Let us now turn our "stereopticon on the screen of reminiscence," using the pictures furnished by Shakib. But before they can be used to advantage, they must undergo a process of retroussage. Many of the lines need be softened, some of the shades modified, and not a few of the etchings, absolutely worthless, we consign to the flames. Who of us, for instance, was not feruled and bastinadoed by the town pedagogue? Who did not run away from school, whimpering, snivelling, and cursing in his heart and in his sleep the black-board and the horn-book? Nor can we see the significance of the fact that Khalid once smashed the icon of the Holy Virgin for whetting not his wits, for hearing not his prayers. It may be he was learning then the use of the sling, and instead of killing his neighbour's laying-hen, he broke the sacred effigy. No, we are not warranted to draw from these trivialities the grand results which send Shakib in ecstasies about his Master's genius. Nor do we for a moment believe that the waywardness of a genius or a prophet in boyhood is always a significant adumbration. Shakespeare started as a deer-poacher, and Rousseau as a thief. Yet, neither the one nor the other, as far as we know, was a plagiarist. This, however, does not disprove the contrary proposition, that he who begins as a thief or an iconoclast is likely to end as such. But the actuating motive has nothing to do with what we, in our retrospective analysis, are pleased to prove. Not so far forth are we willing to piddle among the knicknacks of Shakib's _Histoire Intime_ of his Master.