If I had had the means, I should have devoted myself to the life of a scholar. That, I quite believe, is my natural life.George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, XVII:
I had in me the making of a scholar. With leisure and tranquillity of mind, I should have amassed learning. Within the walls of a college, I should have lived so happily, so harmlessly, my imagination ever busy with the old world.