the Professors to whom he listened either did not speak out all that
was in their minds, or, if they did, were far from representing the
advanced guard of modern thought. With eagerness he at length betook
himself to the teachers of philosophy and of geology. Having paid
for these lectures out of his own pocket, he felt as if he had won a
privilege beyond the conventional course of study, an initiation to
a higher sphere of intellect. The result was disillusion. Not even
in these class-rooms could he hear the word for which he waited, the
bold annunciation of newly discovered law, the science which had
completely broken with tradition. He came away unsatisfied, and
brooded upon the possibilities which would open for him when he was
no longer dependent.

His evening work at home was subject to a disturbance which would
have led him to seek other lodgings, could he have hoped to find any
so cheap as these. The landlady's son, a lank youth of the clerk
species, was wont to amuse himself from eight to ten with practice
on a piano. By dint of perseverance he had learned to strum two or
three hymnal melodies popularised by American evangelists;
occasionally he even added the charm of his voice, which had a
pietistic nasality not easily endured by an ear of any refinement.
Not only was Godwin harassed by the recurrence of these
performances; the tunes worked themselves into his brain, and
sometimes throughout a whole day their burden clanged and squalled
incessantly on his mental hearing. He longed to entreat forbearance
from the musician, but an excess of delicacy--which always ruled
his behaviour--kept him silent. Certain passages in the classics,
and many an elaborate mathematical formula, long retained for him an
association with the cadences of revivalist hymnody.