nervous energy."

"That's very likely true," said Carlyle. "I should think your feats of
strength would have wrecked your imagination in time."

"Not so," said Munchausen. "On the contrary, continuous exercise served
only to make it stronger. But, as I was going to say, in this life we
have none of these fearful obstacles--it is a life of leisure; and if I
want a bird and a cold bottle at any time, instead of placing my life in
peril and jeopardizing the peace of all mankind to get it, I have only to
summon before me the memory of some previous bird and cold bottle, dine
thereon like a well-ordered citizen, and smoke the spirit of the best
cigar my imagination can conjure up."

"You miss my point," said Shakespeare. "I don't say this life is worse
or better than the other we used to live. What I do say is that a
combination of both would suit me. In short, I'd like to live here and
go to the other world every day to business, like a suburban resident who
sleeps in the country and makes his living in the city. For instance,
why shouldn't I dwell here and go to London every day, hire an office
there, and put out a sign something like this:

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
DRAMATIST

Plays written while you wait

I guess I'd find plenty to do."

"Guess again," said Tennyson. "My dear boy, you forget one thing. _You
are out of date_. People don't go to the theatres to hear _you_, they go
to see the people who _do_ you."

"That is true," said Ward. "And they do do you, my beloved William. It's
a wonder to me you are not dizzy turning over in your grave the way they
do you."

"Can it be that I can ever be out of date?" asked Shakespeare. "I know,
of course, that I have to be adapted at times; but to be wholly out of
date strikes me as a hard fate."

"You're not out of date," interposed Carlyle; "the date is out of you.
There is a great demand for Shakespeare in these days, but there isn't
any stuff."

"Then I should succeed," said Shakespeare.

"No, I don't think so," returned Carlyle. "You couldn't stand the pace.
The world revolves faster to-day than it did in your time--men write
three or four plays at once. This is what you might call a Type-writer
Age, and to keep up with the procession you'd have to work as you never
worked before."

"That is true," observed Tennyson. "You'd have to learn to be
ambidextrous, so that you could keep two type-writing machines going at
once; and, to be perfec