But that offended sense restrained me.

And so, as I said, if I had not obtained access to some books of holy and pure influence, and been starved by the dullness of the life around me into taking hold of them with eagerness, I should have led the life of a little heathen in the midst of light.

Of course the books were not written for my especial case, nor were they books for children,--and so, much was supposed, and not expressed, and consequently the truth they imparted to me was but fragmentary.

But it was truth, and the influence was holy.
I was driven to books; I do not believe I had any more desire than most vivid, palpitating, fluttering young things of my sex, to pore over a dull black and white page; but this black and white gate opened to me golden fields of happiness, while I was perishing of hunger in a life of dreary fact.
When I was about sixteen, however, an outside human influence, not written in black and white, came into the current of my existence.

About that time, my uncle took into his firm, as junior partner, a young man who had long been a clerk in the house.