And the rich Englishman came to know what manner of man my grandfather was and his tastes, and some time after he had gone there came one day a great parcel by the Guernsey cutter, addressed to my grandfather, and in it was that splendid book of Shakespeare's Plays which, after his Bible, became his greatest delight.

An inscription, too, which he read religiously every time he opened the book, though he must have known every curl of every letter by heart.
It was a wonderful book, even to look at.

When I grew learned enough to read it aloud to him and my mother and Krok of a winter's night, I came by degrees, though not by any means at first, to understand what a very wonderful book it was.
When one's reading is limited to four books it is well that they should be good books.

Every one of those books I read through aloud from beginning to end, not once, but many times, except indeed the long lists of names in the Bible, which my grandfather said were of no profit to us, and some other portions which he said were beyond me, and which I therefore made a point of reading to myself, but got little benefit from.
But to these books, and to the habit of reading them aloud, which impressed them greatly on my memory, and to my own observation of men and things and places through the eyes which these books helped to open, and to the wise words of my grandfather, and the quiet faithful teaching of my mother, and to all that old Krok taught me without ever speaking one word--I know that I owe everything, and that is why it was necessary to tell you so much about them.
If the telling has wearied you, I am sorry.

For myself, I like to think back upon it all, and to trace the beginnings of some things of which I have seen the endings, and of some which are not ended yet, thank God!--and to find, in all that lies between, the signs of a Power that is beyond any power of man's, and is, indeed, and rightly I think, beyond even the power of any man's full understanding..