There, at the same height, stood a rank of school-books preserved for him by his sister till she died; beside them, medical works, relics of his abortive study when he was neither boy nor man.

Descending, the eye fell upon yellow and green covers, dozens of French novels, acquired at any time from the year of his majority up to the other day; in the mass, they reminded him of a frothy season, when he boasted a cheap Gallicism, and sneered at all things English.

A sprinkling of miscellaneous literature accounted for ten years or more when he cared little to collect books, when the senses raged in him, and only by miracle failed to hurl him down many a steep place.

Last came the serious acquisitions, the bulk of his library: solid and expensive works--historians, archaeologists, travellers, with noble volumes of engravings, and unwieldy tomes of antique lore.

Little enough of all this had Rolfe digested, but more and more he loved to have erudition within his reach.