I sold myself for the sake of knowledge, I was consoled by progress.

I was the servant, companion, jester, and slave of my tyrant, but I was also the disciple, the priest of learning.

In my own room my chains fell off.

In the lonely night-watches I communed with the great, the immortal spirits of Horace, Virgil, and even the proud Caesar, and the divine Homer.
Those solitary but happy hours of the night are never to be forgotten, never to be portrayed; they refreshed me for the trials of the day, and enabled me to endure them! At the close of seven years I was prepared to enter the university, and the bargain between my master and myself was also at an end.

Freed from my tyrant, I bent my steps toward Frankfort University, to feel my liberty enchained anew.