By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whaling school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well say'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
_Appendix 5_
THE CASTAWAY
(From _Robinson Crusoe_)
By Daniel Defoe
And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly that the
sea went so high that the boat could not escape, and that we should be
inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor, if we had, could
we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land,
though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew
that when the boat came near the shore, she would be dashed in a thousand
pieces by the beach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in
the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards the shore, we
hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could
towards land.
What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal, we knew
not; the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of
expectation, was if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the mouth of
some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got
under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was
nothing of this appeared; but as we made nearer and nearer the shore, the
land looke
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