dressed when going out to some library
or public lecture. These expenses, all told, only amounted to eighteen
sous, so two were left over for emergencies. I cannot recollect, during
that long period of toil, either crossing the Pont des Arts, or paying
for water; I went out to fetch it every morning from the fountain in
the Place Saint Michel, at the corner of the Rue de Gres. Oh, I wore my
poverty proudly. A man urged on towards a fair future walks through life
like an innocent person to his death; he feels no shame about it.

"I would not think of illness. Like Aquilina, I faced the hospital
without terror. I had not a moment's doubt of my health, and besides,
the poor can only take to their beds to die. I cut my own hair till
the day when an angel of love and kindness... But I do not want to
anticipate the state of things that I shall reach later. You must simply
know that I lived with one grand thought for a mistress, a dream, an
illusion which deceives us all more or less at first. To-day I laugh at
myself, at that self, holy perhaps and heroic, which is now no more. I
have since had a closer view of society and the world, of our manners
and customs, and seen the dangers of my innocent credulity and the
superfluous nature of my fervent toil. Stores of that sort are quite
useless to aspirants for fame. Light should be the baggage of seekers
after fortune!

"Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of
patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are
laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink
under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers
come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute in ideas, astonish
the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little
knowledge. While the first kind study, the second march ahead; the one
sort is modest, and the other impudent; the man of genius is silent
about his own merits, but these schemers make a flourish of theirs, and
they are bound to get on. It is so strongly to the interest of men in
office to believe in ready-made capacity, and in brazen-faced merit,
that it is downright childish of the learned to expect material rewards.
I do not seek to paraphrase the commonplace moral, the song of songs
that obscure genius is for ever singing; I want to come, in a logical
manner, by the reason of the frequent successes of mediocrity. Alas!
study shows us such a mother'