He recalled having heard it mentioned the previous evening
that the house stood upon the site of an old monastery.
No doubt that accounted for its being built in a hollow,
with the ground-floor on the absolute level of the
earth outside. The monks had always chosen these low-lying
sheltered spots for their cloisters. Why should they
have done so? he wondered--and then came to a sudden
mental stop, absorbed in a somewhat surprised contemplation
of a new version of himself. He was becoming literary,
historical, bookish! His mind had begun to throw open again,
to abstract thoughts and musings, its long-closed doors.
He had read and dreamed so much as a lad, in the old
book-shop! For many years that boyhood of eager concern
in the printed page had seemed to him to belong to
somebody else. Now, all at once, it came back to him as his
own possession; he felt that he could take up books again
where he had dropped them, perhaps even with the old rapt,
intent zest.
Visions rose before him of the magnificent library he
would gather for himself. And it should be in no wise
for show--the gross ostentation of the unlettered
parvenu--but a genuine library, which should minister
to his own individual culture. The thought took instant
hold upon his interest. By that road, his progress to the
goal of gentility would be smooth and simple.
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