“It seems to me,” said Shakespeare, wearily, one afternoon at the club—“that this business of being immortal1 is pretty dull. Didn’t somebody once say he’d rather ride fifty years on a trolley2 in Europe than on a bicycle in Cathay?”
“I never heard any such remark by any self-respecting person,” said Johnson.
“I said something like it,” observed Tennyson.
Doctor Johnson looked around to see who it was that spoke3.
“You?” he cried. “And who, pray, may you be?”
“My name is Tennyson,” replied the poet.
“And a very good name it is,” said Shakespeare.
“I am not aware that I ever heard the name before,” said Doctor Johnson. “Did you make it yourself?”
“I did,” said the late laureate, proudly.
“In what pursuit?” asked Doctor Johnson.
“Poetry,” said Tennyson. “I wrote ‘Locksley Hall’ and ‘Come into the Garden, Maude.’”
“Humph!” said Doctor Johnson. “I never read ’em.”
“Well, why should you have read them?” snarled4 Carlyle. “They were written after you moved over here, and they were good stuff. You needn’t think because you quit, the whole world put up its shutters5 and went out of business. I did a few things myself which I fancy you never heard of.”
“Oh, as for that,” retorted Doctor Johnson, with a smile, “I’ve heard of you; you are the man who wrote the life of Frederick the Great in nine hundred and two volumes—”
“Seven!” snapped Carlyle.
“Well, seven then,” returned Johnson. “I never saw the work, but I heard Frederick speaking of it the other day. Bonaparte asked him if he had read it, and Frederick said no, he hadn’t time. Bonaparte cried, ‘Haven’t time? Why, my dear king, you’ve got all eternity6.’ ‘I know it,’ replied Frederick, ‘but that isn’t enough. Read a page or two, my dear Napoleon, and you’ll see why.’”
“Frederick will have his joke,” said Shakespeare, with a wink7 at Tennyson and a smile for the two philosophers, intended, no doubt, to put them in a more agreeable frame of mind. “Why, he even asked me the other day why I never wrote a tragedy about him, completely ignoring the fact that he came along many years after I had departed. I spoke of that, and he said, ‘Oh, I was only joking.’ I apologized. ‘I didn’t know that,’ said I. ‘And why should you?’ said he. ‘You’re English.’”
“A very rude remark,” said Johnson. “As if we English were incapable8 of seeing a joke!”
“Exactly,” put in Carlyle. “It strikes me as the absurdest notion that the Englishman can’t see a joke. To the mind that is accustomed to snap judgments9 I have no doubt the Englishman appears to be dull of apprehension10, but the philosophy of the whole matter is apparent to the mind that takes the trouble to investigate. The Briton weighs everything carefully before he commits himself, and even though a certain point may strike him as funny, he isn’t going to laugh until he has fully11 made up his mind that it is funny. I remember once riding down Piccadilly with Froude in a hansom cab. Froude had a copy of Punch in his hand, and he began to laugh immoderately over something. I leaned over his shoulder to see what he was laughing at. ‘That isn’t so funny,’ said I, as I read the paragraph on which his eye was resting. ‘No,’ said Froude. ‘I wasn’t laughing at that. I was enjoying the joke that appeared in the same relative position in last week’s issue.’ Now that’s the point—the whole point. The Englishman always laughs over last week’s Punch, not this week’s, and that is why you will find a file of that interesting journal in the home of all well-to-do Britons. It is the back number that amuses him—which merely proves that he is a deliberative person who weighs even his humor carefully before giving way to his emotions.”
“What is the average weight of a copy of Punch?” drawled Artemas Ward12, who had strolled in during the latter part of the conversation.
Shakespeare snickered quietly, but Carlyle and Johnson looked upon the intruder severely13.
“We will take that question into consideration,” said Carlyle. “Perhaps to-morrow we shall have a definite answer ready for you.”
“Never mind,” returned the humorist. “You’ve proved your point. Tennyson tells me you find life here dull, Shakespeare.”
“Somewhat,” said Shakespeare. “I don’t know about the rest of you fellows, but I was not cut out for an eternity of ease. I must have occupation, and the stage isn’t popular here. The trouble about putting on a play here is that our managers are afraid of libel suits. The chances are that if I should write a play with Cassius as the hero, Cassius would go to the first night’s performance with a dagger14 concealed15 in his toga, with which to punctuate16 his objections to the lines put in his mouth. There is nothing I’d like better than to manage a theatre in this place, but think of the riots we’d have! Suppose, for an instant, that I wrote a play about Bonaparte! He’d have a box, and when the rest of you spooks called for the author at the end of the third act, if he didn’t happen to like the play he’d greet me with a salvo of artillery17 instead of applause.”
“He wouldn’t if you made him out a great conqueror18 from start to finish,” said Tennyson.
“No doubt,” returned Shakespeare, sadly; “but in that event Wellington would be in the other stage-box, and I’d get the greeting from him.”
“Why come out at all?” asked Johnson.
“Why come out at all?” echoed Shakespeare. “What fun is there in writing a play if you can’t come out and show yourself at the first night? That’s the author’s reward. If it wasn’t for the first-night business, though, all would be plain sailing.”
“Then why don’t you begin it the second night?” drawled Ward.
“How the deuce could you?” put in Carlyle.
“A most extraordinary proposition,” sneered19 Johnson.
“Yes,” said Ward; “but wait a week—you’ll see the point then.”
“There isn’t any doubt in my mind,” said Shakespeare, reverting20 to his original proposition, “that the only perfectly21 satisfactory life is under a system not yet adopted in either world—the one we have quitted or this. There we had hard work in which our mortal limitations hampered22 us grievously; here we have the freedom of the immortal with no hard work; in other words, now that we feel like fighting-cocks, there isn’t any fighting to be done. The great life in my estimation, would be to return to earth and battle with mortal problems, but equipped mentally and physically23 with immortal weapons.”
“Some people don’t know when they are well off,” said Beau Brummel. “This strikes me as being an ideal life. There are no tailors bills to pay—we are our............