coldly.
"It is to this study that the seminaries of our Company are specially
destined. Now the interpretation of the letter is a work of analysis,
discipline, and submission--and not one of heart and sentiment."

"I perceive that only too well, father. On entering this new house, I
found, alas! all my hopes defeated. Dilating for a moment, my heart soon
sunk within me. Instead of this centre of life, affection, youth, of
which I had dreamed. I found, in the silent and ice-cold seminary, the
same suppression of every generous emotion, the same inexorable
discipline, the same system of mutual prying, the same suspicion, the
same invincible obstacles to all ties of friendship. The ardor which had
warmed my soul for an instant soon died out; little by little, I fell
back into the habits of a stagnant, passive, mechanical life, governed by
a pitiless power with mechanical precision, just like the inanimate works
of a watch."

"But order, submission and regularity are the first foundations of our
Company, my dear son."

"Alas, father! it was death, not life, that I found thus organized. In
the midst of this destruction of every generous principle, I devoted
myself to scholastic and theological studies--gloomy studies--a wily,
menacing, and hostile science which, always awake to ideas of peril,
contest, and war, is opposed to all those of peace, progress, and
liberty."

"Theology, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, sternly, "is at once a
buckler and a sword; a buckler, to protect and cover the Catholic
faith--a sword, to attack and combat heresy."

"And yet, father, Christ and His apostles knew not this subtle science:
their simple and touching words regenerated mankind, and set freedom over
slavery. Does not the divine code of the Gospel suffice to teach men to
love one another? But, alas! far from speaking to us this language, our
attention was too often occupied with wars of religion, and the rivers of
blood that had flowed in honor of the Lord, and for the destruction of
heresy. These terrible lessons made our life still more melancholy. As we
grew near to manhood, our relations at the seminary assumed a growing
character of bitterness, jealousy and suspicion. The habit of tale
bearing against each other, applied to more serious subjects, engendered
silent hate and profound resentments. I was neither better nor worse than
the others. All of us, bowed down for years beneath the iron yoke of
passive obedience, unac