hindrance, but rather a help towards attaining a proper standing in
the chosen field of labor. I confess that, as far as I am concerned,
it has done me some service, as it preserved my character from many a
crookedness poverty might have exposed it to. I do not mean by this
that I have a weak character,--although struggle for existence might
have made it stronger; but still I maintain that the less stony the
road, the less chance of a fall. It is not owing to constitutional
laziness, either, that I am a nullity. I possess alike a great
facility for acquiring knowledge, and a desire for it; I read much,
and have a good memory. Perhaps I could not summon energy enough for a
long, slow work, but the greater facility ought to serve instead; and
besides, there is no urgent necessity for me to write encyclopedias,
like Littré. He who cannot shine with the steady light of a sun
might at least dazzle as a meteor. But oh! that nothingness of the
past,--the most probable nothingness of the future! I am growing
peevish--and tired; and will leave off writing for to-day.


ROME, 10 January.

Last night, at Count Malatesta's reception, I heard by chance these
two words: "l'improductivité Slave." I experienced the same relief as
does a nervous patient when the physician tells him that his symptoms
are common enough, and that many others suffer from the same disease.
I have many fellow-sufferers, not only among other Slavs, a race which
I know but imperfectly, but in my own country. I thought about that
"improductivité Slave" all night. He had his wits about him who summed
the thing up in two words. There is something in us,--an incapacity to
give forth all that is in us. One might say, God has given us bow and
arrow, but refused us the power to string the bow and send the arrow