The estrangement between his mother and himself began to widen now that they were thrown constantly together. By arrangement, he dined daily with her, and came to her receptions. But Schopenhauer was { 20} too uncontrolled in his temper, and too uncompromising in his egoism to make an agreeable companion. His mother, driven to write to him, asserts that his constant grumbling, gloomy looks, and intolerant dogmatism depress her. It is necessary to her happiness to know that he is happy, but not necessary that she should be a witness to it. Therefore, if they are to agree they must consent to live apart. Both mother and son were bent on self-development, and in character were too dissimilar to understand each other. Schopenhauer was jealous, uncontrolled in his moods, and boorish in his manners. That all-consuming egoism, which all his life spoiled his relations with everyone with whom he came in contact, made a congenial family life impossible. He resented his mother's freedom and independence, and insulted her friends. In a way that is very characteristic of him, he generalises from his own personal experience, and in his views on women we find reflected all the bitterness which had grown round the relations between himself and his mother.
In 1809 he attained his majority, and received his share of his father's fortune, amounting to about £150 a year. He was now independent, and could pursue the career he had marked out for himself. He valued all his life the liberty which this competency secured him. A draft dedication, intended for the second edition of _The World as Will and Idea_, was addressed "to the _manes_ of my father. Noble, beneficent spirit! to whom I owe everything that I am.... As thou didst bring into the world a son such as I am, thou didst also make provision that in a world like this, such a son should be able to subsist and to develop himself.... In my mind the tendency to its only proper vocation was too decidedly implanted to let me { 21} do violence to my nature, and so to subjugate it that, recking nought of existence in general, and active only for my personal existence, it should find its sole task in procuring daily bread.... Thou seemest to have foreseen that thy son, thou proud republican, could not possess the talent to compete in cringing before ministers and councillors, Mæcenases, and their advisers, basely to beg for the hard-earned piece of bread, or to flatter self-conceited commonplaceness, and humbly join himself to the eulogistic retinue of bungling charlatans.... That I could expand the forces nature gave me and apply them to their destined purpose, that I could follow my natural instinct and think and work for beings without number, while no one does anything for me, for that I thank thee, my father, thank thy activity, prudence, thrift, and provision for the future."