But the fire was only damped down; it glowed
in its hidden heart, and strove for a vent. It was not lighted without a
purpose. The peasant had a son, to whom the flame had been passed on; for
he aimed at the priesthood. This has ever been a refuge of ambitious minds
that cannot rise by any other means above the dullness of the peasant's
life, which is the more endurable the more the man is able to place himself
upon the animal level of his plodding ox. The son was being educated in a
seminary, but he was now home for the holidays. Presently he appeared. He
was a youth of about nineteen, wearing a blouse like any other peasant.
There was certainly nothing in his appearance to indicate that he
was destined for the cure of souls. The proud father said: 'He is in
philosophy.' The young man had a twinkle in his eye that might have been
philosophical. Neither of them had a suspicion of the vanity concealed in
the high-sounding phrase.
But I am forgetting to say anything about what was more important to me
than aught else at that time. I had to eat and drink in order to look at
nature with an admiring eye, note the interwoven aims and motives and
troubled duties of human life; to be 'in philosophy' after my own humble
fashion.
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