and interruptions by question or
otherwise. I could not always do it if I tried, but I do not want to,
for oftentimes it is better to let the speaker or reader go on
continuously, although there may have been many breaks in the course of
the conversation or reading. When, for instance, I by and by reproduce
what the Landlady said to us, I shall give it almost without any hint
that it was arrested in its flow from time to time by various expressions
on the part of the hearers.

I can hardly say what the reason of it was, but it is very certain that I
had a vague sense of some impending event as we took our seats in the
Master's library. He seemed particularly anxious that we should be
comfortably seated, and shook up the cushions of the arm-chairs himself,
and got them into the right places.

Now go to sleep--he said--or listen,--just which you like best. But I am
going to begin by telling you both a secret.

Liberavi animam meam. That is the meaning of my book and of my literary
life, if I may give such a name to that party-colored shred of human
existence. I have unburdened myself in this book, and in some other
pages, of what I was born to say. Many things that I have said in my
ripe days have been aching in my soul since I was a mere child. I say
aching, because they conflicted with many of my inherited beliefs, or
rather traditions. I did not know then that two strains of blood were
striving in me for the mastery,--two! twenty, perhaps,--twenty thousand,
for aught I know,--but represented to me by two,--paternal and maternal.
Blind forces in themselves; shaping thoughts as they shaped features and
battled for the moulding of constitution and the mingling of temperament.

Philosophy and poetry came--to me before I knew their names.

Je fis mes premiers vers, sans savoir les ecrire.

Not verses so much as the stuff that verses are made of. I don't suppose
that the thoughts which came up of themselves in my mind were so mighty
different from what come up in the minds of other young folks. And that
's the best reason I could give for telling 'em. I don't believe
anything I've written is as good as it seemed to me when I wrote it,--he
stopped, for he was afraid he was lying,--not much that I 've written, at
any rate,--he said--with a smile at the honesty which made him qualify
his statement. But I do know this: I have struck a good many chords,
first and last, in the consciousness of other people.