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Show LAPSE OP AUTHORS' MEMORIES. Great Men Have Been1 Unable to Expound Ex-pound Written Thoughts. Thoro aro soveral anecdotes which er out the theory that a competent and roveront commentator may sometimes some-times expound a work of genius morn effoctivcly than Its writer himself could do, especially Buch works as tend to tho allogorlcal. When tho famous mystic Bohrae was on his deathbed. It Is related thnt somo of his followers camo to him with the request that he would ox-plain ox-plain a certain more than usually cryptic passago In his writings. 'Ho puzzled over It to no purpose. "My dear children," ho said as ho laid tho book feebly aside "when I wrote this I understood lta meaning, and no doubt tho omniscient God did. Be may still remember It, but I have forgotten." for-gotten." A vory similar story Is told of other authors perhaps with as much truth. Klopstock, the Gorman poet, whom his admirers compared to Milton, was onco questioned at Gottlngen ns to the exact moaning of ono of his Btnnias. Ho read It over once or twlco, and then delivered this Judgment: Judg-ment: "I cannot remember what I meant when I wrote It, but I do re-momber re-momber that It was one of tho finest things I over wroto, and you cannot do bettor than dovoto your lives to the discovery of lta meaning." |