THE STUDY OF NATURE. 16 
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. When 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 narrative 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 
great national patriots whose history I was relating were the nearest of 
kindred to these cosmopolitan patriots, these citizens of the world. 
