“Tell me, where is fancy bred?”
which undoubtedly indicated that the War Loaf was known to pall on the
public taste even in Shakespeare’s time.
She said she had expected me to say that, it was so obvious.
Nevertheless, I noticed she hurriedly jotted it down.
We asked her to read her MS. so far as she had gone; it seemed a pity
for us to overlap.
“I’ve made a fair start,” she explained, “but the trouble is they all
turn out so awkwardly. For instance, the first quotation I have down is—
‘She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat
to her household’
—anyone can see Daylight Saving there——”
Naturally, I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me short, testily:
“Of course I know as well as you that it isn’t Shakespeare—at least I
wasn’t reared a heathen!—but that’s just the tiresome part of it. Every
quotation I think of isn’t Shakespeare at all. Here’s another that
would do beautifully (and take up a nice bit of space on the page too),
‘The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags’ sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.’
“Even a child could tell you they were the searchlights trying to spot
a Zepp.—only it isn’t Shakespeare! It’s very worrying. Yet I know if
only I could get the book done, there would be a fortune in it. W. S.
always sells, and he’s so respectable too!”
I said I was sorry my office duties had prior claim on my time, and
I urged Ursula to do her sisterly part. But she said she couldn’t be
bothered just then; her mind was more than fully occupied in trying to
lay the blame for everything on the right person.
So I took Virginia’s MS. and read it down.
“How full of briars is this working-day world.”
This proves that barbed wire entanglements were known
in the seventeenth century.
“How far that little candle throws his beams!”
This indicates clearly that Shakespeare was fined for
failing to comply with the Lighting Restrictions.
That he was compelled to pay War Profits out of the
“royalties” on his plays is evidenced by these poignant
words in _Macbeth_:—
“Nought’s had, all’s spent,”
and doubtless there was a subtle reference to War
taxation in
“Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite
variety.”
The unfailing hold of Shakespeare on humanity is the
fact that he touched upon all phases of life. (This
sentence was Virginia’s own literary contribution to
the “Anthology.”) For example (she went on), even a
sugar shortage was known in his day. To what else could
he have been referring when he wrote
“Sweet are the uses of adversity,”
and can anyone doubt that
“Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble,”
points to meatless days?
Here we were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Miss Primkins,
an elderly lady who lives by herself (or at least with Rehoboam, her
cat) in a pretty little cottage further down the hill. Miss Primkins
has been hard hit by the War, but no matter how she has to skimp and
save in other ways, she never relaxes her work for the wounded.
And it was about her contribution to Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild that
she came up to consult me. Not that we started there straight away—of
course not. We talked about the shortage of sugar, and the high cost
of boots, and the scarcity of chicken food, and the price of meat,
and the difficulty of knowing how to feed Rehoboam adequately and yet
in strict accordance with official regulations, and the colour of the
bread, and “what are we coming to,” and other topical matters like
that. Then, when I had pressed Miss Primkins several times to stay to
our midday meal, and she had as many times assured me that she must not
stay another minute, grateful though she was for my kind invitation, as
she had put on the potatoes to boil before she came out, she produced
(in an undertone) a paper parcel from her bag, and with much hesitation
explained that she wanted advice on a private matter.