I perceive that he worked willingly only when he worked inventively.
At last I can do justice to the exquisite conception of his 'Conquest of
Granada', a study of history which, in unique measure, conveys not only
the pathos, but the humor of one of the most splendid and impressive
situations in the experience of the race. Very possibly something of the
severer truth might have been sacrificed to the effect of the pleasing
and touching tale, but I do not under stand that this was really done.
Upon the whole I am very well content with my first three loves in
literature, and if I were to choose for any other boy I do not see how I
could choose better than Goldsmith and Cervantes and Irving, kindred
spirits, and each not a master only, but a sweet and gentle friend, whose
kindness could not fail to profit him.




V. FIRST FICTION AND DRAMA

In my own case there followed my acquaintance with these authors certain
Boeotian years, when if I did not go backward I scarcely went forward in
the paths I had set out upon. They were years of the work, of the
over-work, indeed, which falls to the lot of so many that I should be
ashamed to speak of it except in accounting for the fact. My father had
sold his paper in Hamilton and had bought an interest in another at
Dayton, and we were all straining our utmost to help pay for it. My daily
tasks began so early and ended so late that I had little time, even if I
had the spirit, for reading; and it was not till what we thought ruin,
but what was really release, came to us that I got back again to my
books. Then we went to live in the country for a year, and that stress of
toil, with the shadow of failure darkening all, fell from me like the