His father,
who was a physician, intended, from his early childhood, that he
should be a scholar; his mother, an idealist, had prepared him to
become a philanthropist, while he himself always steered his course
towards both summits.
"At five years of age," he says, "it would have pleased me to be a
school-master, at fifteen a professor, at eighteen an author, and a
creative genius at twenty,"[4]and, afterwards, up to the last, an
apostle and martyr to humanity. "From my earliest infancy I had an
intense love of fame which changed its object at various stages of my
life, but which never left me for a moment." He rambled over Europe or
vegetated in Paris for thirty years, living a nomadic life in
subordinate positions, hissed as an author, distrusted as a man of
science and ignored as a philosopher, a third rate political writer,
aspiring to every sort of celebrity and to every honor, constantly
presenting himself as a candidate and as constantly rejected, - too
great a disproportion between his faculties and ambition! Without
talents,[5] possessing no critical acumen and of mediocre
intelligence, he was fitted only to teach some branch of the sciences,
or to practice some one of the arts, either as professor or doctor
more or less bold and lucky, or to follow, with occasional slips on
one side or the other, some path clearly marked out for him.
Pages:
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283