sacrificing my mother. Yet I have never been able to arrive at that
complete detachment from natural affection, which is commanded to us by
those awful words: 'He who hates not his father and his mother, even with
the soul, cannot be my disciple.'"[9]

"Doubtless, Frederick," said the princess, "these renunciations are
painful. But, in return, what influence, what power!"

"It is true," said the marquis, after a moment's silence. "What ought not
to be sacrificed in order to reign in secret over the all-powerful of the
earth, who lord it in full day? This journey to Rome, from which I have
just returned, has given me a new idea of our formidable power. For,
Herminia, it is Rome which is the culminating point, overlooking the
fairest and broadest quarters of the globe, made so by custom, by
tradition, or by faith. Thence can our workings be embraced in their full
extent. It is an uncommon view to see from its height the myriad tools,
whose personality is continually absorbed into the immovable personality
of our Order. What a might we possess! Verily, I am always swayed with
admiration, aye, almost frightened, that man once thinks, wishes,
believes, and acts as he alone lists, until, soon ours, he becomes but a
human shell; its kernel of intelligence, mind, reason, conscience, and
free will, shrivelled within him, dry and withered by the habit of
mutely, fearingly bowing under mysterious tasks, which shatter and slay
everything spontaneous in the human soul! Then do we infuse in such
spiritless clay, speechless, cold, and motionless as corpses, the breath
of our Order, and, lo! the dry bones stand up and walk, acting and
executing, though only within the limits which are circled round them
evermore. Thus do they become mere limbs of the gigantic trunk, whose
impulses they mechanically carry out, while ignorant of the design, like
the stonecutter who shapes out a stone, unaware if it be for cathedral or