or enjoy the greatest of poets: and those, who have passed out of girlhood,
may safely be left to read Shakespeare, in any edition, ‘expurgated’
or not, that they may prefer: but it seems a pity that so many children,
in the intermediate stage, should be debarred from a great pleasure for
want of an edition suitable to them. Neither Bowdler’s, Chambers’s,
Brandram’s, nor Cundell’s ‘Boudoir’ Shakespeare, seems to me to meet the
want: they are not sufficiently ‘expurgated.’ Bowdler’s is the most
extraordinary of all: looking through it, I am filled with a deep sense
of wonder, considering what he has left in, that he should have cut
anything out! Besides relentlessly erasing all that is unsuitable on
the score of reverence or decency, I should be inclined to omit also
all that seems too difficult, or not likely to interest young readers.
The resulting book might be slightly fragmentary: but it would be a real
treasure to all British maidens who have any taste for poetry.
If it be needful to apologize to any one for the new departure I have
taken in this story–by introducing, along with what will, I hope,
prove to be acceptable nonsense for children, some of the graver
thoughts of human life–it must be to one who has learned the Art of
keeping such thoughts wholly at a distance in hours of mirth and
careless ease. To him such a mixture will seem, no doubt, ill-judged
and repulsive. And that such an Art exists I do not dispute: with
youth, good health, and sufficient money, it seems quite possible to
lead, for years together, a life of unmixed gaiety–with the exception
of one solemn fact, with which we are liable to be confronted at any
moment, even in the midst of the most brilliant company or the most
sparkling entertainment. A man may fix his own times for admitting
serious thought, for attending public worship, for prayer, for reading
the Bible: all such matters he can defer to that ‘convenient season’,
which is so apt never to occur at all: but he cannot defer, for one
single moment, the necessity of attending to a message, which may come
before he has finished reading this page,’ this night shalt thy soul be
required of thee.’
The ever-present sense of this grim possibility has been, in all ages,*
Note…At the moment, when I had written these words, there
was a knock at the door, and a telegram was brought me,
announcing the sudden death of a dear friend.
an incubus that men have striven to shake off. Few more interesting
subjects of enquiry could be found, by a student of history, than the
various weapons that have been used against this shadowy foe.
Saddest of all must have been the thoughts of those who saw indeed an
existence beyond the grave, but an existence far more terrible than
annihilation–an existence as filmy, impalpable, all but invisible spectres,
drifting about, through endless ages, in a world of shadows, with nothing
to do, nothing to hope for, nothing to love! In the midst of the gay
verses of that genial ‘bon vivant’ Horace, there stands one dreary word
whose utter sadness goes to one’s heart. It is the word ‘exilium’ in the
well-known passage
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.
Yes, to him this present life–spite of all its weariness and all its
sorrow–was the only life worth having: all else was ‘exile’! Does it
not seem almost incredible that one, holding such a creed, should ever
have smiled?
And many in this day, I fear, even though believing in an existence
beyond the grave far more real than Horace ever dreamed of, yet regard
it as a sort of ‘exile’ from all the joys of life, and so adopt
Horace’s theory, and say ‘let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.’
We go to entertainments, such as the theatre–I say ‘we’, for I also go
to the play, whenever I get a chance of seeing a really good one and
keep at arm’s length, if possible, the thought that we may not return
alive. Yet how do you know–dear friend, whose patience has carried