This convinced me early that it is more profitable to make tragedies for other people to act than to act in them oneself; and at a tender age, therefore, I set before myself the profession of a tragic author.
For long enough, however, I had to wait my inspiration.

I was kept so busy in the capacity of actor (from which my special talents would not permit me to retire as early as I should myself have wished) that it was comparatively late in life--I mean I had turned twelve--before the grand idea of writing a tragedy dawned in my ardent breast.

Even then it was destined to simmer for three or four years, owing to pressure of other work and the still more pressing lack of a subject.
Meanwhile, however, I read tragedies ardently.

I read Shakespeare, more or less, and admired him rather, although I could see his weak points, and thought him considerably overrated.

I had also read the nursery rhymes carefully, and most of the harrowing stories of history and fiction, particularly the latter.