294 JEROME CARDAN. 



the days of which the story has been thus far told, care- 

 less upon compulsion. His private opinion was that four 

 garments ought to suffice for a man, one heavy and one 

 heavier, one light and one lighter. With those he could 

 make fourteen respectable combinations of attire, not 

 counting one that consisted in the wearing of them all at 

 once. He did not quite act up to that theory, but he 

 had not a predilection for new clothes, and was commonly 

 to be found wearing dress of a past fashion, or when he 

 became more of a traveller, wearing out in one country 

 clothes bought in another. Thus, for example, after his 

 return from the Scotch journey, presently to be related, 

 he caused remark among his neighbours by continuing 

 to wear the dress that he had bought in Edinburgh, 

 Edinburgh fashions being foolish in the eyes of Pa via, 

 Milan, and Bologna. 



Cardan liked a heavy supper and a light breakfast, 

 supper being his chief meal during the day. The light 

 breakfast consisted in his mature and later life of bread, 

 water, and raisins, tea and coffee being in those days 

 unknown. To his wife and children he was attached 

 very warmly, though Aldo, his youngest son, proved a 

 young scapegrace, and began early to trouble him. His 

 eldest boy, Gian Batista, was good and amiable ; trained 

 by Cardan to his own profession, he was simple-minded 

 and of quiet ways ; Clara, the daughter too, was a good 



