So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that everyone from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.
Hours passed swiftly away in this congenial manner. The amazing fluency and readiness of Shakespeare showed no sign of flagging: the whimsical, delightful, happy-go-lucky humour, which he has put into the mouths of so many merry folk, was still at its most laughter-provoking stage,—when suddenly, by one of his customary revulsions of feeling, he was seized by a great distaste for the heated apartment, the flaring light, the stale odours of wine and ale. Like Cassius, he had "poor, unhappy brains for drinking," and the endless potations due at a city tavern were singularly unsuited to his taste. He felt that he would give a thousand bursts of Mermaid applause, "for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze," anything that was out in the clean pure air. Though he was a thorough townsman outwardly, the ineradicable instincts of a countryman tore at his heart. He hankered after rural doings and the rough deep speech of the shires. He did not pause to explain the cause of this sudden yearning to men who could hardly be expected to understand it. He simply followed his own immediate inclination. Making a hasty and inadequate excuse, he escaped into the street; and, setting off northward and alone, he struck up across the fields. The delicate scent of hay was wafted warmly round him. Every hedgerow was a blaze of blossom, roses, honeysuckle, elder; every brook was fringed with meadowsweet and loosestrife. Among these exquisitely calm surroundings, what worth had the sordid and squalid matters of the stage, with its petty ambitions, its puny failures or successes? The boisterous conviviality of the Mermaid, the dazzling interchange of thrust and parry, his own reputation as a "fellow of infinite jest," and a nobly-endowed poet, all sank away into nothing, as the midsummer twilight, a glimmering grey translucence, slowly replaced the splendours of the day.
"O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!" sighed Shakespeare, like his own Rosalind, as, flinging himself beneath the broad and leafy boughs, he became submerged in the infinite, the maternal peace of Nature. Shortly, as darkness deepened, he would return to his lonely room in Silver Street, challenged by the watch and replying in some gay jest: shortly he would toss upon a sleepless bed, consumed by violent and varied emotions, until the cooler wind that comes with dawn should soothe him into rest. But now he lay, like the three wanderers in Arden, against the bole of a huge oak, watching the glow-worms gleaming around and the stars stealing forth above him: until the floor of Heaven was "all o'erlaid with patines of bright gold," and the day, by that celestial sign, was ended.
Printed by Percy Lund, Humphries & Co., Ltd.
Bradford and London.