One was big, gentle, calm and
kind; the other was small, dyspeptic, excitable and full of challenge.
Yet the little man had times of insight and abstraction, when he tracked
reasons further than the big, practical man could have followed them.

Franklin's habit of life--the semi-ascetic quality of getting your
gratification by doing without things--especially pleased Comte. He
lived in a garret on two meals a day, and was happy in the thought that
he could endure and yet think and study. The old monastic impulse was
upon him, minus the religious features--or stay! why may not science
become a religion? And surely science can become dogmatic, and even
tyrannically build a hierarchy on a hypothesis no less than theology.

A friend, pitying young Comte's hard lot, not knowing its sweet
recompense, got him a position as tutor in the household of a nobleman;
like unto the kind man who caught the sea-gulls roosting on an iceberg,
and in pity, transferred them to the warm delights of a compost-pile in
his barnyard.

Comte held the place for three weeks and then resigned. He went back to
the garret and sweet liberty--having had his taste of luxury, but
miserable in it all--wondering how a gavotte or a minuet could make a
man forget that he was living in a city where thirty thousand human
beings were constantly only one meal beyond the sniff of starvation.

At this time Comte came into close relationship with a man who was to
have a very great influence in his life--this was Count Henri of
Saint-Simon, usually spoken of as Saint-Simon.

Saint-Simon was rich, gently proud, and fondly patronizing. He was a
sort of scientific Maecenas--and be it known that Maecenas was a poet and
philosopher of worth, and one Horace was his pupil.

Saint-Simon was an excellent and learned man who wrote, lectured and
taught on philosophic themes. He had a garden-school, modeled in degree
after that of Plato. Saint-Simon became much interested in young Comte,
invited him to his classes, supplied him books, clothing, and tickets to
the opera. Part of the time Comte lived under Saint-Simon's roof, and
did translating and copying in partial payment for his meal-ticket. The
teacher and the pupil had a fine affection for each other. What Comte
needed, he took from Saint-Simon as if it were his own.

In writing to friends at this time, Comte praises Saint-Simon as the
greatest man who ever lived--"a model of patience, generosity, learning
and love-