exhilarating, and I resolved that as a reward for the pleasure
it had given me the machine should have a brand-new ribbon and
as much ink as it could consume. And that, in brief, is how it
came to be that this machine of antiquated pattern was added to
the library bric-a-brac. To say the truth, it was of no more
practical use than Barye's dancing bear, a plaster cast of
which adorns my mantel-shelf, so that when I classify it with
the bric-a-brac I do so advisedly. I frequently tried to write
a jest or two upon it, but the results were extraordinarily
like Sir Arthur Sullivan's experience with the organ into
whose depths the lost chord sank, never to return. I dashed
off the jests well enough, but somewhere between the keys
and the types they were lost, and the results, when I came to
scan the paper, were depressing. And once I tried a sonnet on
the keys. Exactly how to classify the jumble that came out of
it I do not know, but it was curious enough to have appealed
strongly to D'Israeli or any other collector of the literary
oddity. More singular than the sonnet, though, was the fact
that when I tried to write my name upon this strange machine,
instead of finding it in all its glorious length written upon
the paper, I did find "William Shakespeare" printed there in
its stead. Of course you will say that in putting the machine
together I mixed up the keys and the letters. I have no doubt
that I did, but when I tell you that there have been times
when, looking at myself in the glass, I have fancied that
I saw in my mirrored face the lineaments of the great bard;
that the contour of my head is precisely the same as was his;
that when visiting Stratford for the first time every foot
of it was pregnant with clearly defined recollections to me,
you will perhaps more easily picture to yourself my sensations