She was very communicative about her theory, and would have been much more so, had I desired it; but, being conscious within myself of a sturdy unbelief, I deemed it fair and honest rather to repress than draw her out upon the subject.  Unquestionably, she was a monomaniac; these overmastering ideas about the authorship of Shakspeare’s plays, and the deep political philosophy concealed beneath the surface of them, had completely thrown her off her balance; but at the same time they had wonderfully developed her intellect, and made her what she could not otherwise have become.  It was a very singular phenomenon:  a system of philosophy growing up in this woman’s mind without her volition,—­contrary, in fact, to the determined resistance of her volition,—­and substituting itself in the place of everything that originally grew there.  To have based such a system on fancy, and unconsciously elaborated it for herself, was almost as wonderful as really to have found it in the plays.  But, in a certain sense, she did actually find it there.  Shakspeare has surface beneath surface, to an immeasurable depth, adapted to the plummet-line of every reader; his works present many faces of truth, each with scope enough to fill a contemplative mind.  Whatever you seek in him you will surely discover, provided you seek truth.  There is no exhausting the various interpretation of his symbols; and a thousand years hence, a world of new readers will possess a whole library of new books, as we ourselves do, in these volumes old already.  I had half a mind to suggest to Miss Bacon this explanation of her theory, but forbore, because (as I could readily perceive) she had as princely a spirit as Queen Elizabeth herself, and would at once have motioned me from the room.

I had heard, long ago, that she believed that the material evidences of her dogma as to the authorship, together with the key of the new philosophy, would be found buried in Shakspeare’s grave.  Recently, as I understood her, this notion had been somewhat modified, and was now accurately defined and fully developed in her mind, with a result of perfect certainty.  In Lord Bacon’s letters, on which she laid her finger as she spoke, she had discovered the key and clue to the whole mystery.  There were definite and minute instructions how to find a will and other documents relating to the conclave of Elizabethan philosophers, which were concealed (when and by whom she did not inform me) in a hollow space in the under surface of Shakspeare’s gravestone.  Thus the terrible prohibition to remove the stone was accounted for.  The directions, she intimated, went completely and precisely to the point, obviating all difficulties in the way of coming at the treasure, and even, if I remember right, were so contrived as to ward off any troublesome consequences likely to ensue from the interference of the parish-officers.  All that Miss Bacon now remained in England for—­indeed, the object for which she had come hither, and which had kept her here for three years past—­was to obtain possession of these material and unquestionable proofs of the authenticity of her theory.