Perhaps at the instant it chanced there had
fallen a breathless truce between them, and I being solitary, my own
instinct took me. But having once found that pictured haven, I had
found somewhat of content.
I think half my youthful days passed in that low, book-walled chamber.
The candles I burned through those long years of evening would deck
Alps' hugest fir; the dust I disturbed would very easily fill again
the measure that some day shall contain my own; and the small studious
thumbmarks that paced, as if my footprints, leaf by leaf of that long
journey, might be the history of life's experience in little,--from
clearer, to clear, to faint--how very faint at last!
I do not remember ever to have been discovered in this retreat. I was
(by nature) prompt at meals, and wary to be in bed at my hour, however
transitory its occupation might be. Indeed, I very well recollect
dawn painting the page my eyes dwelt on, surprising me with its
mystery and stealth in a house as silent as the grave.
Thus entertained then by insubstantial society I grew up, and began to
be old, before I had yet learned age is disastrous.
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