or apprehend, and unconsciously passing over what might have been
hurtful, perhaps, at a later period. I suppose we failed to get a very
close conception of Shakespeare's colossal genius, but we did get a
tremendous and lasting impression of force and power, life and truth.

When we declaimed certain scenes in an upper chamber with sloping
walls and dormer windows, a bed for a throne, a cotton umbrella for a
sceptre, our creations were harmless enough. If I remember rightly,
our nine-year-old Lady Macbeths and Iagos, Falstaffs and Cleopatras,
after they had been dipped in the divine alembic of childish
innocence, came out so respectable that they would not have brought
the historic "blush to the cheek of youth."

On the shelf above the Shakespeare were a few things presumably better
suited to childish tastes,--Hawthorne's "Wonder Book," Kingsley's
"Water Babies," Miss Edgeworth's "Rosamond," and the "Arabian Nights."

There were also two little tales given us by a wandering revivalist,
who was on a starring tour through the New England villages,
"How Gussie Grew in Grace," and "Little Harriet's Work for the
Heathen,"--melodramatic histories of spiritually perfect and
physically feeble children who blessed the world for a season, but
died young, enlivened by a few pages devoted to completely vicious and
adorable ones who lived to curse the world to a good old age.

Last of all, brought out only on state occasions, was a most seductive
edition of that nursery Gaboriau, "Who Killed Cock Robin?" with
colored illustrations in which the heads of the birds were made to
move oracularly, by means of cunningly arranged strips pulled from
the bottom of the page. This was a relic of infancy, our first