'274 JEROME CARDAN. 



CHAPTER XI. 



CARDAN AT BOLOGNA. 



" IN all good fortune," said Cardan 1 , " and in the midst 

 of my successes, I never changed my manners, was made 

 no rougher, no more ambitious, no more impatient; I did 

 not learn to despise poor men or to forget old friends ; I 

 did not oecome harder in social intercourse or more 

 assuming in my speech ; nor did I use costlier clothes than 

 my occupation rendered necessary. But in the bearing of 

 adversity my nature is not so firm, for I have been com- 

 pelled to endure some things that were beyond my 

 strength. I have overcome nature then by art, for in the 

 greatest agonies of my mind I whipped my thighs with a 

 switch, bit sharply my left arm, and fasted, because I was 

 much relieved by weeping, when the tears would come, 

 but very frequently they would not." 



The gloom of Cardan's sorrow was made deeper by the 

 superstition to which it became allied. Sometimes, how- 

 De Vita Propria, cap. xiv. 



