Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/31

 in their places. The lists however showed Lesbazeilles first, Bergson (who was taking the examination at the same time) second, and Jaurès third.

A letter to a college chum gives a charming account of the way he passed his holidays.…

"A few days ago I was running from market to market at Castres, and from restaurant to restaurant, to sell our oats. I cut short all the wiles and artifices of the tradesmen. 'You know that I know nothing about it: tell me my oats are bad, that's all the same to me, this is the price I want.' They bought them at the price I asked; it is true it was a very modest one.… I have done some digging in the garden.… I promise myself to trace a few furrows. Something will come out of me, wheat, oats or maize; I should like it best to be wheat! I shall be one of the nourishers of the human race.

… I rise at seven, breathe the fresh air, go round my estate, and at nine I sit down to breakfast on the terrace in the shade of two acacias. I stay there and talk with Papa and Mamma, or I go and play billiards with a neighbour. In the heat of the day I take an umbrella and my botany book, and I go and sit in the shade in a cool valley. I study a little, or I look at the clouds, and I come home at supper time through woods and vines studying, as I pass, roots and flowers, to verify what I have read.