CHAPTER X 



CARDAN had risen to high and well-deserved fame, 

 and this fact alone might account for the existence of 

 jealousy and ill-feeling amongst certain of those whom 

 he had passed in the race. Some men, it is true, rise 

 to eminence without making more than a few enemies, 

 but Cardan was not one of these. His foes must have 

 been numerous and truculent, the assault they delivered 

 must have been deadly and overwhelming to have 

 brought to such piteous wreck fortunes which seemed 

 to rest upon the solid ground of desert. The public 

 voice might accuse him of folly, but assuredly not of 

 crime ; he was the victim and not the culprit ; his 

 skill as a physician was as great as ever, but these 

 considerations weighed little with the hounds who 

 were close upon his traces. Now that the tide of 

 his fortune seemed to be on the ebb they gathered 

 around him. He writes: "And this, in sooth, was the 

 chief, the culminating misfortune of my life : forasmuch 

 as I could not with any show of decency be kept in my 

 office, nor could I be dismissed without some more 

 valid excuse, I could neither continue to reside in 

 Milan with safety, nor could I depart therefrom. As 

 I walked about the city men looked askance at me ; 

 and whenever I might be forced to exchange words 

 with any one, I felt that I was a disgraced man. Thus, 

 being conscious that my company was unacceptable, I 



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