Through Night to Light: A NovelSpielhagen, Friedrich
General
Through Night to Light: A Novel
Spielhagen, Friedrich
Fiction
Professor Snellius, teacher of the first form and con-rector, a man of
some forty years, aspired, like Rector Clemens, and perhaps even more
energetically, to the ideal, and was perhaps even more favored in these
efforts by his outward appearance. While the beauty of Rector Clemens
had something vague about it, the character imprinted on the clear
features of Professor Snellius was unmistakable; even the most
malicious critic could not have denied that he bore a more than passing
resemblance to his favorite poet, Schiller. His admirers found in him
the same boldly-curved nose, with the electric spasms around the
nostrils, the same earnestness, the same majesty, the same tall form,
which, however, was not dressed in ideal costume, but yielded so far to
the demands of the time as to submit to a plain black suit, in which
the painful neatness is interrupted only by the spotless white of a
somewhat tight cravat. Professor Snellius is a pedagogue in the fullest
sense of the word. His erudition is literally overwhelming. He teaches
all the modern languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, and is not
quite unacquainted even with Chinese, which he reads in his leisure
hours. He is enthusiastic about the young and his vocation as a teacher
of the young. He has proclaimed his views on this most important task,
and his propositions how to solve its problems in the best manner, in
his voluminous work: "History of Education among the West Asiatic
Nations prior to the times of Rhamses the Great." The motto of this
work, and at the same time the professor's own motto, is: "Through
struggle to victory!" Professor Snellius looks soberly upon life, and
stammers a little whenever he becomes excited, as very frequently
happens to him, about the want of ideal enthusiasm in his pupils, or
about any other of his favorite subjects.
Mrs. Professor Snellius is a little lady who would be insignificant if
she were not the wife of such a very great scholar. Miss Ida Snellius
is an exceedingly tall and exceedingly awkward girl of sixteen, who
looks marvellously like her father, and has the reputation of having
inherited largely the erudition of her father. She likes to converse
with highly-educated gentlemen--with others she does not speak at
all--of comparative philology, and of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and is
reported to have read through the twelve volumes of her father's famous
work. This report, however, is so monstrous, that its truth may well be
doubted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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