From Father Ferdinand, too, I received a mark of affection and kindness, which, as I had now learned to appreciate his character properly, gratified me much. The apartments assigned me consisted of an ante-chamber, a little saloon, a bed-room, and a dressing-room; and I was surprised, on returning one morning, to see the carpenters, who were always more or less employed about the house, engaged in putting up a neat bookcase in my ante-room. This was followed by the arrival of two large packets of books from Rennes; and I soon after found the good priest busily employed in placing them in order. When the task was concluded, he begged me to accept them for his sake, and added, "I have had them placed here for you, because there are many leisure moments in every man's life which he is glad to employ in reading, if a book be at hand, when, probably, he would not take the trouble of going down to seek one out in a large library like that below." When I came to examine the store that the good father had provided for my mind, I was both pleased and amused with his selection; and, indeed, it offered not a bad type of his own mind. The books were in general of anything but a heavy or very serious cast, though amongst them were to be found a number of volumes, in the pages of which a man disposed to seek for sound and wholesome ideas was sure to find them on every branch of morals or ethics. The generality, however, consisted of the best and purest poets in the language; of historians a considerable number; of romance writers a very few; but all were chosen evidently with a view to induce a habit of reading, and to lead the mind on to knowledge and virtue, by the pleasant path of entertainment. The effect was such as the good priest could have wished and desired: as I was not naturally obstinate or perverse, the knowledge of his design led me rather to endeavour to accomplish than to defeat it. Although my taste for reading was, certainly, never so great as it might have been, yet the half hour that I snatched twice or thrice in the course of each day to peruse some of the volumes with which he had supplied me, carried me through a great number of the classical authors, both in French and Latin, and gave me a taste for many things which I had before but little appreciated.