The following day he never left me; he seemed insatiable in his desire to learn what progress I had made in knowledge, and how far my acquirements extended. For classical learning and literature he evinced no respect. These and modern languages, he said, were mere accomplishments that might adorn a life of ease and luxury; but that to a man who would be truly great there was but one subject of inquiry,--the source of wealth, and the causes which make states affluent. These, he said, were the legitimate subjects for high intelligence to engage upon. “Master these,” said he, “and monarchs are your vassals.” I was amazed to discover that amid the mass of prejudices which encumbered his mind, it was stored with information the most various and remarkable. It was evident, too, that he had lived much in the great world, and was familiar with all its habits and opinions. As time wore on, I learned from him that his present life, with all its privations, was purely voluntary; that he possessed sufficient means to support an existence of comfort and ease. “But,” added he, “if you would give the intelligence a supremacy, it must be done at the cost of animal enjoyment. If the body is to be pampered, the brain will take its ease. To this end came I here; to this end have I lived fourteen years of toil and isolation. I have estranged myself from all that could distract me; friendships, pleasures, the great events of the age,--I know none of them! I am satisfied to toil and think now that, in after ages, men should hold my name in reverence, and regard my memory with affection.” Although he constantly made allusions of this kind, he never proceeded to give me any closer insight into his designs; and if at moments the reasonableness of his manner and the strong force of his remarks impressed me favorably with regard to his powers of mind, at others I was induced to think that nothing short of erring faculties could have condemned a man to a voluntary life of such abject want and of such cruel privation as he endured. It was still some weeks before I had strength to return home; but he permitted me to write every second day to my mother and Raper, from whom I heard in return. If at first my ardent longing to be once more at home--to be with those who made up the whole world of my existence--surpassed all other thoughts, I grew day by day to feel the strange fascination of an unknown interest in the subject of his talk, and to experience an intense anxiety to know his secret.