THE STUDY OF NATURE. 



15 



things itself uniform and harmonious because the offspring of two 

 different principles. 



Of the two souls to which it owes its existence, one was the 

 more powerfully attracted to natural studies by the fact that, in a 

 certain sense, it had been born among them, and had ever preserved 

 their fragrance and sweet savour. The other was so much the more 

 strongly impelled towards them because it had always been separated 

 by circumstances, and detained in the rugged ways of human history. 



History never releases its slave. He who has once drunk of its 

 sharp strong wine will drink thereof till his death. I could not wrench 

 myself from it even in days of suffering. Wlien the sorrows of the 

 past blended with those of the present, and when on the ruins of our 

 fortunes I inscribed "ninety-three," my health might fail, but not my 

 soul, my will. All day I applied myself to this last duty, and 

 pressed forward among the thorns. In the evening I listened — at 

 first not without effort — to the peaceful nan-ative of some naturalist 

 or traveller. I listened and I admired, unable as yet to console 

 myself, or to escape from my thoughts, but, at all events, keeping 

 them under control, and preventing any anxieties and any mental 

 storms from disturbing this innocent tranquillity. 



Not that I was insensible to the sublime legends of those heroic men 

 whose labours and enterprise have so largely benefited humanity. The 

 gi-eat national patriots whose history I was relating were the nearest of 

 kindred to these cosmopolitan patriots, these citizens of the world. 



