--not like those
of our acquaintance, my friends; and the whole place, from centre to
circumference, filled with mighty oak bolls, all carven with lovers'
names,--if such a forest waved in wind, I say, I would, be my worldly
prospects what they might, pack up at once, and cast in my lot with
that vagabond company. For there I should find more gallant
courtesies, finer sentiments, completer innocence and happiness, more
wit and wisdom, than I am like to do here even, though I search for
them from shepherd's cot to king's palace. Just to think how those
people lived! Carelessly as the blossoming trees, happily as the
singing birds, time measured only by the patter of the acorn on the
fruitful soil! A world without debtor or creditor, passing rich, yet
with never a doit in its purse, with no sordid care, no regard for
appearances; nothing to occupy the young but love-making, nothing to
occupy the old but perusing the "sermons in stones" and the musical
wisdom which dwells in "running brooks"! But Arden forest draws its
sustenance from a poet's brain: the light that sleeps on its leafy
pillows is "the light that never was on sea or shore." We but please
and tantalise ourselves with beautiful dreams.

The children of the brain become to us actual existences, more actual,
indeed, than the people who impinge upon us in the street, or who live
next door. We are more intimate with Shakspeare's men and women than
we are with our contemporaries, and they are, on the whole, better
company. They are more beautiful in form and feature, and they express
themselves in a way that the most gifted strive after in vain. What if
Shakspeare's people could walk out of the play-books and settle down
upon some spot of earth and conduct life there? There would be found
humanity's whitest wheat, the world's unalloyed gold. The very winds
could not visit the place roughly. No king's court could present you
such an array. Where else could we find a philosopher like Hamlet? a
friend like Antonio? a witty fellow like Mercutio? where else Imogen's
piquant's face? Portia's gravity and womanly sweetness? Rosalind's true
heart and silvery laughter? Cordelia's beauty of holiness? These would
form the centre of the court, but the purlieus, how many-coloured!
Malvolio would walk mincingly in the sunshine there; Autolycus would
filch purses. Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch would be eternal
boon companions. And as Falstaff sets out hom