ich allows one to remain seated and rests the muscles of
the legs, I can commune nightly under my lampshade, until a late hour,
and keep going the forge of thought wherein the intractable problem is
softened and hammered into shape.

My study table, the size of a pocket handkerchief, occupied on the right
by the ink stand--a penny bottle--and on the left by the open exercise
book, gives me just the room which I need to wield the pen. I love that
little piece of furniture, one of the first acquisitions of my early
married life. It is easily moved where you wish: in front of the window,
when the sky is cloudy; into the discreet light of a corner, when
the sun is troublesome. In winter, it allows you to come close to the
hearth, where a log is blazing.

Poor little walnut board, I have been faithful to you for half a century
and more. Ink-stained, cut and scarred with the penknife, you lend
your support today to my prose as you once did to my equations. This
variation in employment leaves you indifferent; your patient back
extends the same welcome to the formulae of algebra and the formula of
thought. I cannot boast this placidity; I find that the change has not
increased my peace of mind; hunting for ideas troubles the brain even
more than hunting for the roots of an equation.

You would never recognize me, little friend, if you could give a glance
at my gray mane. Where is the cheerful face of former days, bright with
enthusiasm and hope? I have aged, I have aged. And you, what a falling
off, since you came to me from the dealer's, gleaming and polished and
smelling so good with your beeswax! Like your master, you have wrinkles,
often my work, I admit; for how many times, in my impatience, have I not
dug my pen into you, when, after its dip in the muddy inkpot, the nib
refused to write decently!

One of your corners is broken off; the boards are beginning to
come loose. Inside you, I hear, from time to time, the plane of
the death-watch, who despoils old furniture. From year to year, new
galleries are excavated, endangering your solidity. The old ones show on
the outside in the shape of tiny round holes. A stranger has seized
upon the latter, excellent quarters, obtained without trouble. I see the
impudent intruder run nimbly under my elbow and penetrate forthwith into
the tunnel abandoned by the death-watch. She is after game, this slender
huntress, clad in black, busy collecting wood lice for her grubs. A
whole nat