three o’clock
At that time he fully realised all the cruelty and injustice of private property in land , and being one of those to whom a sacrifice to the demands of conscience gives the highest spiritual enjoyment , he decided not to retain property rights , but to give up to the peasant labourers the land he had inherited from his father . It was on this land question he wrote his essay . He arranged his life on his aunts ' estate in the following manner . He got up very early , sometimes at three o'clock , and before sunrise went through the morning mists to bathe in the river , under the hill . He returned while the dew still lay on the grass and the flowers . Sometimes , having finished his coffee , he sat down with his books of reference and his papers to write his essay , but very often , instead of reading or writing , he left home again , and wandered through the fields and the woods . Before dinner he lay down and slept somewhere in the garden .