The World and the University 



enthusiasm. Like everybody else I was always 

 fond of flowers, attracted by their external 

 beauty and purity. Now my eyes were opened 

 to their inner beauty, all alike revealing glori- 

 ous traces of the thoughts of God, and leading 

 on and on into the infinite cosmos. I wandered 

 away at every opportunity, making long excur- 

 sions round the lakes, gathering specimens and 

 keeping them fresh in a bucket in my room to 

 study at night after my regular class tasks 

 were learned ; for my eyes never closed on the 

 plant glory I had seen. 



Nevertheless, I still indulged my love of 

 mechanical inventions. I invented a desk in 

 which the books I had to study were arranged 

 in order at the beginning of each term. I also 

 made a bed which set me on my feet every 

 morning at the hour determined on, and in 

 dark winter mornings just as the bed set me 

 on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the 

 minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a 

 click was heard and the first book to be studied 

 was pushed up from a rack below the top of 

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