pupil, and hoped that they had discovered a new Pascal. But he was less
docile than his great predecessor in their ranks. When his studies were
completed, he devoted himself to geometry, for which he had a passion
that nothing could extinguish. For the old monastic vow of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, he adopted the manlier substitute of poverty,
truth, and liberty--the worthy device of every man of letters. When he
awoke in the morning, he thought with delight of the work that had been
begun the previous day and would occupy the day before him. In the
necessary intervals of his meditations, he recalled the lively pleasure
that he felt at the play: at the play between the acts, he thought of
the still greater pleasure that was promised to him by the work of the
morrow. His mathematical labours led to valuable results in the
principles of equilibrium and the movement of fluids, in a new calculus,
and in a new solution of the problem of the precession of the
equinoxes.[99]

These contributions to what was then the most popular of the sciences
brought him fame, and fame brought him its usual distractions. As soon
as a writer has shown himself the possessor of gifts that may be of
value to society, then society straightway sets to work to seduce and
hinder him from diligently exercising them. D'Alembert resisted these
influences steadfastly. His means were very limited, yet he could never
be induced to increase them at the cost either of his social
independence or of his scientific pursuits. He lived for forty years
under the humble roof of the poor woman who had treated him as a son.
"You will never be anything better than a philosopher," she used to cry
reproachfully, "and what is a philosopher? 'Tis a madman who torments
himself all his life, that people may talk about him when he is dead."
D'Alembert zealously adhered to his destination. Frederick the Great
vainly tempted him by an offer of the succession to Maupertuis as
president of the Academy of Berlin. Although, however, he declined to
accept the post, he enjoyed all its authority and prerogative. Frederick
always consulted him in filling up vacancies and making appointments. It
is a magnanimous trait in D'Alembert's history that he should have
procured for Lagrange a position and livelihood at Berlin, warmly
commending him as a man of rare and superior genius, although Lagrange
had vigorously opposed some of his own mathematical theories. Ten years
after Fred