| 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 |
| 1 | 90 | 180 | 269 | 359 |
|
obscure streets without object whatever, until at length I chanced to
stumble against the corner of a bookseller's stall. Seeing a chair close
at hand, for the use of customers, I threw myself doggedly into it,
and, hardly knowing why, opened the pages of the first volume which
came within my reach. It proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on
Speculative Astronomy, written either by Professor Encke of Berlin or
by a Frenchman of somewhat similar name. I had some little tincture of
information on matters of this nature, and soon became more and more
absorbed in the contents of the book, reading it actually through twice
before I awoke to a recollection of what was passing around me. By this
time it began to grow dark, and I directed my steps toward home. But
the treatise had made an indelible impression on my mind, and, as I
sauntered along the dusky streets, I revolved carefully over in my
memory the wild and sometimes unintelligible reasonings of the writer.
There are some particular passages which affected my imagination in a
powerful and extraordinary manner. The longer I meditated upon these
the more intense grew the interest which had been excited within me.
The limited nature of my education in general, and more especially my
ignorance on subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from
rendering me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read,
or inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen in
consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to imagination; and I
was vain enough, or perhaps reasonable enough, to doubt whether
those crude ideas which, arising in ill-regulated minds, have all the
appearance, may not often in effect possess all the force, the reality,
4
8
Page
Quick Jump
|