38 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



our eldest son, who has always the air of being 

 ashamed of his birth. Ever since he happened 

 to see a coxcomb richly dressed, he despises his 

 companions, and is ever wishing to leave us and 

 to go to some large city; he is never content 

 with the dress of his other brothers; he even 

 affects to speak and to walk differently from the 

 rest of us. God alone knows where he got this 

 ridiculous vanity. Our second son, on the con- 

 trary, delights only in his domestic employ- 

 ments; he is our turner, our joiner, our carpenter; 

 no trade is difficult to him; without ever having 

 been taught, he shows in everything an address 

 and a spirit of invention, which astonish us. 

 Here again, is one of our daughters, who could 

 never learn the ordinary operations of needle- 

 work; but, would you believe it? she sings from 

 morning to night; she forms the delight of every- 

 body in the village; at church, it is she who 

 leads the choir; at the sound of music she 

 kindles up at once; she needs but to hear an air 

 once, or at most, twice, when she knows it by 

 heart, and sings it better than anybody else; she 

 will never be good for anything but a musician. 

 And here is another boy, ' a real little devil,' 

 the terror of the village; he quarrels with every- 

 body; always beating and always beaten; 

 nothing can break his spirit; he tells with the 

 greatest avidity all the news of a combat, or a 

 battle, and looks forward with the greatest impa- 

 tience to the time, when he can be a soldier. 

 The chase is his passion; the more animals he 

 can kill, the happier he is. He never ceases to 

 mock his little sister, who is troubled whenever 

 a chicken or a pig is killed. This little girl is 

 the child that takes charge of the poultry -yard ; 

 she bestows the tenderest cares, not only on her 

 brothers and sisters, but on the domestic animals 

 also. If we have to destroy a fowl or a rabbit, 

 she has tears in her eyes. No poor man or 

 sufferer goes from her with empty hands, or 

 without consolation. She is exactly the anti- 

 podes of another of her sisters, who, notwith- 

 standing her devotion, is backbiting, avaricious, 

 obstinate, and rarely omits an opportunity of 

 making trouble between us, and her other ac- 

 quaintances." 



This is the faithful picture of a family in the 

 country, where the natural characters have not 

 assumed the mask of a deceitful similarity. All 

 these individuals enjoy, equally, the faculty of 

 experiencing sensation, of attention, comparison, 

 judgment, desire, will, liberty; but I have never 

 heard that, in speaking of the character of any 

 one, they made use of either of these expressions, 

 in the abstract or general acceptation of philo- 

 sophers. 



Let us go into a school or house of education, 

 where all the pupils are under the direction of a 

 uniform system of instruction and conduct. 

 Amidst the great majority of ordinary persons, 

 you will find some wretches, who, though often 

 corrected with rigor, and strictly watched, en- 

 danger the morals and the health of others. You 

 will find some who steal books, who are liars, 

 perfidious, cowards, ungrateful, idle, insensible to 

 distinction. In the number of those who carry 

 off the prizes, one excels in the study of history, 

 another in poetry, a third in mathematics, a 

 fourth in geography, a fifth in drawing, &c. 



Some are eager for political employments, some 

 for military glory, while others devote themselves 

 in preference to literature, philosophy, or the 

 natural sciences. No instructor will point out 

 to you his pupils by any of the abstractions 

 adopted by the metaphysicians. 



Thus will it also happen, when you lake a 

 review of a collection of men of genius. You 

 will find there musicians, painters, sculptors, 

 mechanicians, mathematicians, philologists, tra- 

 vellers, actors, poets, orators, generals, philan- 

 thropists, astronomers, etc., etc. Here too there 

 is no question respecting the understanding, will, 

 comparison, desire, liberty, &c. 



What are the qualities which the biographers 

 of remarkable men commonly celebrate? Nero 

 was most cruel, and abandoned, himself to the 

 most unbridled voluptuousness. Du Guesclin 

 was a desperate warrior; he would either wound 

 his antagonist, or be wounded himself. Baratier 

 had an astonishing talent for the acquisition of 

 languages. Pascal, from the simple definition 

 of geometry, found his way to the thirty-second 

 proposition of Euclid. No science was ever 

 carried by the labors of a single individual to the 

 perfection that geography received from those of 

 Captain Cook. Dumenil and Clairon, those 

 celebrated actresses, will long be the models by 

 which our young aspirants will form themselves. 

 Sixtus V. has rendered his name immortal by 

 the firmness of his government and his inflexible 

 justice. Before the culture of the sciences, 

 Homer and Dante were the greatest of poets. 

 Catherine de Medicis gave early proofs of her 

 acuteness and her courage. Catherine II., toge- 

 ther with the graces of her sex, had a vast and 

 bold mind, a taste for knowledge, and for plea- 

 sure, profound ambition, &c. The graces guided 

 the chisel of Praxiteles, and his genius gave life 

 to matter. 



Thus history transmits to us the life of anti- 

 quaries, architects, astronomers, dramatists, geo- 

 graphers, historians, mathematicians, musicians, 

 painters, designers, philologists, philosophers, 

 moralists, poets, orators, sculptors, travellers, 

 mechanicians, &c. But we nowhere find, that a 

 man or a woman has become celebrated by the 

 understanding and the will, by attention, com- 

 parison, desire, liberty, &c. How, in fine, do 

 we designate the different characters of animals ? 

 We say — this dog is cross, gentle, docile, coura- 

 geous, affectionate, has good local memory, is a 

 coward, has trained himself to the chase, is inca- 

 pable of being trained; this stallion is excellent 

 for the stud; this horse is skittish; very quiet; 

 docile ; very wicked ; stupid ; this cow is an ex- 

 cellent mother; this sow is a very bad motHer, 

 because she devours her young; this ram, this 

 buck, are very ardent ; we say that is a carnivorous 

 animal; this, a graminivorous; the beaver, the 

 greater part of birds, ants, bees, &c, have the 

 instinct of building; several birds have the in- 

 stinct of migrating, of singing, of living like 

 sheep in flocks or in society; the marten, the fox, 

 are very cunning, and live in couples ; the cha- 

 mois and the diver are very circumspect; the pie 

 is a thief ; the weasel and the tiger are sangui- 

 nary; the cock is valiant and proud, and so on. 



In what species, or in what individual of ani- 

 mals, would philosophers and physiologists class 



