Cæsar remained in the same sphere during the whole period of his law
course, always seeking, according to his own words, to add one wheel
more to his machine.
His life contained few incidents; summers he went to Valencia, and
there, in the villa, he read and talked with the peasants. His mother,
devoted solely to the Church, bothered herself little about her son.
Cæsar ended his studies, and on his coming of age, they gave him his
share of his father’s estate.
Incontinently he took the train, he went to Paris, he looked up Yarza.
He explained to him his vague projects of action. Yarza listened
attentively, and said:
“Perhaps it will appear foolish to you, but I am going to give you a
book I wrote, which I should like you to read. It’s called _Enchiridion
Sapientiae_. In my youth I was something of a Latinist. In these pages,
less than a hundred, I have gathered my observations about the financial
and political world. It might as well be called _Contribution to
Common-sense, or Neo-Machiavellianism_. If you find that it helps you,
keep it.”
Cæsar read the book with concentrated attention.
“How did it strike you?” said Yarza.
“There are many things in it I don’t agree with; I shall have to think
over them again.”
“All right. Then keep my _Enchiridion_ and go on to London. Paris is a
city that has finished. It is not worth the trouble of losing one’s time
staying here.”
Cæsar went to London, always with the firm intention of going into
something. From time to time he wrote a long letter to Ignacio
Alzugaray, telling him his impressions of politics and financial
questions.
While he was in London his sister joined him and invited him to go to
Florence; two years later she begged him to accompany her to Rome.
Cæsar had always declined to visit the Eternal City, until, on that
occasion, he himself showed a desire to go to Rome with his sister.