LATER PERIOD OF LIFE: CONCLUSION
of the winter, he covered himself with three or four woollen blankets. But I remember one winter which was so cold that he was obliged to move his bed into his study.
"As soon as he awoke, he went into his study, where he always found glowing embers, put wood on the burning coals and a few pieces of birch bark—which for convenience he used to purchase in bundles so as to be able to make a fire quickly—and then he sat down to write.
"In his drawing-room was the marble table which he afterward presented to the Royal College of Mines; this room was neat and genteel, but plain.
"His dress in winter consisted of a fur coat of reindeer skin, and in summer of a dressing-gown; both well worn, as became a philosopher's wardrobe. His wearing apparel was simple, but neat. Yet it happened sometimes that when he prepared to go out, and his people did not call attention to it, something would be forgotten or neglected in his dress; so that, for instance, he would put one buckle of gems and another of silver in his shoes—an instance of which absence of mind I myself saw at my father's house, where he was
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