ough for me. It opened a new view of American Revolutionary
history, and then it was redolent of the country of Pennsylvania. I
recall now the incident of the Pennsylvania Dutch housewife's using her
thumb to spread the butter on the bread for the hungry soldier. This is
all that I can recall of those delectable pages. But, later, neither
Henry Peterson's "Pemberton" nor Dr. Weir Mitchell's "Hugh Wynne" seemed
to have the glory and the fascination of the long-lost "Quaker Soldier."

After this, I fell under the spell of the French Revolution through a
book, given to me by my mother, about _la Vend['e]e_. It was a dull book,
but nothing, not even a bad translation, could dim the heroism of Henri
de la Rochejaquelein for me, and I became a Royalist of the Royalists,
and held hotly the thesis that if George Washington had returned the
compliment of going over to France in '89, he would have done Lafayette
a great service by restoring the good Louis XVI. and the beautiful Marie
Antoinette!

When I had reached the age of seventeen I had developed, as the result
of my reading, a great belief in all lost causes. I had become
exceedingly devoted to the cause of Ireland as the kindly Pastor had
sent me a copy of "Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn," perhaps as an
antidote to the lingering effects of "Boccaccio." I was rather troubled
to find so many "swear words" in it, but I made all the allowances that
a real lover of literature is often compelled to make!

_The Bible_

The glimpses I had of the Bible, some of which rather prejudiced me, as
a moral child, against the Sacred Book, were, however, of inestimable
value. Of course the New Testament was always open to me, and I read it
constantly as a pleasure. The language, both in the Douai version and
the King James version, was often very obscure. Although I soon learned
to recognize the beauty of the 23rd Psalm in the King James
version--which I always read when I went to one of my cousins--I found
the sonorous Latinisms of the Douai version interesting. For a time I
was limited to a book of Bible stories given us to read at school, as it
was considered unwise to permit children to read the Old Testament
unexpurgated. After a while, however, the embargo seemed to be raised
for some reason or other, and again I was allowed to revel with a great
deal of profit in the wonderful poems, prophecies, and histories of the
Old Testament. I soon discovered that it was impossible to u