Note 5 — Chapter I
Reading edition
The late Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild told a young English girl of sixteen whom I knew that, if he could by some means regain his youth, like Faust in Goethe’s play, and be the same age as she was, he would willingly give up his entire fortune. He was then about fifty-four years of age. When the young lady in question repeated this to a late member of the Turf Club in my presence, the latter observed: “Ferdy must have set a high value on his youth, for I asked him to let me have £200 lately for a common friend who was at school with us and is now ruined, which he refused to do. Consequently, I have quarrelled with him for ever.”