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THE WISDOM OF SIRACH.
Upon returning to my apartments I found a large box in the centre of the room.

One of my aunts had died, and I was one of the heirs to her fortune, which was not large.
The box contained, among other things, a number of musty old books.

Not knowing what to do, and being afflicted with ennui, I began to read one of them.

They were for the most part romances of the time of Louis XV; my pious aunt had probably inherited them herself and never read them, for they were, so to speak, catechisms of vice.
I was singularly disposed to reflect on everything that came to my notice, to give everything a mental and moral significance; I treated events as pearls in a necklace which I tried to string together.
It struck me that there was something significant about the arrival of these books at this time.