een so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his
generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for
adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of
beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring
ambition.

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of
childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright
visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon
self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record
those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of
misery, for when I would account to myself for the birth of that
passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a
mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but,
swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course,
has swept away all my hopes and joys. Natural philosophy is the genius
that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to
state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When
I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the
baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a
day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of
the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory
which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he
relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed
to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my
discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page
of my book and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not
waste your time upon this; it is sad trash."

If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to
me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a
modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much
greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were
chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under
such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and
have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with
greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the
train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led
to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by
no means as