is Q's _Anthology of English Verse_, its brave leather cover rather
impaired by the fact that for two mornings Boggley, having mislaid his
strop, has stropped his razor on it. Lastly comes my Shakespeare.

Sometimes in a night-marish moment I wonder what the world would have
been like had there been no Shakespeare. Suppose we had never known
Falstaff, never heard the Clown sing "O Mistress Mine," never laughed
with Beatrice nor masqueraded with Rosalind, never thrilled when
Cleopatra "again for Cydnos to meet Mark Antony" cries "Give me my
robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me."

What would we do when surfeited with the company of those around us if
we couldn't creep away and pass for a little while into the company
of those immortals? What does it matter how tiresome and complacent
people are when I am Orsino inviting the Clown to sing words the utter
beauty of which bring the tears to my eyes:

"O fellow, come, the song we had last night:
Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain:
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age."

One never comes to the end of the beauty. Only to-day, while I was
browsing for a few minutes in a comedy I have not much acquaintance
with, I happened on these lines, which I am going to write down merely
for the pleasure of writing them: