Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/219

Rh stayed behind glass doors in the corner book-case. The illustrations, I know now, were very fine, and even then we found them wonderful. Then comes my little old Bible. I coveted it for years before I got it because it had pages like five-pound notes; I value it now for other reasons. Next the Bible 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