Now, when all
the dormitory is asleep; when the lighted windowpanes have ceased to
cast their gleams upon the snow; when the streets are deserted, the
pool-rooms closed, and the last good-fellow has gone to bed, and only
oneself is awake, then we have the full enjoyment of our quiet study
lamp-light. We may yawn once or twice, a creak on the stair may
startle us,--but we do not go to bed. We reach out our hand for some
favorite volume, Stevenson's _Garden of Verses_, _Underwoods_, or
Emily Bronte's _Wuthering Heights_: and read far on into the night
towards cock-crow. We mingle our reading with dreams, and read on and
on, finding a new feeling in our book: we find the author's deeper
meaning. Our reading is undisturbed by the ghost-creep of childhood
and the adventuresome daring of boarding-school. Formerly we had the
mere tale or story; now we feel in a small degree the soul-expression
of the writer--an indefinable, will-o'-the-wisp sort of thing; a
something not always caught, but that strange intangible something
which lends the spark of immortality to the master creations.
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