persisted during his maturer years. Writing in 1844 to Monsieur
Fontemoing, one of his few boy-companions that he maintained relations
with, he said: "When David is ready to inaugurate his statue of Jean
Bart in Dieppe, I shall perhaps be there to enjoy the spectacle; and
then we will spend one or two days recalling to mind the cages, wooden
breeches and other Vendomoiseries."

His memory was probably less faithful in 1832, when striving to
reproduce the tenour of the lost _Treatise of the Will_. At thirteen
he could scarcely have had such definite notions of intuition and
other operations of the mind; and there must be a fairly long
antedating of reflection in attributing to Louis Lambert, even with
the latter's two years seniority, thoughts like the following:--

"Often amid calm and silence, when our inner faculties are lulled and
we indulge in sweet repose, and darkness hovers round us, and we fall
into a contemplation of other things, straight an idea darts forth,
flashes through the infinite space created by our brain, and then,
like a will-o'-the-wisp, vanishes never to return--an ephemeral
apparition like that of such children as yield boundless joy and grief
to bereaved parents; a species of still-born flower in the fields of
thought. At times also the idea, instead of forcibly gushing and dying
without consistence, dawns and poises in the fathomless limbo of the
organs that give it birth; it tires us by its long parturition; then
it develops and grows, is fertile, rich, and productive in the visible
grace of youth and with all the qualities of longevity; it sustains
the most inquiring glances, invites them, and never wearies them. Now
and again ideas are generated in swarms, one evolves another; they
interlace and entice, they abound and are dalliant; now and again,
they arise pale and looming, and perish through want of strength or