cap with an extremely flat crown and a tassel that fell upon my
shoulder. These were the first articles of clothing that made me feel
that everybody was looking at me, a feeling something between vanity and
embarrassment. My cousin met me in Boston at the stage office and took
me to his house in the old West End, at that time the residence of the
respectable middle class, with here and there some more wealthy
citizens. There were a few shops at the corners of the streets; but I
did not venture beyond the street where my cousin lived and saw nothing
at all of the city. I was taken to church on Sunday and once to the
Museum, where I saw the elder Booth in Shylock. The only scene that made
an impression upon me was that where Shylock is about to take his pound
of flesh. He squatted upon the floor, his wild and terrible face turned
directly upon me, as it seemed, while he sharpened his knife upon his
rusty shoe. I was filled with terror and began to cry and begged to be
taken away. Quite angry, yet pitying me, too, I suppose, my cousin led
me out and home where I went at once to bed, covering my head tightly,
unable to sleep for apprehension lest I should be discovered by Shylock.
At the Players' Club, in New York City, in the last winter of Edwin
Booth's life, I related this incident to him as a childish tribute to
his father's power. "Yes," he said, "that was my father, and such things
often happened among women and children when he was playing that
character. He was dangerous at times, not to his audiences, but
occasionally to his fellow actors."

I returned from Boston not much wiser nor more travelled than when I
went. I found nothing there that gave me so much pleasure as the freedom
of my own field, my sports and my companions. When asked what I had
seen, what I had done, I candidly confessed, nothing; yet among boys I
did feel a certain pride because I was the only one among them who had
been to Boston. And I have found the result of nearly all travel is
little more than the cheap avenue to conversation between those who have
travelled over the same ground, or the feeling of superiority that one
has wandered farther.

Although I was more active and restless than most boys, ever longing,
yet with no definite object, I believe I should always have remained in
the place of my birth, except for family exigencies, for I had no
ambitions, no special talent nor practical faculty. When I reflect on
the futility of literatu