Note 13 — Chapter XIV

The love of the theatre came to him somewhat late in life. It was a discovery of his, and he made this discovery during the winter of 1869-70. According to his custom, he was at once afire with enthusiasm.

"All this winter I have busied myself exclusively with the drama; and, as always happens to men who have never, up to the age of forty, thought about such or such a subject, when they suddenly turn their attention to this neglected subject, it seems to them that they perceive a number of new and wonderful things.... I have read Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, Gogol, and Molière.... I want to read Sophocles and Euripides.... I have kept my bed a long time, being unwell—and when I am unwell a host of comic or dramatic characters begin to struggle for life within me ... and they do it with much success."—Letters to Fet, February 17-21, 1870 (Further Letters).