His vanity, however, did not come from an increasing admiration of his
own personal appearance, a weakness which often belongs to middle age;
but from the study of his so-called philosophy, which in time became an
obsession with him. In vain the occasional college professors, who spent
summer months at St. Saviour's, sought to interest him in science and
history, for his philosophy had large areas of boredom; but science
marched over too jagged a road for his tender intellectual feet; the wild
places where it led dismayed him. History also meant numberless dates and
facts. Perhaps he could have managed the dates, for he was quick at
figures, but the facts were like bees in their hive,--he could scarcely
tell one from another by looking at them.
So it was that Jean Jacques kept turning his eyes, as he thought, to the
everlasting meaning of things, to "the laws of Life and the decrees of
Destiny." He was one of those who had found, as he thought, what he could
do, and was sensible enough to do it. Let the poor fellows, who gave
themselves to science, trouble their twisted minds with trigonometry and
the formula of some grotesque chemical combination; let the dull people
rub their noses in the ink of Greek and Latin, which was no use for
everyday consumption; let the heads of historians ache with the warring
facts of the lives of nations; it all made for sleep.
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