Digital heart book

Here was a subject at last
into which I could throw myself with pleasurable zeal.
Architecture was new to me, indeed; but it was at least
an art; and for all the arts I had a taste naturally
classical, and that capacity to take delighted pains
which some famous idiot has supposed to be synonymous
with genius. I threw myself headlong into my father's
work, acquainted myself with all the plans, their
merits and defects, read besides in special books, made
myself a master of the theory of strains, studied the
current prices of materials, and (in one word)
"devilled" the whole business so thoroughly, that when
the plans came up for consideration, Big Head Dodd was
supposed to have earned fresh laurels. His arguments
carried the day, his choice was approved by the
committee, and I had the anonymous satisfaction to know
that arguments and choice were wholly mine. In the re-
casting of the plan which followed, my part was even
larger; for I designed and cast with my own hand a hot-
air grating for the offices, which had the luck or
merit to be accepted.


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