t.

_King Skule_--But I must--I _must_ have one who can trust in me! Only
one. I feel it: had I that I were saved!

_Jatgeir_--Trust in yourself and you will be saved!

_Paul Flida_ [_enters hastily_]--King Skule, look to yourself! Hakon
Hakonsson lies off Elgjarness with all his fleet!

_King Skule_--Off Elgjarness! Then he is close at hand.

_Jatgeir_--Get we to arms then! If there be bloodshed to-night, I will
gladly be the first to die for you!

_King Skule_--You, who would not live for me!

_Jatgeir_--A man can die for another's life work; but if he go on
living, he must live for his own. [_Goes._]

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY

Born in 1828; educated at the University of Kazan; served in
the army and commander of a battery in the Crimea in 1855,
being present at the storming of Sebastopol; sent as a
special courier to St. Petersburg; lived on his estate after
the liberation of the serfs, working with the peasants and
devoting himself to literary work; published "War and Peace"
in 1865-68, "Anna Karenina" in 1875-78, "Sebastopol" in
1853-55, "Childhood, Boyhood and Youth," and "The Kreutzer
Sonata" in 1890, and "War" in 1892.

SHAKESPEARE NOT A GREAT GENIUS[52]

I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I
expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one
after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and
Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I
felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium, and doubted as to whether I
was senseless in feeling works regarded as the summit of perfection by
the whole of the civilized world to be trivial and positively bad, or
whether the significance which this civilized world attributes to the
works of Shakespeare was itself senseless. My consternation was
increased by the fact that I always keenly felt the beauties of poetry
in every form; then why should artistic works recognized by the whole
world as those of a genius--the works of Shakespeare--not only fail to
please me, but be disagreeable to me! For a long time I could not
believe in myself, and during fifty years, in order to test myself, I
several times recommenced reading Shakespeare in every possible form, in
Russian, in English, in German and in Schlegel's translation, as I was
advised. Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical
plays, and I invariably u