seven o’clock
''' The rest of the words had no duelling in his memory , though he was sure they had been made and written ; but they were meant to say that all labour conceived and executed in a land of fire should be remodelled in the land of frost at the risk of being cast away in its passage from one to the other . This in plain English meant the union of hot zeal and cold diligence , which is a worthy recipe for any worker in any craft It served Paul 's turn for six prodigious weeks , from the rising of the sun until long after the going down of the same . The book was done in a quarter of the time he had apportioned to it . For six weeks the forces of every waking minute had strained fiercely forward to one purpose , and at seven o'clock on an autumn Friday he wrote the words ` The End , ' and , looking up , saw the sunlight in dazzling strips between the green painted laths of the blind , and found that his lamp was pale . He drew up the blind and opened the window , and the sweet air bathed his head . There was a deep sadness in his heart , and when he arose and by chance saw his face in the glass it was the face of a ghost If the halest of young men will live in alternations of frost and fire for six weeks on end , he must expect to pay for it . Paul paid dearly in lassitude , and broken sleep , and loss of appetite , and afterwards in six weeks of idle waiting in poverty , for there was no work or power of thought left in him for the time .