Yes, it's a misspelling of "rough". The passage means something like this: I would have become sad/melancholy but this woman was here and her gentleness kept me from getting into a bad/sad mood. I mgiht have become sullen in my study: I might have gotten sad in my room (a study) or in my work learning about a topi (study the verb, it's not clear). rought through the arduor of my natture: become also mean (?) disagreeable (?) (=rough) because of his passionate way of studying. but that she was there: if she hadn't been there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness: to make me be gentle like her So he telling us that he would have been sad and mean being passionately involved in his learning (or alone in his study) but because she was a gentle person he remained a gentle too. Not an easy text for English learners, that's for sure. : )

1. "rought" is a typo, should be "rough". 2. The woman's presence influenced him to become gentle himself in her image, thus overcoming his natural tendencies and preventing him from becoming sullen. In other words had she not been around to influence him, he might "have become sullen ...". I agree that this is a difficult sentence. Where is it from?

(1) Rought is probably a typo, and the correct spelling is most likely "rough." (2) This is a very literary sentence - something you'd see from a nineteenth century English novel (think Jane Eyre). In simpler English, the sentence means: I may have become dour/bad-tempered through my education and upbringing, coarse through my passionate nature, but she was there to make me just a little bit gentler, although not quite as gentle as she is.