140 Four-in-Hand m Britain. 



to know is that Shakespeare wanted a taste of venison 

 which was denied him, and took it without leave or 

 license. The descendant of that squire, my gentle 

 Shakespeare, would give you the entire herd for another 

 speech to "the poor sequestered stag," which you could 

 dash off — no, you never dashed off anything; create? 

 no ; evolved ? that's nearer it ; distilled — there we have 

 it — distilled as the pearls of dew are distilled by nature's 

 sweet influences unknown to man. He would exchange 

 Charlecote estate, man, for another Hamlet or Macbeth, 

 or Lear or Othello, and the world would buy it from him 

 for double the cost of all his broad acres, and esteem 

 itself indebted to him forever. The really precious 

 things of this world are its books. 



To do things is not one-half the battle. Carlyle is 

 all wrong about this. To be able to tell the world 

 what you have done, that is the greater accomplish- 

 ment ! Caesar is the greatest man of the sword because 

 he was in his day the greatest man of the pen. Had 

 he known how to fight only, tradition would have 

 handed down his name for a few generations with a tol- 

 erably correct account of his achievements; but now 

 every school-boy fights over again his battles and sur- 

 mounts the difficulties he surmounted, and so his fame 

 goes on increasing forever. 



What a man says too often outlives what he does, 

 even when he does great things. General Grant's fame 

 is not to rest upon the fact that he was successful in 



