The Collected Works of Benedict de Spinoza

— 19 — sentimentality had developed and sweetened the "burning power" and, consequently, followed the pharmacopeia of Schiller original: "See the epigraph cited above.". This very age partially contributed to the development of tenderness. For me, the time was arriving when childhood ends and youth begins; this usually happens at sixteen. The naive beauty of childhood disappears, while youthful beauty has not yet emerged. There is dissonance in one's features; they become coarser, grace is lost; the voice shifts from high to low, the eyes are languid, and at times they sparkle; the cheeks are pale, and at times they flush—physical maturity approaches. The same happens in the soul: indefinite feelings, the seeds of passions, restlessness, languor, the sense of something secret and unknown, and following that, youth, enthusiastic lyricism full of love, and open arms to the whole world of God. Like an early flower, I reached this epoch sooner, and the buds in my soul unfolded at fourteen. 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 it and began, by virtue of that, to teach me aesthetics, in which, heaven help him, he was extremely limited, and he forced me to write articles at that very time. 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 reread them now! What didn't I write! There were articles written in competition with Temira, there were literary reviews, and in them, I "annihilated" classicism. Vasily Evdokimovich went into raptures, making corrections—which is no surprise, as my thoughts were merely echoes of his own. I translated my reviews into French and proudly presented them to Marshal: "Here, see how I respect your Boileau." There were historical articles, too: a comparison of Marfa Boretskaya (the real one, not the Spartan Marfa about whom Karamzin wrote his novella) with Zenobia of Palmyra; and Boris Godunov with Cromwell. It is a pity I did not write my comparisons in French, for I am sure they were so inept that they would have been included as samples in Noël's "Course of Literature," in the section "Paralèles et Caractères" Parallels and Characters.