"I might take that as a compliment to my essay," he answered, "although coming from a woman's mouth, it cannot of course be understood in that sense. Among scientific men, an investigation is thought the more worthy of credence, the fewer traces it bears that its author set about the task with a desire to find a certain result, or with even a previously formed conviction. In my department, especially, much greater progress would have been made, if even in the minds of its masters passion and prejudice had not dimmed the pure mirror of experience and clearness of thought." "Greater progress!" cried the excited lady, letting both hands fall into her lap in sudden horror. "But for Heaven's sake, what progress can be made, to what can you wish to turn your attention after you have so successfully reached absolute nothingness?" "And suppose I expected to prove," he answered smiling, "that this nothingness is just as fruitful as the other nothingness, from which, as pious men tell us, God created the world? But I'll not begin to philosophize here. Even if I could hope, in a short conversation, to make you understand that to which I have devoted the labor of a life, I should still prefer to keep silence. You're in harmony with yourself--what more can you desire? I, whose wants are so different, am also at peace with myself. Is it not better to rest satisfied with that, each respecting the other's mode of thought and feeling? Wherefore drag to light the differences about which we can never agree, instead of rejoicing over what we possess in common? It's so easy to dispute, and so difficult to become reconciled again." "You think me intolerant," she replied eagerly, while a faint color tinged her pretty, delicate face. "But my Creator knows I am not. I confidentially believe that in our heavenly father's house there are many mansions. I honor every true, genuine conviction, even if ever so widely different from mine. My best friend, Leah's mother, was a jewess. My daily visitor, the Herr Candidat--" "Herr Lorinser?" Edwin dryly interrupted. "Ah! yes, now I understand." "What?" "It's a matter of very little consequence; I know the people with whom I'm dealing. There are persons who take special delight in denouncing others, of course for the greater honor of God, of Christian love, and of eternal truth." "You wrong him; to be sure he brought me your essay, but it was in consequence of a conversation in which I was compelled to admit that I was wholly in the dark about your opinions, and had not become much wiser from Leah's very guarded remarks. Do not suppose I'm blind to the faults and weaknesses of this singular man. I do not share his exaggerated mystical views. But even his errors, which arise from an ardent heart, seem more honorable, or to express myself more plainly, are more in sympathy with my nature, than--" "Than a man's honest confession that he knows nothing at all about certain things."