“And you, Elise, are you not too proud to bring up your child as a peasant?”

Elise kissed her child, and handed him to her father.  “Let us bring him up to be a good and healthy man—­a man like you and his father, and he will overcome the world and poverty, and be happy.”

“Oh!  I well knew that I could count upon you; and now I know how we all can be helped.  We are rich enough to buy, in some corner of the world, a little piece of land that we can cultivate, and on which we can build a cottage.  The product of my valuables is sufficient for that purpose; and what we can realize from these articles of furniture will be sufficient to defray our travelling expenses.  Get ready, then, children; to-morrow we leave for Silesia.  In the mountains there we will look out some quiet, secluded valley, where the newly-made peasants can build them a cottage.  There we will forget the past, and cast all its sufferings behind us; or if we do speak of them, it will be as of the tales of our childhood.  Come, my children, let us return to Nature, God, and contentment.  Do you remember, Elise, how I once related to you that as a lad I once lay hungry and wretched on the high-road?  The hand which was then stretched out to me did not proceed out of the cloud, but from heaven.  It was not the consolation of an alms that it gave me, but the comforting assurance of love which raised me up and strengthened me, directing my looks to God, and teaching me to love Him in all His works.  God dwells and speaks in Nature.  Let us seek Him there, and serve Him in the sweat of our brow and in the coarse peasant’s frock.”

* * * * *

And they went, and did as Gotzkowsky said.  They moved to Silesia, and bought themselves there, among the mountains, a piece of land and a cottage, in which they led a quiet, retired, happy life.  The world forgot them.  Gotzkowsky’s name passed into oblivion.  But history preserved it, and still holds him up as an example, not only of the most noble patriotism, but also of the ingratitude of men.  His book, too, is left us, and bears witness for him.  But as we read it, we become sad, and are ready to cry out, as he does, “This is the world’s reward!”

THE END.

[Footnote 1:  His biography begins in those words:  “I know that I subject myself to a variety of judgments.  How ridiculous will I appear in the eyes of many, because I did not use my fortune for my own benefit!  They will say, ’A man who pretends to know the world, a merchant, furthermore, whose principal merit is to make himself rich, and found a great house, gives so little heed to self-interest, and entertains dreams of humanity and benevolence, hardly pardonable in a philosopher.  Others, again, will deem my acts too good-natured, improvident, or vain, as usually happens, when such are considered from a point of view different from the actual one.