Samuel Smiles：Self-Help, Excerpt 148

Annoyed by the enemies his success had provoked and whom he was unable to conciliate, he determined, at the end of less than two years’ labour in Paris, to return to Rome. Again settled there in his humble dwelling on Mont Pincio, he employed himself diligently in the practice of his art during the remaining years of his life, living in great simplicity and privacy. Though suffering much from the disease which afflicted him, he solaced himself by study, always striving after excellence. “In growing old,” he said, “I feel myself becoming more and more inflamed with the desire of surpassing myself and reaching the highest degree of perfection.” Thus toiling, struggling, and suffering, Poussin spent his later years. He had no children; his wife died before him; all his friends were gone: so that in his old age he was left absolutely alone in Rome, so full of tombs, and died there in 1665, bequeathing to his relatives at Andeleys the savings of his life, amounting to about 1000 crowns; and leaving behind him, as a legacy to his race, the great works of his genius.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/935
Locator：Excerpt 148 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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