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.
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