'They reject ideas?' 'It is uncertain whether they have had the offer.' Ottilia smiled. 'Would it be a home in their midst?' Something moved my soul to lift wings, but the passion sank. 'I questioned you of English ladies,' she resumed, 'because we read your writings of us. Your kindness to us is that which passes from nurse to infant; your criticism reminds one of paedagogue and urchin. You make us sorry for our manners and habits, if they are so bad; but most of all you are merry at our simplicity. Not only we say what we feel, we display it. Now, I am so German, this offence is especially mine.' I touched her horse's neck, and said, 'I have not seen it.' 'Yet you understand me. You know me well. How is that?' The murmur of honest confession came from me: 'I have seen it!' She laughed. 'I bring you to be German, you see. Could you forsake your England?' 'Instantly, though not willingly.' 'Not regrettingly?' 'Cheerfully, if I had my work and my--my friend.' 'No; but well I know a man's field of labour is his country. You have your ambition.' 'Yes, now I have.' She struck a fir-branch with her riding-whip, scattering flakes on my head. 'Would that extinguish it?' 'In the form of an avalanche perhaps it would.' 'Then you make your aims a part of your life?' 'I do.' 'Then you win! or it is written of you that you never knew failure! So with me. I set my life upon my aim when I feel that the object is of true worth. I win, or death hides from me my missing it. This I look to; this obtains my Professor's nod, and the approval of my conscience. Worthiness, however!--the mind must be trained to discern it. We can err very easily in youth; and to find ourselves shooting at a false mark uncontrollably must be a cruel thing. I cannot say it is undeserving the scourge of derision. Do you know yourself? I do not; and I am told by my Professor that it is the sole subject to which you should not give a close attention. I can believe him. For who beguiles so much as Self? Tell her to play, she plays her sweetest. Lurk to surprise her, and what a serpent she becomes! She is not to be aware that you are watching her. You have to review her acts, observe her methods. Always be above her; then by-and-by you catch her hesitating at cross-roads; then she is bare: you catch her bewailing or exulting; then she can no longer pretend she is other than she seems. I make self the feminine, for she is the weaker, and the soul has to purify and raise her. On that point my Professor and I disagree. Dr. Julius, unlike our modern Germans, esteems women over men, or it is a further stroke of his irony. He does not think your English ladies have heads: of us he is proud as a laurelled poet. Have I talked you dumb?' 'Princess, you have given me matter to think upon.' She shook her head, smiling with closed eyelids.