eature had justly considered too filthy
for perusal. There were also Paul and Virginia, Dryden's Virgil,
Robinson Crusoe, and above all a Shakespeare. Miriam had never been
much of a reader; but now, having nothing better to do, she looked into
these books, and generally brought one downstairs in the afternoon.
Swift she did not quite understand, and he frightened her; she never,
in fact, got through anything but Gulliver and the Tale of a Tub; but
some of his sayings stuck to her and came up against her again and
again, until, like most of us who have had even a glimpse of the dark
and dreadful caverns in that man's soul, she wished that he had never
been born. For years, even to the day of her death, the poison of one
sentence in the Tale of a Tub remained with her--those memorable words
that "happiness is a perpetual possession of being well deceived." Yet
she pitied him; who does not pity him? Who is there in English history
who excites and deserves profounder pity?

Of all her treasures, however, the one which produced the deepest
impression on her was "Romeo and Juliet." She saw there the
possibilities of love. For the first time she became fully aware of
what she could have been. One evening she sat as in a trance. Cowfold
had departed; she was on the balcony in Verona, Romeo was below. She
leaned over and whispered to him--

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep: the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite."

She went on; the day was breaking; she heard the parting--

"Farewell! farewell! one kiss and I'll descend,"

Her arms were round his neck with an ecstasy of passion; he was going;
the morning star was flashing before the sun, and she cried after him--

"Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay husband, friend!
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days."

Ah, God! what is the count of all the men and women whom, since it was
first "plaid publiquely with great applause," this tragedy has reminded
of the _what might have been_!

Mr. Didymus Farrow, during his wife's absence in Verona, had been very
much engaged in whittling a monkey which toppled over on a long pole,
but being dissatisfied with its performance he had taken his accordion
out of the box, and, just as Lady Capulet called, he struck up "Down
amongst the dead men," which, whatever its merit may be, is not
particularly well adapted to that instrume