voice. He felt better, or at least more sure of himself, when he was alone.
In the course of his studies he noticed that there was a great deal that he had missed. There were all sorts of new developments, and he was obliged to orientate himself again. Chiefly he was afraid of not being able to remember his own work, for it was in connection with this that his memory suffered most. He worked like a mule, or else gave himself up to dreaming. He dreamt of new laboratory methods, and at the same time he was fascinated by bold and delicate theoretical calculations. When his dull brain proved incapable of splitting the thin hair of a problem he would grow angry with himself. He was conscious of the fact that his laboratory “destructive chemistry” opened up the most marvellous vistas in the theory of the constitution of matter. He came up against unexpected correlations, immediately afterwards to be oppressed by the laboriousness of his methods. Disgusted, he would throw everything down and plunge into reading some stupid novel; but even here he was haunted by the atmosphere of the laboratory. Instead of words he read only chemical symbols, mad formule full of elements hitherto undiscovered, which disturbed him even in his sleep.
