SORROW AND SICKNESS. 17 



child of Fazio Cardan inherited much innate power: from 

 his father, aptitude for exact learning ; from his mother, 

 much vivacity of wit. During these years of early hard- 

 ship, though he sickened and suffered, he was forced into 

 communion with his own mind by the want of sympathy 

 abroad, and a development was taking place that was not 

 indeed healthy, but that had such charms in it as might 

 have been attractive even to the intellect of Fazio, if the 

 mathematician could have known how to work out the 

 problem that was offered to him in the spirit of his child. 

 He did not work it out ; and so, during the summer 

 days, under a southern sky, the bey struggled unnoticed 

 behind his father through the hot streets of Milan. 



Intellect at seven years old rarely suggests to any child 

 that fruit should not be eaten until it is ripe ; and when 

 the child has a disordered stomach it will fasten upon 

 green things with the relish of a caterpillar. In the midst 

 of his fatigue and sickness, when his body was quite 

 ready for another outbreak of disease, the son, or foot-page, 

 of the learned Fazio Cardan, then commencing his eighth 

 year, at a time when an epidemic, if not pestilence, was 

 raging in the town, ate secretly a great feast of sour 

 grapes 1 . They supplied the one thing that was needed 

 to produce an outbreak of the fever that had long been 

 waiting for some slight exciting cause. Dysentery and 



1 De Propr. Vita, p. 14.; 

 VOL. I. C 



