If I do not
deceive myself, my labors will complete the task begun by Mesmer,
Lavater, Gall, and Bichat, and open up new paths in science.
"There ends that fair life of mine, the daily sacrifice, the
unrecognized silkworm's toil, that is, perhaps, its own sole
recompense. Since attaining years of discretion, until the day when I
finished my 'Theory,' I observed, learned, wrote, and read
unintermittingly; my life was one long imposition, as schoolboys say.
Though by nature effeminately attached to Oriental indolence, sensual
in tastes, and a wooer of dreams, I worked incessantly, and refused to
taste any of the enjoyments of Parisian life. Though a glutton, I
became abstemious; and loving exercise and sea voyages as I did, and
haunted by the wish to visit many countries, still child enough to
play at ducks and drakes with pebbles over a pond, I led a sedentary
life with a pen in my fingers. I liked talking, but I went to sit and
mutely listen to professors who gave public lectures at the
_Bibliotheque_ or the Museum. I slept upon my solitary pallet like a
Benedictine brother, though woman was my one chimera, a chimera that
fled from me as I wooed it! In short, my life has been a cruel
contradiction, a perpetual cheat.
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