one cry was more persistent, and as the years
passed I learned to follow it with increasing vigour, and my strayings grew
fewer and the way wider.

I was eleven years old when I first heard and obeyed this cry, or, shall I
say, echo-augury?

Scene: A great family coach, drawn by two powerful country horses, lumbers
along a narrow Irish road. The ever recurrent signs--long ranges of blue
mountains, the streak of bog, the rotting cabin, the flock of plover rising
from the desolate water. Inside the coach there are two children. They are
smart, with new jackets and neckties; their faces are pale with sleep, and
the rolling of the coach makes them feel a little sick. It is seven o'clock
in the morning. Opposite the children are their parents, and they are
talking of a novel the world is reading. Did Lady Audley murder her
husband? Lady Audley! What a beautiful name; and she, who is a slender,
pale, fairy-like woman, killed her husband. Such thoughts flash through the
boy's mind; his imagination is stirred and quickened, and he begs for an
explanation. The coach lumbers along, it arrives at its destination, and
Lady Audley is forgotten in the delight of tearing down fruit trees and
killing a cat.

But when we returned home I took the first opportunity of stealing the
novel in question. I read it eagerly, passionately, vehemently. I read its
successor and its successor. I read until I came to a book called "The
Doctor's Wife"--a lady who loved Shelley and Byron. There was magic, there
was revelation in the name, and Shelley became my soul's divinity. Why did
I love Shelley? Why was I not attracted to Byron? I cannot say. Shelley!
Oh, that crystal name, and his poetry also crystalline. I must see it, I
must know him. Escaping from the schoolroom, I ransacked the library, and
at last my ardour was rewarded. The book--a small pocket edition in red
boards, no doubt long out of print--opened at the "Sensitive Plant." Was I
disappointed? I think I had expected to understand better; but I had no
difficulty in assuming that I was satisfied and delighted. And henceforth
the little volume never left my pocket, and I read the dazzling stanzas by
the shores of a pale green Irish lake, comprehending little, and loving a
great deal. Byron, too, was often with me, and these poets were the
ripening influence of years otherwise merely nervous and boisterous.

And my poets were taken to school, because it pleased me to read "Queen
Mab" and