Can you think
how joyfully I packed full the good brown bowl, delicately filling
in every little corner, and at last held it to the flame, and saw
it light? That first long whiff was like the indrawn breath of
the cold, starved hunter, when, stepping into his house, he sees
food, fire, and wife on his hearthstone. Presently I put out the
torchlight, and then went back to my couch and sat down, the bowl
shining like a star before me.
There and then a purpose came to me--something which would keep
my brain from wandering, my nerves from fretting and wearing, for
a time at least. I determined to write to my dear Alixe the true
history of my life, even to the point--and after--of this thing
which now was bringing me to so ill a pass. But I was in darkness, I
had no paper, pens, nor ink. After a deal of thinking I came at last
to the solution. I would compose the story, and learn it by heart,
sentence by sentence, as I so composed it.
So there and then I began to run back over the years of my life,
even to my first remembrances, that I might see it from first to
last in a sort of whole and with a kind of measurement.
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