EVARISTE GALOIS 99 



vague, so vague indeed that its host can hardly distinguish it him- 

 self from a passing fancy, and later may be unable to explain how 

 it gradually took control of his activities and dominated his whole 

 being. The cases of Abel and Galois are not essentially different 

 from those contemplated by Alfred de Vigny, but the golden 

 thoughts of their youth were wrought out in the ripening years of 

 other people. 



It is the precocity of genius which makes it so dramatic. When 

 it takes an explosive form, as in the case of Galois, the frail carcass 

 of a boy may be unable to resist the internal strain and it may 

 be positively wrecked. On the other hand when genius develops 

 more slowly, its host has time to mature, to adapt himself to his 

 environment, to gather strength and experience. He learns to 

 reconcile himself to the conditions which surround him, widely 

 different as they are, from those of his dreams. He learns by and 

 by that the great majority of men are rather unintelligent, unedu- 

 cated, uninspired, and that one must not take it too much to heart 

 when they behave in defiance of justice or even of common sense. 

 He also learns to dissipate his vexation with a smile or a joke and 

 to protect himself under a heavy cloak of kindness and humor. 

 Poor Evariste had no time to learn all this. While his genius grew 

 in him out of all proportion to his bodily strength, his experience 

 and his wisdom, he felt more and more ill at ease. His increasing 

 restlessness makes one think of that exhibited by people who are 

 prey to a larvate form of a pernicious disease. There is an internal 

 disharmony in both cases, though it is physiological in the latter, 

 and psychological in the former. Hence the suffering, the distress 

 and finally the acute disease or the revolt! 



A more congenial environment might have saved Galois. Oh! 

 would that he had been granted that minimum of understanding 

 and sympathy which the most concentrated mind needs as much 

 as a plant needs the sun! . . . But it was not to be; and not only 

 had he no one to share his own burden, but he had also to bear 

 the anxieties of a stormy time. I quite realize that this self-centered 

 boy was not attractive — many would say not lovable. Yet I love 



