 lore and wisdom of the past, and transmitted it to
us. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that, but for these monks, not one line
of the classics would have reached our day. Surely, then, we can pardon
something to those superstitious ages, perhaps even the mysticism of the
scholastic philosophy; since, after all, we can find no harm in it, only the
mistaking of the possible for the real, and the high aspirings of the human mind
after a long-sought and unknown somewhat. I think the name of Martin Luther, the
monk of Wittenberg, alone sufficient to redeem all monkhood from the reproach of
laziness. If this will not, perhaps the vast folios of Thomas Aquinas will; or
the countless manuscripts, still treasured in old libraries, whose yellow and
wrinkled pages remind one of the hands that wrote them and the faces that once
bent over them.«
    »An eloquent homily,« said the Baron, laughing; »a most touching appeal in
behalf of suffering humanity! For my part, I am no friend of this entire
seclusion from the world. It has a very injurious effect on the mind of a
scholar. The Chinese proverb is true: a single conversation across the table
with a wise man is better than ten years' mere study of books. I have known some
of these literary men who thus shut themselves up from the world. Their minds
never come in contact with those of their fellow-men. They read little. They
think much. They are mere dreamers. They know not what is new nor what is old.
They often strike upon trains of thought, which stand written in good authors
some century or so back, and are even current in the mouths of men around them.
But they know it not, and imagine they are bringing forward something very
original, when they publish their thoughts.«
    »It reminds me,« replied Flemming, »of what Dr. Johnson said of Goldsmith,
when he proposed to travel abroad in order to bring home improvements: He will
bring home a wheelbarrow, and call that an improvement. It is unfortunately the
same with some of these scholars.«
    »And the worst of it is,« said the Baron, »that, in solitude, some fixed
idea will often take root in the mind, and grow till it overshadow all one's
thoughts. To this must all opinions come; no thought can enter there, which
shall not be wedded to the fixed idea. There it remains and grows. It is like
the watchman's wife
