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I read "King Lear" about the same time, and I shall never forget the feeling of horror when I came to the scene in which Gloster's eyes are put out. Anger seized me, my fingers refused to move, I sat rigid for one long moment, the blood throbbing in my temples, and all the hatred that a child can feel concentrated in my heart.

I must have made the acquaintance both of Shylock and of Satan about the same time, for the two characters were for a long while closely associated in my mind. I remember that I was sorry for them. I felt vaguely that they could not be good even if they wished to, because no one seemed willing to give them a fair chance. There are moments when I feel that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil, are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be made whole.

It seems strange that my first reading of Shakespeare should have left me so many unpleasant memories. The bright, fanciful plays -- the ones I like best now -- appear not to have impressed me at first, perhaps because they reflected the habitual sunshine and gayety of a child's life. But there is nothing more capricious than the memory of a child: what it will hold, and what it will lose.

I have since read Shakespeare's plays many times and know parts of them by heart, but I cannot tell which of them I like best. My delight in them is as varied as my moods. The little songs and sonnets have a meaning for me as fresh and wonderful as the dramas. But, with all my love for Shakespeare, it is often weary work to read all the meanings into his lines which critics and commentators have given them. I used to try to remember their interpretations, but they discouraged and vexed me; so I made a compact with myself not to try any more. I know there are things in Shakespeare and in the world that I do not understand; but I do not want them explained. I am content to wait until I "grow up" to their meaning; it is so much pleasanter to see veil after veil lift gradually, revealing new realms of thought and beauty, than to rush upon the citadel of Knowledge, horse, foot and dragoon, and then weep with Alexander because there are no more worlds to conquer.

History the Favorite, Next to Poetry

NEXT to poetry I love history. I have read every historical work that I have been able to lay my hands on, from a catalogue of dry facts and dryer dates to Green's impartial, picturesque "History of the English People"; from Freeman's "History of Europe" to Emerton's "Middle Ages." But the first book that gave me any real sense of the value of history was Swinton's "World's History," which I received on my thirteenth birthday. Though I believe it is no longer considered authentic, yet I have kept it ever since as one of my treasures. From it I learned how the races of men spread from land to land and built great cities; how a few great rulers, earthly Titans, put everything under their feet and with a decisive word opened the gates of happiness for millions and closed them upon millions more; how different nations pioneered in art and knowledge, and broke ground for the mightier growths of coming ages; how civilization underwent, as it were, the holocaust of a degenerate age, and rose again, like the Phoenix, among the nobler sons of the North; and how by liberty, tolerance and education the great and the wise have opened the way for the salvation of the whole world.

In my college reading I have become somewhat familiar with French and German literature. Emerson says, "France is by natural contrast a kind of blackboard on which English character draws its own traits in chalk." This is equally true of German character. Its sincerity, simplicity and vigor stand out most clearly when contrasted with the conventionality, elaborateness and mellifluousness of the French. The German puts strength before beauty, and truth before convention, both in life and in literature. There is a vehement, sledge-hammer vigor about everything that he does. When he speaks it is not to impress others, but because his heart would burst if he did not find an outlet for the thoughts that burn in his soul.

French and German Works Compared

THEN, too, there is in German literature a fine reserve which I like; but its chief glory is the recognition I find in it of the redeeming potency of woman's self-sacrificing love. This thought pervades all German literature and is mystically expressed in Goethe's "Faust" --

"All things transitory
But as symbols are sent.
Earth's insufficiency
Here grows to event.
The indescribable
Here it is done.
The Woman Soul leads us upward and on!"

I think this is an idea not native to the French mind.

Of all the French writers that I have read I like Molière and Racine best. There are fine things in Balzac and passages in Mérimée which strike one like a keen blast of sea-air. Alfred de Musset is impossible! I admire Victor Hugo -- I appreciate his genius, his brilliancy, his romanticism; yet he is not one of my literary passions. But Goethe and Schiller are interpreters of eternal things, and my spirit reverently follows them into the regions where Beauty and Truth and Goodness are one.