Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564-1616 HAMLET I Have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majes- tical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling you seem to say so. textit{Hamlet, ii, 2. LOVE AND DEATH The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, textit{videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth,he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned; and the foolish coroners of that age found it was "Hero of Sestos." But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love. textit{As You Like It, iv, 1. MINIONS OF THE MOON Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the m...