Jerome Cardan - William George Waters (best novels to read for beginners txt) 📗

quiet for a little, he determined to attempt once more whether he could undo the knot, when he found that everything was clear, and the stone under his armpit. "This sign showed me an unhoped-for solution of certain weighty difficulties, and at the same time proved, as I have often said elsewhere, that there must have been present something else unperceived by me. For my affairs were in this condition: my son-in-law at Milan had the administration of the scant remains of my property, and I received no rents therefrom for a whole year. My literary work was lying at the printer's, but it was not printed. Here, at Bologna, I was forced to lecture without having a fixed hour assigned to me. A crowd of enemies were intriguing against me. My son Aldo was in prison, and of little profit to me. But immediately after this portent I learned that my two chief opponents were either dying or about to retire. The question of the lecture-room was settled amicably, so that for the next year I was able to live in quiet. These two matters having come to an issue, I will next describe what came to pass with regard to the others.

"During the next July (1564), through the help of Francesco Alciati,[219] the secretary of Pope Pius IV., a man to whom I am indebted for almost every benefit I have received since 1561, I began to enjoy my own again. On August 26 I received from the printer my books all printed with the greatest care, and by reason of the dispatch of this business my income was greatly increased. The next day my chief opponent resigned his office, and left vacant a salary of seven hundred gold crowns. The only manifestation of adverse fortune left to trouble me was the conspiracy of the doctors against me, but there were already signs that this would disappear before long, and in sooth it came to an end after the lapse of another year."[220]

During this portion of his life at Bologna, Cardan seems to have lived comparatively alone, and to have spent his weary leisure in brooding over his sorrows. He began his long rambling epilogue to the _De Libris Propriis_, and, almost on the threshold, pours out his sorrow afresh over Gian Battista's unhappy fate. After affirming that Death must necessarily come as a friend to those whose lives are wretched, he begins to speculate whether, after all, he ought not to rejoice rather than mourn over his son's death. "Certes he is rid of this miserable life of danger and difficulty, vain, sorrowful, brief, and inconstant; these times in which the major part of the good things of the world fall to the trickster's share, and all may be enjoyed by those who are backed up by wealth or power or favour. Power is good when it is in the hands of those who use it well, but it is a great evil when murderers and poisoners are allowed to wield it. To the ill-starred, to the ungodly, and to the foolish, death is a boon, freeing them from numberless dangers, from heavy griefs, from fatal troubles, and from infamy; wherefore in such cases it ought not to be spoken of as something merely good or indifferent, but rated as the best of fortune. Shall I not declare to God (for He willed the deed), to myself, and to my surviving family, that my son's death was a thing to be desired, for God does all justly, wisely, and lovingly? He lets me stand as an example to show others that a good and upright man cannot be altogether wretched. I am poor, infirm, and old; bereaved by a cruel wrong of my best-loved son, a youth of the fairest promise, and left only with the faintest hope of any ray of future good fortune, or of seeing my race perpetuated after my death, for my daughter, who has been nine years married, is barren.

"At one time I was prosperous in every relation of life: in my friendships, in my children, and in my health. In my youth I seemed to be one raised up to realize the highest hopes. I was accustomed to all the good things--nay, to all the luxuries of life. Now I am wretched, despised, with foes swarming around me; I not only count myself miserable, I feel I am far more miserable now than I was happy aforetime. Yet I neither lose my wits nor make any boast, as my actions prove. I do my work as a teacher with my mind closely set on the matter in question, and for this reason I attract a large number of hearers. I manage my affairs better than heretofore; and, if any man shall compare the book which I have lately published with those which I wrote some time ago, he will not fail to perceive how vastly my intellect has gained in richness, in vivacity, and in purity."

Though the note of sorrow or even of despair is perceptible in these sentences, there is no sign that the virile and elastic spirit of the writer is broken. But there are manifest signs of an increasing tendency towards mental detachment from the world which had used him so ill. With the happiest of men the almost certain prospect of extinction at the end of a dozen years usually tends to foster the growth of a conviction that the world after all is a poor affair, and that to quit it is no great evil. How strongly therefore must reflections of a kindred nature have worked upon a man so cruelly tried as Cardan!

FOOTNOTES:

[211] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 462.

[212] "Sed filius minor natu adeo male se gessit, ut malim transire in nepotem ex primo filio."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxvi. p. 112.

[213] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxvii. p. 71.

[214] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xii. p. 40.

[215] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 459.

[216] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 56.

[217] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxiii. p. 104.

[218] This opinion prevailed with men of learning far into the next century. Sir Thomas Browne writes: "They that doubt of these, do not only deny them, but spirits; and are obliquely and upon consequence a sect not of infidels, but atheists."--_Religio Medici, Works_, vol. ii. p. 89.

[219] This was the Cardinal, the nephew of Andrea the great jurist, who was also a good friend of Cardan.

[220] _Opera_, tom. x. p. 463.


CHAPTER XII

AT the beginning of the year 1565 Cardan had a narrow escape from death by burning, for his bed from some unknown cause caught fire twice in the same night while he was asleep. The servant was disturbed by the smoke, and having aroused his master, told him what was amiss, whereupon Cardan flew into a violent rage, for he deemed that the youth must be drunk. But he soon perceived the danger, and then they both set to work to extinguish the flames. His own description of the occurrence is highly characteristic. "Having put out the fire, I settled myself again to sleep, and, while I was dreaming of alarms, and that I was flying from some danger, it happened that either these terrifying dreams, or the fire and smoke again aroused me, and, looking around, I found that the bed was once more alight, and the greater part of it consumed. The vari-coloured coverlet, the leather hangings, and all the covering of the bed was unhurt. Thus this great alarm and danger and serious disturbance caused only a trifling loss; less than half of the bed-linen was burnt, but the blankets were entirely consumed. On the first alarm the flames burnt out twice or thrice with little smoke, and caused scarcely any damage. The second time the fire and the mishap forced me to rise just before dawn, the fire lasting altogether about seven hours."

There was naturally a warning sign to be found in this accident.[221] The smoke, Cardan said, denoted disgrace; the fire, peril and fear; the flame, a grave and pressing danger to his life. The smouldering fire signified secret plots which were to be put into execution against him by his servants while he lay in bed. And the fact that he set fire to the bed himself, denoted that he would be able to meet any coming danger alone and without assistance. The indictment against him was foreshadowed by the fire and the flames and the smoke. Poison and assault were not to be feared. Men might indeed ask questions as to what kind of danger it could be which only arose from those about him, and fell short of poison and violence. The fire, he goes on to say, signifies the Magistrate. More than once it seemed to be extinct, but it always revived. Danger seemed to threaten him less from open hostility than from the cunning flattery of foes, and from over-confidence on his own part. His books, which he had lately caused to be printed, appeared to be in grave peril, but a graver one overhung his life. He deemed that he would quit the tribunal condemned by the empty scandal of the crowd, suffering no slight loss, and worsted chiefly through putting faith in false friends, and through his own instability. On the whole, the loss would prove inconsiderable; the danger moderate, but the vexation exceedingly heavy. These results might have sprung from causes other than natural ones; but, on the other hand, such things often come about through chance. They might prove to be a warning to him to keep clear of hostile prejudice, and to make friends of those in authority, care being taken not to let himself become involved in their private affairs, and not to seek too close an acquaintance.[222]

Up to this date, Cardan, when he visited his patients, had either walked or ridden a mule. In 1562 he began to use a carriage, but this change of habit brought ill luck with it, for, in this same year, his horses ran away; he was thrown out of the vehicle, and sustained an injury to one of the fingers of his right hand, and to the right arm as well.[223] The finger soon healed, but the damage to the right arm shifted itself over to the left side, leaving the right arm sound. The foregoing details, taken chiefly from the _Paralipomena_ (Book III. ch. xii.), are somewhat significant in respect to the serious trouble which came upon him soon afterwards.

Though he had now secured a class-room for himself, the malice of his enemies was not yet abated. Just before the end of his term, certain of them went to Cardinal Morone and told him that it would be inexpedient to allow Cardan to retain his Professorship any longer, seeing that scarcely any pupils went to listen to him. The terms Cardan used in describing this hostile movement against him,[224] rouse a suspicion that there may have been some ground for the assertion of his adversaries; but he declares that, at any rate, he had a good many pupils from the beginning of the session up to the time of Lent. He gives no clue whereby the date of this intrigue may be exactly ascertained, but it probably happened near the end of his sojourn at Bologna, because in his account of it he describes likewise the cessation of his public teaching, and makes no mention of any resumption of the same. He declares that he was at last overborne by the multitude of his foes, and their cunning plots. Under the pretence that, in seeking Cardan's removal, they were really acting for his benefit, they succeeded in bringing Cardinal Morone round to their views.