In some articles in _The Saturday Review_ I had said that no one had ever given completer record of himself than Shakespeare.

"We know him better than we know any of our contemporaries," I went on, "and he is better worth knowing." At once Oscar wrote to me objecting to this phrase.

"Surely, Frank, you have forgotten me.

Surely, I am better worth knowing than Shakespeare ?" The question astonished me so that I could not make up my mind at once; but when he pressed me later I had to tell him that Shakespeare had reached higher heights of thought and feeling than any modern, though I was probably wrong in saying that I knew him better than I knew a living man.
I had to go back to England and some little time elapsed before I could return to Paris; but I crossed again early in the summer, and found he had written nothing.
I often talked with him about it; but now he changed his ground a little.
"I can't write, Frank.

When I take up my pen all the past comes back: I cannot bear the thoughts ...