to learn that you may teach,--not as every schoolmaster teaches, to tell what has been told you before,--you wish to educe new truths from what you learn,--in other words, you wish to produce, to create!" "And you deny me the requisite ability?" "Not at all," replied Johannes; "but I grant only one domain for the creative faculty of woman,--the domain of art,--because, in works of art, the heart shares in the labour of the understanding; because, in the creation of beauty, a profound inner consciousness and soaring fancy can replace masculine acuteness of thought--and these belong especially to the gifted woman. But science presents tasks for the thinking power. I deny to woman not the ability to grasp the grand results of science, but the mental endurance, the technical facility, to arrive at them unassisted." Ernestine clasped her hands in entreaty. "Do not destroy the hope and aim of my life!" Johannes bent towards her and said gently, "My dear Fräulein Hartwich, may your life have other aims than this that you can never attain!"