ht. True, it does not bestow
imagination, a delicate flower blossoming none knows how and unable to
thrive on every soil; but it arranges what is confused, thins out the
dense, calms the tumultuous, filters the muddy and gives lucidity, a
superior product to all the tropes of rhetoric.

Yes, as a toiler with the pen, I owe much to it. Wherefore my thoughts
readily turn back to those bright hours of my novitiate, when, retiring
to a corner of the garden in recreation time, with a bit of paper on my
knees and a stump of pencil in my fingers, I used to practice deducing
this or that property correctly from an assemblage of straight lines.
The others amused themselves all around me; I found my delight in the
frustum of a pyramid. Perhaps I should have done better to strengthen
the muscles of my thighs by jumping and leaping, to increase the
suppleness of my loins with gymnastic contortions. I have known some
contortionists who have prospered beyond the thinker.

See me then entering the lists as an instructor of youth, fairly well
acquainted with the elements of geometry. In case of need, I could
handle the land surveyor's stake and chain. There my views ended. To
cube the trunk of a tree, to gauge a cask, to measure the distance of an
inaccessible point appeared to me the highest pitch to which geometrical
knowledge could hope to soar. Were there loftier flights? I did not even
suspect it, when an unexpected glimpse showed me the puny dimensions of
the little corner which I had cleared in the measureless domain.

At that time, the college in which, two years before, I had made my
first appearance as a teacher, had just halved the size of its classes
and largely increased its staff. The newcomers all lived in the
building, like myself, and we had our meals in common at the principal's
table. We formed a hive where, in our leisure time, some of us, in our
respective cells, worked up the honey of algebra and geometry, history
and physics, Greek and Latin most of all, sometimes with a view to the
class above, sometimes and oftener with a view to acquiring a degree.
The university titles lacked variety. All my colleagues were bachelors
of letters, but nothing more. They must, if possible, arm themselves
a little better to make their way in the world. We all worked hard and
steadily. I was the youngest of the industrious community and no less
eager than the rest to increase my modest equipment.

Visits between the different r