My
mother was a clever, practical woman, with wide sympathies. She
was capable of warm friendship, especially toward those younger
than herself. Her father (whom I never saw) was a teacher. He was
devoted to his wife, but also delighted in the company of young
men. He had always some young man on his arm, my mother would
tell me. My mother's family is of Welsh descent. I learned to
read at 5, and I can scarcely have been more than 6 when I used
to read again and again David's lament for Absalom. Even now I
can dimly recall the siren charm for me of that melancholy
refrain, 'O my son Absalom.... O Absalom, my son, my son!' Of
late, when I have thought of the amount of devotion I have shown
to lads, and the amount I have sometimes suffered for them, I
have felt as if there were something almost weirdly prophetic in
that early incident.
"I was always an impressionable creature. My mother was very
musical, and her singing 'got hold' of me wonderfully. The
dramatic and the poetic always strongly appealed to me.
"I felt I should like to act; but I never dared.
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