Note 14 — Chapter II

The economic environment in which the men of letters had passed their youth could be discovered in the case of 619. Of these, 562, or 90.7 %, passed their youth sheltered from all material care, while 57, or 9.3 %, passed their youth in indigence or insecurity. In consequence the author makes the following observation: “As it appears, only the eleventh part of the literary men of talent have passed their youth in difficult economic conditions. This ratio, already very small in itself, appears much more striking when we strive to represent the numerical relation which ought to exist for the whole population between well-do-do families and those that are not. It is impossible to say, doubtless, what this relation has been on the average for the whole modern period. But it is clear that we shall be well below the truth if we admit that the families of the second category are three or four times as numerous as those of the first. That is to say, from the mere fact of the economic conditions in which they are born, the children of well-to-do families have at least forty or fifty times as much chance of making a name in letters as do those who belong to families that are poor, or are simply in a position of economic instability.”14