I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect
to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was
justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from
blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and
peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to
disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge
is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself
has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for
those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that
study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human
mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit
whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic
affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his
country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the
empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my
tale, and your looks remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach
in his letters and only took notice of my silence by inquiring into my
occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer
passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the
expanding leaves--sights which before always yielded me supreme
delight--so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of
that year had withered before my work drew near to a close, and now
every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my
enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one
doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade
than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was
oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful