And she led me into a large, solemn, dimly lit room, that was full of books from floor to ceiling.
"Here is food for your spirit," said Sorrow; "seek, seek; in Science lives Truth."
I seated myself in a tall, worn armchair, and began to learn. But I could only study slowly, for ever my thoughts would wander their own ways. Now the fire burned too brightly and told me fairy tales; now the wind howled round the old house, so that I thought I must away, and the letters grew dim to my eyes. I strove to check this hapless fantasy that held me back on the road to Truth; but it was stronger than I. Sometimes it pressed a pencil into my hand, and then I wrote secretly poor little verses, which I hid from the very books, from the very air of the room. At last I threw myself back in the chair and cried—
"Wisdom, too, is not for me. She seems to me dead and dusty, and I—I desire to live."
"Do you want that?" said Sorrow. "But then you must not fear."
"I do not fear, I want to live."
Then I stood beside a sick bed, where a lovely gifted boy struggled with Death. His sufferings exceeded the measure of the endurable, yet Sorrow would not quit him. But Courage, too, remained at his side. Two years the terrible struggle lasted, and I asked—
"Where is Truth? Is this to live?"
When he died I trembled, for the first time, for fear. Then Sorrow took me from one deathbed to another. How many fair maiden flowers that had grown up beside and with me did I see fade! And I wept till my eyes were dim.