Page:1909. Is Shakespeare Dead? From My Autobiography.djvu/20

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IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?

or the there she goes! meet her, meet her! didn't you know she'd smell the reef if you crowded it like that? Hyrcan tiger; take any shape but that and my firm nerves she'll be in the woods the first you know! stop the starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! . . . Now then, you're all right; come ahead on the starboard; straighten up and go 'long, never tremble: or be alive again, and dare me to the desert damnation can't you keep away from that greasy water? pull her down! snatch her! snatch her baldheaded! with thy sword; if trembling I inhabit then, lay in the leads!—no, only the starboard one, leave the other alone, protest me the baby of a girl. Hence horrible shadow! eight bells—that watch man's asleep again, I reckon, go down and call Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence!"


He certainly was a good reader, and splendidly thrilling and stormy and tragic, but it was a damage to me, because I have never since been able to read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way.

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