aroused, for he was a most kind and gentle-spirited man, and he
patted me on the head and cheered me up by saying there was a whole
vast ocean of materials! I can still feel the happy thrill which
these blessed words shot through me.

Then he began to bail out that ocean's riches for my encouragement
and joy. Like this: it was "conjectured"--though not established-
-that Satan was originally an angel in heaven; that he fell; that
he rebelled, and brought on a war; that he was defeated, and
banished to perdition. Also, "we have reason to believe" that
later he did so-and-so; that "we are warranted in supposing" that
at a subsequent time he travelled extensively, seeking whom he
might devour; that a couple of centuries afterward, "as tradition
instructs us," he took up the cruel trade of tempting people to
their ruin, with vast and fearful results; that by-and-by, "as the
probabilities seem to indicate," he may have done certain things,
he might have done certain other things, he must have done still
other things.

And so on and so on. We set down the five known facts by
themselves, on a piece of paper, and numbered it "page 1"; then on
fifteen hundred other pieces of paper we set down the
"conjectures," and "suppositions," and "maybes," and "perhapses,"
and "doubtlesses," and "rumors," and "guesses," and
"probabilities," and "likelihoods," and "we are permitted to
thinks," and "we are warranted in believings," and "might have
beens," and "could have beens," and "must have beens," and
"unquestionablys," and "without a shadow of doubts"--and behold!

MATERIALS? Why, we had enough to build a biography of Shakespeare!