But
nevertheless it must be done. It is very hard to be fettered in one's
intellectual development by external circumstances. You can imagine
what I suffer, after having left my mind so absolutely free to follow
its line of development. My first step was to see what could be done
with regard to Oriental languages, and I was promised some lectures
with M. Quatremere and M. Julien, professor of Chinese at the College
de France. The result went to prove that this was not my outward
specialty. (I say outward because internally I shall never have
one, unless philosophy be classed as one, which to my mind would be
inaccurate.) Then I thought of the university, and here, as you will
understand, fresh difficulties arose. A professorship in the strict
sense of the term is almost intolerable in my eyes, and even if
one does not retain it all one's life long it must be held for a
considerable period. I could get on very well with philosophy if I
were allowed to teach it in my own way, but I should not be able to do
that, and before reaching that stage one would have to spend years
at what I call school literature, Latin verses, themes, etc. The
perspective seemed so dreadful that I had at one time resolved to
attach myself to the science classes, but in that case I should have
been compelled to specialize myself more than in any other branch, for
in scientific literature the principle of a species of universality is
admitted. And besides, that would divert me from my cherished
ideas.
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