The age-herald., 1900-12-18
w and SOCIETY i.
BY ANNIE KENDRlck WALKER.
 My Shakespeare Friend

I will not presume to say that they are unusual, but they are not what one calls topical. If it had been the Kipling craze, or Edwin Marhnam Gin his day), it would have passed without comment I expected
 him to read MT. Dooly and Booth Parking ton and Tolstoi. But I was totally unpre- pared to have him quote to me one day beautiful passage from "Timon of Ath-
 ens." I had never known any one to have
 Timon of Athens on the brain.
 You have been reading Shakespeare" I said, somewhat reprovingly. There was no possibility of escape If he had only recalled familiar passages the evidence would not have been so strong against him. But Timon was a dead give way.
 I remember that 1 had a momentary sentiment against Shakespeare. I felt, too, how incongruous he seemed among copy paper, paste pots and the daily journals that carpeted the floor. But there in the old chair that creaked at every turn, in the most typical newspaper atmosphere in the world, sat my friend with a well-worn volume of Shakespeare on the desk before him.
 He felt vaguely that I was disappearing of him for the first time in my life
 Why not?" he asked presently and his voice told me that his mind was fully made up regardless of all that l might say. l realized that he was slowly slip ping from me. It seemed very absurd to harbor a spirit of keen resentment against a little volume that no one really knows it's author anyway
 He tried not to look superior But he could not help it. The circumstances were against him. He had been absorbing Shakespeare for month.
 Tt is a great liberty you are taking with us' l said, and thinking what a risk he was running in being placed in the faddists class. It would be said of him that he had joined a cult. would become an author ity. Everybody knows what an authority Is It is one of the few things that cannot be lived down. It is as l expected. He Is becoming more of an authority every day. He is beautifully frank about it.
 When I drop in at the office these days I should be disappointed not to find him in close communion with Shakespeare. He studies him necessarily; that is to say, when other persons are glancing along lists of holiday books or the latter-day novelists, he buries himself in the old armchair, brushes piles of exchanges on to my desk, heaps the floor with Congressional Rec ords and begins to absorb his beloved 
 Holiday books!" he exclaimed the other day when I began cutting the pages of some-> charming volumes from nineteenth century authors. He was almost cross with me, and yet he regarded me with grave pity. l think he was reading at the time a stormy scene between Katherine and Petruchio for he fell to speaking of Ada Rehan and her intelligent enunciation of the elegant lan- guage of Shakespeare. "Ellen Terry" he went on to say, Tin her Katherine subor- dinates herself to Henry Irving, but Ada Rehan subordinates herself to no one."
 He had told me something similar to this the preceding day, so that 1 did not discuss the subject with him. 1 went on cutting the pages of Monsieur de Beaucaire.
 His Shakespeare is really very dear to him. His desk looks out on a street where the twilight comes very early these winter days. The street lights send little dismal rays through the window, and he forgets to turn on the light above his head. But is illumined.