The Remaining Works of Benedict de Spinoza

Sentimentality spread, sweetened the "burning power," and, consequently, acted according to Schiller’s pharmacopoeia original: "Schiller" (*) See the epigraph cited above.; age itself partly contributed to the development of tenderness. For me, the time was arriving when childhood ends and youth begins: this usually happens at 16. Childish, naive beauty disappears, youthful beauty has not yet appeared; there is disharmony in the features: they become coarser, there is no grace; the voice modulates from thin to thick, the eyes are languid and sometimes spark, the cheeks are pale and sometimes flush—physical maturity arrives. The same happens in the soul: indefinite feelings, the germs of passions, agitation, languor, a sense of something secret and unknown, and following that, youth, enthusiastic lyricism, full of love, open arms to the whole world of God... An early flower, I reached this epoch sooner, and the buds in my soul unfolded at 14; I felt that childhood had ended and youth had begun, and I was offended that no one noticed the turning point in my existence. Unfortunately, Vasily Evdokimovich noticed this and, by virtue of that, began to teach me aesthetics, in which, God forbid I speak ill of him, he was extremely mediocre, and at that same time he forced me to write articles. It is a pity, a great pity, that when we moved from the old house to the new, those articles were lost! With what pleasure I would re-read them now! What did I not write! There were articles written in competition with Temira, there were literary reviews, and in them I "annihilated" classicism. Vasily Evdokimovich went into raptures, correcting them (and no wonder—my thoughts were just echoes of his own). I translated my reviews into French and proudly presented them to the Marshal: "See," I said, "how I respect your Boileau." There were also historical articles: a comparison of Marfa the Mayoress (that is, the real one, and not the Spartan Marfa about whom Karamzin wrote a story) with Zenobia of Palmyra; and Boris Godunov with Cromwell. It is a pity that I did not write my comparisons in French, for I am sure that they were so inept that they would have landed as examples in Noël's "Course of Literature," in the section "Paralèles et Caractères" Parallels and Characters.