Nevertheless, I still indulged my love of mechanical inventions. I
invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in
order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on
my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter
mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then,
after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard
and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the
top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number
of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it
to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up
the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to
the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study.
Besides this, I thought it would be a fine thing in the summer-time
when the sun rose early, to dispense with the clock-controlled bed
machinery, and make use of sunbeams instead. This I did simply by
taking a lens out of my small spy-glass, fixing it on a frame on the
sill of my bedroom window, and pointing it to the sunrise; the
sunbeams focused on a thread burned it through, allowing the bed
machinery to put me on my feet.
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