It was a
curious and interesting feeling which I experienced upon first opening to
"As You Like It" ... the volumes had been carefully inspected, I learned,
by the _secretaire_, in order to eliminate the possibility of their
concealing something valuable or dangerous. And in this connection let me
add that the _secretaire_ or (if not he) his superiors, were a good judge
of what is valuable--if not what is dangerous. I know this because,
whereas my family several times sent me socks in every case enclosing
cigarettes, I received invariably the former sans the latter. Perhaps it
is not fair to suspect the officials of La Ferte of this peculiarly mean
theft; I should, possibly, doubt the honesty of that very same French
censor whose intercepting of B.'s correspondence had motivated our
removal from the Section Sanitaire. Heaven knows I wish (like the Three
Wise Men) to give justice where justice is due.
Somehow or other, reading Shakespeare did not appeal to my disordered
mind. I tried Hamlet and Julius Caesar once or twice, and gave it up,
after telling a man who asked "Shah-kay-spare, who is Shah-kay-spare?"
that Mr. S. was the Homer of the English-speaking peoples--which remark,
to my surprise, appeared to convey a very definite idea to the questioner
and sent him away perfectly satisfied.
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