about five o’clock
Still I could not consent to give up the trial and abandon those dreams of renown in which I had indulged . How should I ever be able to look the literary circle of my native village in the face , if I were so completely to falsify their predictions . For some time longer , therefore , I continued to write for fame , and of course was the most miserable dog in existence , besides being in continual risk of starvation . I have many a time strolled sorrowfully along , with a sad heart and an empty stomach , about five o'clock , and looked wistfully down the areas in the west end of the town ; and seen through the kitchen windows the fires gleaming , and the joints of meat turning on the spits and dripping with gravy ; and the cook maids beating up puddings , or trussing turkeys , and have felt for the moment that if I could but have the run of one of those kitchens , Apollo and the muses might have the hungry heights of Parnassus for me . Oh , sir ! talk of meditations among the tombs -- they are nothing so melancholy as the meditations of a poor devil without penny in pouch , along a line of kitchen windows towards dinner-time . At length , when almost reduced to famine and despair , the idea all at once entered my head , that perhaps I was not so clever a fellow as the village and myself had supposed .