On the other hand, I again devoted many leisure hours to Egyptological works.

I felt that these studies suited my powers and would satisfy me.  Everything which had formerly withheld me from the pursuits of learning now seemed worthless.  It was as if I stood in a new relation to all things.  Even the one to my mother had undergone a transformation.  I realized for the first time what I possessed in her, how wrong I had been, and what I owed to her.  One day during this period I remembered my Poem of the World, and instantly had the box brought in which I kept it among German favours, little pink notes, and similar trophies.

For the first time I perceived, in examining the fruits of the labour of so many days and nights, the vast disproportion between the magnitude of the subject and my untrained powers.  One passage seemed faulty, another so overstrained and inadequate, that I flung it angrily back among the rest.  At the same time I thought that the verses I had addressed to various beauties and the answers which I had received ought not to be seen by other eyes.  I was alone with the servant, a bright fire was blazing in the stove, and, obedient to a hasty impulse, I told him to throw the whole contents of the box into the fire.

When the last fragment was consumed to ashes I uttered a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, the flames also destroyed the greater part of my youthful poems.  Even the completed acts of my tragedy had been overtaken by destruction, like the heroes of Panthea and Abradatus.

If I had formerly obeyed the physician’s order to lie motionless, I followed it after the first signs of convalescence so rigidly that even the experienced Dr. Romberg admitted that he had not given me credit for so much self-control.  Toward the end of the winter my former cheerfulness returned, and with it I also learned to use the arcanum I have formerly mentioned, which makes even the most bitter things enjoyable and lends them a taste of sweetness.  I might term it “the practice of gratitude.”  Without intending it, I acquired the art of thankfulness by training my eyes to perceive the smallest trifle which gave cause for it.  And this recognition of even the least favour of Fortune filled the rude wintry days with so much sunshine, that when children of my own were given me my first effort was to train them to gratitude, and especially to an appreciation of trifles.

The motto ‘Carpe diem,’ which I had found in my father’s Horace and had engraved upon my seal ring, unexpectedly gained a new significance by no longer translating it “enjoy,” but “use the day,” till the time came when the two meanings seemed identical.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The apprenticeship.

Firmly as I had resolved to follow the counsel of Horace, and dear as earnest labour was becoming, I still lacked method, a fixed goal towards which to move with firm tread in the seclusion to which my sufferings still condemned me.