The Journal of a Disappointed Man

October 1. In the afternoon dissected a Frog, following Milnes Marshall's Book. Am studying Chemistry and attending classes at the Evening School and reading Physiology (Foster's). Am also teaching myself German. I wish I had a microscope. October 3. What heaps of things to be done! How short the time to do them in! An appetite for knowledge is apt to rush one off one's feet, like any other appetite if not curbed. I often stand in the centre of the Library here and think despairingly how impossible it is ever to become possessed of all the wealth of facts and ideas contained in the books surrounding me on every hand. I pull out one volume from its place and feel as if I were no more than giving one dig with a pick in an enormous quarry. The Porter spends his days in the Library keeping strict vigil over this catacomb of books, passing along between the shelves and yet never paying heed to the almost audible susurrus of desire--the desire every book has to be taken down and read, to live, to come into being in somebody's mind. He even hands the volumes over the counter, seeks them out in their proper places or returns them there without once realising that a Book is a Person and not a Thing. It makes me shudder to think of Lamb's Essays being carted about as if they were fardels. October 16. Dissected an Eel. Cassell's Natural History says the Air-bladder is divided. This is not so in the one I opened. Found what I believe to be the lymphatic heart in the tail beneath the vent.