be
encouraged in that purpose. I hope that it won't be attributed to
prejudice in favor of my own calling, but I must repeat our father's
view, that the military profession, more than any other, gives a
certain decision of character. To have to stand ready every day with
bag and baggage, scrip and scrippage, this makes one prompt and
decided; this standing army becomes a fact, as it were, in each
individual soldier."

"Granted," rejoined Weidmann. "But is it not to be feared that a man,
who has been a soldier for the best years of his life, will be able to
take up with great difficulty any other employment? He always regards
himself as on furlough; and the great misfortune--I might call it the
leading tendency of our time--manifests itself especially in the rich,
who look upon themselves as on furlough, always on vacation."

"The best thing about it is, Roland will run through his money, and
then it is scattered among the people," jokingly observed Weidmann's
son, showing those impertinently white teeth that Pranken objected to
so strongly.

"I would like to say one word," the Russian remarked to Knopf, who
cried,--

"The Prince requests to have the floor."

Weidmann bowed to him pleasantly.

"I think that we can furnish an example in Russia. Our wealthy men are
obliged to become agriculturists, whether the inheritance consists in
money or goods. Why should not the young man be simply an
agriculturist?"

"Agriculture has five branches," replied Weidmann, "and they ought to
have their roots in five corresponding inclinations. Agriculture
consists of physics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, and
one of these, that is, the inclination to one of these sciences, and
the activity growing out of it, must have its foundation in the natural
bent or genius, otherwise there is no happiness in one's calling. And
do you know," he turned toward the Prince, smiling, "do you know what
is the first requisite for an agriculturist?"

"Money."

"No, that's the second. The first is a sound human understanding. There
are far more intellectual men than there are men of genuine common
sense."

The Prince nodded to Knopf, and he gave a merry nod in return.

Weidmann opposed, with a warmth that was very different from his
usually composed manner, the view generally entertained of agriculture
as a sort of universal refuge, to which every one could have recourse;
and yet the conclusion was finally arrived at, that it wo