“Man never assumes himself to be unintelligent”—so I said, and I add: it was the greatest humiliation for me to discover myself, as an adult, an illiterate. I was absolutely humiliated to find myself unable to read in my own language and, therefore, I found myself exactly illiterate. Intolerable! A single resource of style—those present in every sentence of a great writer—deprived me of the meaning of a period—a real terror to judge the dictionary itself useless!—But why do I say this? Realizing me ignorant, I began to study grammar with almost religious fervor. Today, the surprise: these boring books have seemed enjoyable to me. How is it possible?
How Is It Possible?
