Consolation in Oriental Studies

Clerval was no natural philosopher. His imagination was too vivid for the minutiæ of science.

Languages were his principal study; and he sought, by acquiring their elements,

to open a field for self-instruction on his return to Geneva. Persian,

Arabic, and Hebrew, gained his attention, after he had made himself perfectly

master of Greek and Latin. For my own part, idleness had ever been irksome to

me; and now that I wished to fly from reflection, and hated my former studies,

I felt great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not only instruction but

consolation in the works of the orientalists. Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating