I
often turned back home that I might note down in their freshness the
results of these musings; and then after a short sleep I rose again to
pursue my studies.
In this way the last half of the summer session passed quickly away, and
Michaelmas arrived.
The development of my inner life had meanwhile insensibly drawn me
little by little quite away from the study of languages, and led me
towards the deeper-lying unity of natural objects. My earlier plan
gradually reasserted itself, to study Nature in her first forms and
elements. But the funds which still remained to me were now too small to
permit of the longer residence at the university which that plan
necessitated. As I had nothing at all now to depend upon save my own
unaided powers, I at first thought to gain my object by turning them to
some practical account, such as literary work. I had already begun to
prepare for this, when an unexpected legacy changed my whole position.
Up to now I had had one aunt still living, a sister of my mother's, who
had spent all the best years of her life in my native village, enjoying
excellent health and free from care. By her sudden death I obtained, in
a manner I had little expected, the means of pursuing my much-desired
studies.
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