“Although luxurious in her repasts she likes neither flesh-meat nor ragoûts. Excellent vegetable dishes, eggs, cream, fruits--these constitute her ordinary food; and, excepting fish, which she likes as much, she would be a true Pythagorean.”[180] Although he was not a thorough or consistent abstainer, Rousseau speaks with enthusiasm of the pleasures of his frugal repasts, in which, it seems, when he was not seduced by the sumptuous dinners of his fashionable admirers, flesh, as a rule, had no part:-- “Who shall describe, who shall understand, the charm of these repasts, composed of a quartern loaf, of cherries, of a little cheese, and of a half-pint of wine, which we drank together. Friendship, confidence, intimacy, sweetness of soul, how delicious are your seasonings!”[181] XXVIII. LINNÉ. 1707-1778. Karl von Linné, or (according to the antiquated fashion of _Latinising_ eminent names still retained) Linnæus, the distinguished Swedish naturalist, and the most eminent name in botanical literature, in a notable manner arrived at his destined immortality in spite of friends and fortune. Prophecies do not always fulfil themselves, and the estimate of his teachers that he was a hopeless “blockhead,” and the prediction that he would be of no intellectual worth in the world (they had advised his parents to apprentice him to a handicraft trade), are a conspicuous instance of the falsification of prophecy. After one year’s course of study at the University of Lund--where he had access to a good library and collections of natural history--he proceeded to the University of Upsala. There, upon an allowance by his father of £8 a year to meet all his expenses of living, he struggled desperately against the almost insuperable obstacles of extreme poverty, which forced him often to reduce his diet to one meal during the day. He was then at the age of 20. At length, by the hospitable friendship of the professor of botany, and a small income derived from a few pupils, Linné found himself free to devote himself to the great labour of his life. It was in the house of his host (Rudbeck) that he sketched the subject-matter of the important works he afterwards published. In 1731 he was commissioned by his university to explore the vegetable life of Lapland. Within the space of five months he traversed alone, and with slender provision, some 4,000 miles. The result of this laborious expedition was his _Flora Laponica_.