ten o'clock
A half-burnt candle rose out of the socket . As David now lighted it and laid the long fresh candle alongside the snuffers , he measured with his eye the length of his luminaries and the amount of his wood -- two friends . The little grate had commenced to roar at him bravely , affectionately ; and the candle sputtered to him and threw sparks into the air -- the rockets of its welcoming flame . It was not yet ten o'clock : two hours of the long winter evening remained . He turned to his treasury . This was a trunk in a corner , the trunk he had bought while at college , small and cheap in itself , not in what it held . For here were David 's books -- the great grave books which had been the making of him , or the undoing of him , according as one may have enough of God 's wisdom and mercy to decide whether it were the one or the other .