"Nothing could be uglier than this garret, awaiting its scholar, with
its dingy yellow walls and odor of poverty. The roofing fell in a
steep slope, and the sky was visible through chinks in the tiles.
There was room for a bed, a table, and a few chairs, and beneath the
highest point of the roof my piano could stand. Not being rich enough
to furnish this cage (that might have been one of the _Piombi_ of
Venice), the poor woman had never been able to let it; and as I had
saved from the recent sale the furniture that was in a fashion
peculiarly mine, I very soon came to terms with my landlady, and moved
in on the following day.
"For three years I lived in this airy sepulchre, and worked
unflaggingly day and night; and so great was the pleasure that study
seemed to me the fairest theme and the happiest solution of life. The
tranquillity and peace that a scholar needs is something as sweet and
exhilarating as love. Unspeakable joys are showered on us by the
exertion of our mental faculties; the quest of ideas, and the tranquil
contemplation of knowledge; delights indescribable, because purely
intellectual and impalpable to our senses. So we are obliged to use
material terms to express the mysteries of the soul.
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