avarice and
the ambition of having it, I go away without deciding whether I will buy
it or not, yet I know full well that before two days are out I shall
have bought it. Seeking to understand this contradiction, I discover
a thousand ridiculous dirtinesses in my character (_mille ridicole
porcherie_)." Another day he notes down, after describing the mean envy
with which he has listened to the praises of another member of his
little club of dilettante authors: "I do believe that as much praise as
is being given and will ever be given to all mankind for every sort of
praiseworthy thing, I should like to snap up for myself alone." Again,
another day he writes: "More lazy than ever. Walking with a friend, and
talking about our incomes, &c. I thought I was giving him a perfectly
open account of my money matters; but, with the best intention of
telling him the truth, I find that, in order to deceive myself as well
as him, I increased my fortune by one-fifth." Again, "I had some doubts
whether, as it was blowing hard on the promenade, I would go on as far
as where the ladies were walking; because, knowing that I was looking
pale and ill, and that the wind had taken the powder out of my hair, I
was unwilling to show myself in a condition so unsuitable to my
pretensions to beauty."

But while thus analyzing himself, while working at Latin and grammar
like a school-boy, this fashionable young man, ashamed of being seen when
he was not in good looks, ashamed of having one horse less than usual,
was continually ruminating over the glory for which he intended living,
and which he appears never for a moment to have doubted of attaining.
"In my mind, which is completely given up to the idea of glory, I
frequently go over the plan of my life. I determine that at forty-five
I will write no more, but merely enjoy the fame which I shall have
obtained, or imagine that I have obtained, and prepare myself for death.
One thing only makes me uneasy: I fear that as I approach the prescribed
limit, I may push it continually back, and that at forty-five I may
still be thinking only of continuing to live and, perhaps, of continuing
to scribble. Hard as I try to think, or to make others think, that I am
different from the rest of mankind, I fear, I tremble lest I be
extremely like them."

But in order to devote himself to the pursuit of literary glory, one
thing remained to be achieved by this strange, self-conscious, frank,
contemptuous, and va