Note 2 — V. THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL IN FRANCE (continued 5)

In a letter of July 16, 1813, he writes: "If the so-called superiority is only a superiority of some few degrees, it makes its possessor amiable and attractive to others—see Fontenelle. If it is more, it destroys every relation between him and other men. This is the unfortunate position in which the superior man, or, to speak more correctly, the man who is different from others, finds himself. Those who surround him can contribute nothing to his happiness. The praise of all these people would very soon disgust me, and their criticism would gall me."

And in the fourth chapter of La Chartreuse de Parme we read: "His comrades found out that Fabrice was very unlike themselves, at which they took umbrage; he, on the contrary, began to have a very friendly feeling towards them."