My visit was soon repeated, and a most affectionate intimacy quickly
sprang up between master and pupil, revealed on the side of the elder,
in an attitude of fatherly goodwill to which the younger had hitherto
been a stranger, the teacher, while instructing his pupil and giving him
practical guidance, constantly keeping in view all that could further
his well-being and assist his future; my attitude was one of reverence
and affection, and of profound gratitude for the care of which I was the
object.
I certainly, sometimes, in face of my master's great thoroughness and
his skill in wrestling with the most difficult thoughts, felt a painful
distrust of my own capacity and of my own intellectual powers, compared
with his. I was also not infrequently vexed by a discordant note, as it
were, being struck in our intercourse, when Broechner, despite the doubts
and objections I brought forward, always took it for granted that I
shared his pantheistic opinions, without perceiving that I was still
tossed about by doubts, and fumbling after a firm foothold. But the
confidential terms upon which I was with the maturer man had an
attraction for me which my intimacy with undecided and youthfully
prejudiced comrades necessarily lacked; he had the experience of a
lifetime behind him, he looked down from superior heights on the
sympathies and antipathies of a young man.
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