“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 aroundthem.  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, in the tower of Waiblingen, who grew to such a size, that she could not get down the narrow stair-case; and, when her husband died, his successor was forced to marry the fat widow in the tower.”

“I remember an old English comedy,” said Flemming laughing, “in which a scholar is described, as a creature, that can strike fire in the morning at his tinder-box,—­put on a pair of lined slippers,—­sit ruminating till dinner, and then go to his meat when the bell rings;—­one that hath a peculiar gift in a cough, and a license to spit;—­or, if you will have him defined by negatives, he is one that cannot make a good leg;—­one that cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly.  What think you of that?”

“That it is just as people are always represented in English comedy,” said the Baron.  “The portrait is over-charged,—­caricatured.”

“And yet,” continued Flemming, “no longer ago than yesterday, in the Preface of a work by Dr. Rosenkranz, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Halle, I read this passage.”

He opened a book and read.

“Here in Halle, where we have no public garden and no Tivoli, no London Exchange, no Paris Chamber of Deputies, no Berlin nor Vienna Theatres, no Strassburg Minster, nor Salzburg Alps,—­no Grecian ruins nor fantastic Catholicism, in fine, nothing, which after one’s daily task is finished, can divert and refresh him, without his knowing or caring how,—­I consider the sight of a proof-sheet