The danger in such
a case is that he will, with unconscious artfulness, humbly confess,
as he can do without much merit, to trifling and external defects so
as indirectly to ascribe to himself very high qualities. The demon
of vanity is, assuredly, a very subtle one, and I ask myself whether
perchance I have fallen a victim to it. If men of taste reproach me
with having shown myself to be a true representative of the age while
pretending not to be so, I beg them to rest well assured that this
will not happen to me again.
Claudite jam rivos, pueri; sat prata biberunt
I have too much work before me to amuse myself in a way which many
people will stigmatise as frivolous. My mother's family at Lannion,
from which I have inherited my disposition, has supplied several cases
of longevity; but certain recurrent symptoms lead me to believe that
so far as I am concerned I shall not furnish another. I shall thank
God that it is so, if I am thus spared years of decadence and loss of
power, which are the only things I dread. At all events, the remainder
of my life will be devoted to a research of the pure objective truth.
Should these be the last lines in which I am given an opportunity of
addressing myself to the public, I may be allowed to thank them for
the intelligent and sympathetic way in which they have supported me.
In former times the most that a man who went out of the beaten track
could expect was that he would be tolerated. My age and country have
been much more indulgent for me.
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