"It did not take me long to find that no arguments could move you, and that the extraordinary firmness of your character, disguised under a mild exterior, was such that I could not entertain even a shadow of hope. All these circumstances and my reflections on human nature persuaded me that I should rely upon nobody but myself, although I was destitute of everything. And now that by law I am my own master, I will no longer delay to take upon myself the load of my destiny. I know that human felicity consists in contentment, and that I could more easily be happy begging for bread like a mendicant, than surrounded in this abode by all the material luxuries it may present. I hate that vile prudence that freezes and binds us and makes us incapable of every great action, reducing us to the level of the animals who apply themselves placidly to the preservation of this unhappy life without any other thought. I know that I shall be held to be insane, as all great men have been held before me. And even as the career of almost every great genius has begun with despair, I am not dismayed at mine beginning so too. I would rather be unhappy than obscure; I would rather suffer than languish in miserable ennui which to me is the fruitful mother of deadly melancholy and black thoughts of wretchedness, more agonising than all discomforts of the body. Parents, as a rule, judge their children more favourably than others, but you, on the contrary, judge your children more harshly, and therefore you never would believe that we were born for anything great; perhaps no greatness appeals to you that cannot be measured with geometrical precision.