To be or not to be

It pleases me to relate to my reader the following account of a recent gathering of my MeetUp group, known as the Amateur Shakespeare Society, of which I am both current Head and Founder.

Upon this occasion, all of us had gathered in the living room, after we had finished dinner. Mr. Slepovitch, who had heretofore been reading Hamlet, claimed our attention in the following manner, “I say, my dear friends, reading over Prince Hamlet’s most famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy has stirred in me thoughts upon that unique human folly known in some legal circles as felo-de-se, or, as it is more commonly called in the vulgar, suicide. Though, as it must be admitted, Hamlet was of a rather brutish disposition, we ought still to commend him for his nobility in rejecting this hideous temptation, what say you?” As he was speaking, Slepovitch remained on a divan in one corner of the room, surrounded by his friends, who typically shared his beliefs in various articles of faith and applauded his many verdicts upon the world.   

“For I am mightily incensed at all those modern philosophers,” continued Slepovitch, “who have endeavored to justify such a monstrous sin, who have attempted to excuse this practice, and who censor not those men and women that succumb to this vile contingency. Indeed, we must not refrain from censoring harshly even those dearest friends of ours who choose to end their lives in such base manner.” After he finished, the people sitting in his circle expressed their approval and spoke of the convincing manner in which he delivered his opinions. Then Slepovitch, remaining true to the occasion of our group gathering, which is to say, a sociable rather an ecclesiastical occasion, Slepovitch in short time, I say, led a merry drinking toast in honor to Life, mysterious, inexplicable Human Life. So we raised our tankards high---some of the madams instead swallowing biscuits that had been dipped in wine---and wassailed those superior qualities of our lives wherein we are distinguished from the beasts.

“If I may be so bold as to disagree with you,” said Miss Betsey Shanka, “‘tis no great sin for man to resign this life if he so wishes.” Miss Shanka was sitting in the corner of the room opposite from where Slepovitch had been sitting, surrounded by those friends of hers who supported, and sometimes encouraged, these occasional daring flights of her intellect.  “’Tis no sin at all in fact. Why, ‘tis no worse than any other action of which a man is granted by nature the capacity to carry out.” As she had finished, Miss Farquhar and Mr. Brockden warmly expressed their approval, while the rest of Miss Betsey’s friends merely waited to see whither the tide of opinion was turning before they dared say anything.  

“I expected no such opposition from you,” said Mr. Slepovitch. “But you shall be excused for speaking erroneously this time because you seem to have forgotten those rules which Providence had firmly established against Self-Slaughter.”

“Well,” began Miss Shanka, “if by that claptrap you mean to say that Providence has established an order in the universe, such that my resignation from this world amounts to a willful violation of this supreme order, why, then, it must be admitted, you are holding an absurd position. Almost every action or motion performed by us innovates on some parts of matter and diverts from their ordinary course the general laws of motion. It would be no crime in me to divert the Hudson or the East River from its course were I able to effect such purposes. Where then is the crime of turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channel? Has not everyone, of consequence, the free disposal of his own life? And may he not lawfully employ that power with which nature has endowed him?” After Miss Shanka finished, she quickly sat down in her chair, perhaps being slightly nauseated by the thought of blood, looking down at her phone gew-gaw to see whether she received any text messages while speaking. Nevertheless, her words galvanized her friends, as Mr. Brockden, affected very much by the genial nature of the occasion, led a drinking toast in honor of Suicide. Ever willing to oblige, Miss Farquhar joined Mr. Chatterjee, Mr. Byrd, Miss Carrington, Mr. Rosenthal, and the rest of Slepovitch’s friends, myself and himself included, in giving a hearty bib to Suicide.   

“Why, I had no idea we were blessed with a Sophist here at our society,” Slepovitch spoke forth: “Life of man is surely of greater importance to the functioning of this order than some river, for a river has no consciousness, or, what is more important, no consciousness of the divine order. If you permit man the right to dispose of his life, then you allow a breach in the fortifications of the castle wherein humanity lies protected. Hark, what confusion may follow, what chimeras may infect our knowledge, when the foundations on which all things rest are thus undermined. No breach is small enough but that the enemy may exploit it and send incursions against us. Every human creature is like a sentinel posted atop his own tower and commanded to guard against incursion of the devil." Thus concluded Slepovitch his homily, adding the following: "Though I expect you to be, madam, rather latitudinarian in your views on Beelzebub.”  

Mr. Chatterjee, being one of Slepovitch’s most ardent supporters, delivered himself in the following words: “Miss Shanka may likely be more familiar with some of Satan’s agents on earth cast in corporeal form, such as Mr. Barbiturates, Mr. Jack Daniels, Mr. Crack Cocaine, or Mr. Sony Playstation.”

“Far from it” said Miss Shanka, “rather than disturb the order of the universe, my suicide may improve the lives of those who reside upon this globe. For the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. If I can no longer benefit my neighbor, or my society---and seeing that I am under no obligation to toil for my neighbor or society at my own expense---am I not then entitled to withdraw, from this sublunary existence?” Her words stirred the audience into much appreciative chatter. Miss Farquhar commended Miss Shanka’s superior performance. Mr. Lismahago likewise praised her commonsensical notions, while Mr. Brockden said something in favor of her shrewdness. Encouraged by her friend, Miss Farquhar led another ecumenical toast in honor of Self-Slaughter, upon which toast the social temperature in the room became highly affable indeed.

“Marvelous, marvelous,” quoth I, “Miss Shanka would surely prefer the destruction of half the world to a pricking of her little finger. My dear Miss Shanka, you are the most interesting woman I have ever known. But let us not cudgel our brains about this heavy topic anymore---and let us have a round of wine in honor of the great muses to my muses, Virtue, Love, and Beauty.” In such spirit of merriment we carried the rest of the evening, and so had run on another meeting of the Amateur Shakespeare Society of New York City.  

In which the author gives a lady advice upon marriage

Retrieved from NYTimes, Social Qs, 12/22/13

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My boyfriend and I have been living together for three years, and I am hoping he will ask me to marry him over the holidays. If he does not, I will probably break up with him in January. Is there any way I can raise the subject to see which way he is leaning?

Anonymous, Boston

Dear Anonymous,

No, unfortunately for you, there is no acceptable way in which you can “raise the subject” with your proclaimed suitor to discover his matrimonial timetable. If he is indeed your suitor, it would be highly unrefined on your part---not to mention a mark of ill-breeding---as it would upon the part of any honest lady---to bring up the subject of marriage to the gentleman in any such forward manner as you seem to suggest. I’m afraid the gentlemen will need the wherewithal to come to the resolution himself.

If I may draw some general inferences from your boyfriend’s personality, though I risk being too severe, it is likely that your boyfriend is but a sort of a repressed libertine, to use a word a modern audience may understand. Indeed, what is your boyfriend if not an illustration of the difference between promise and performance, between profession and reality, as this tendency affects all mankind? But whether there is design and studied deceit in his workings or a true though sapless resolution to conform to society’s rules I presume not to judge.  

Yet to be charitable to your boyfriend, I will assume him to be an honest gentleman. And, like Signor Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, your boyfriend may simply be unaware of his own own wish to marry you, who is truly his Beatrice. And of course Benedick’s and Beatrice’s  marriage was ultimately brought about through a cunning scheme performed by their friends. Your problem thus could be resolved with a sly appeal to the help of your mutual friends, who themselves may be dependent upon to drop certain hints concerning your matrimonial holiday wishes into your boyfriend’s ears.

Meanwhile, when in his company, you are to strain to be your most charming and womanly. In other words, you should humor his whims, laugh at his jests, ignore his follies, and praise his virtues all out of proportion. If you can behave in such obliging manner, he is very likely to propose to you at first opportunity. And I am sure all gentlemen will agree that  holidays offer great opportunities for making propositions. ‘Tis the season for propositions indeed. But if after you have tried everything, and he still fails to  utter the proposition, for whatever reason, during the holidays, and if you still feel the way you do now, you should certainly leave him, and then perhaps start considering spiritual alternatives to a life of earthly matrimony.   

Containing description of a merry toasting ceremony

Dear Reader---

I offer for your pleasure and instruction the following memoranda pertaining to what occurred upon another recent gathering of my MeetUp group, known as the Amateur Shakespeare Society, of which I am the founder and current supreme figure of authority. You must forgive, if you find the following account to be less than fully cohesive; for it was scribbled from pure memory, dear reader, like a spontaneous overflow of recollections, with small interference from that mental faculty known as judgment.

We had all assembled in the living room, and dispersed thereabout in small conversation circles. In one such conversation nook, Mr. Byrd and Miss Farquhar were disporting upon the virtues and the flaws of those works of fiction called comedies of romance against those called heroic romances. Mr. Byrd made a solid argument, saying the former exhibits life in its true state, diversified only by accidents that daily happen in the world, and influenced by passions and qualities which are really to be found in conversing with mankind; whereas the latter requires the help of wonder to keep up the curiosity of the reader and where every transaction and sentiment is so remote from all that passes among men that the reader is in very little danger of making any application to himself. When Byrd finished the argument, Miss Farquhar struck him with a haughty look in her eyes.

“Well-a-day,” spoke Mr. Byrd.  “I take it you enjoy stories in which twelve-year old wizards from the suburbs battle evil giant reptiles, and where professors metamorphose into werewolves, or where zombies snatch away ladies from their nuptial rites.” In response, Miss Farquhar snapped her fingers across the face of Mr.Byrd and impudently turned her back to him.

“Pardon me, my friends,” said Mr. Slepovitch, directing his words to everyone in the room. Seizing thus our attention, he invited us to raise our bumpers in toast to yours truly, the author of this blog. No doubt, Slepovitch was feeling all the advantages of liquor upon the constitution. “Ladies and gentleman,” he said. “May I have the pleasure to lead this toast, as we express our deepest love and admiration for our own Mr. Richardson, our honorable Toastmaster, and greatest living writer. A health, a ringing health, unto the king of all our hearts to-day!” And so everyone took thimblefuls of wine together in my honor. Miss Carrington and Miss Shanka munched on some croutons which had been dipped in wine. In truth, I was no more delighted than everyone else to hear fitting compliments paid a deserving writer.---And even were I not myself that writer, I’d  commend my genius just the same.

“I thank you, Mr. Slepovitch, you are a mighty fine toaster,” quoth I, “Yet you ought to drink my Clarissa, not to me.” I was in highly jubilant spirits.  I have no doubt but that I availed myself of the biggest draught of them all.

Now the company had fallen into a spirited conversation upon the benefits of human society. Mr. Byrd said that, among other advantages, in society we find a world so adjusted that not only bread but riches may be obtained without great abilities, or arduous performance. Mr. Slepovitch expressed his admiration for living amidst the conveniences of a town, saying that one cannot be but satisfied to see that as nothing is useless but because it is in improper hands, what is thrown away by one is gathered up by another, and the refuse of part of mankind furnishes a subordinate class with the materials necessary to their support.

“O Slepovitch, you and Byrd are a fine pair of rhetorician,” quoth I, who overheard their learned talk, “but enough talk, what say ye, my friends? What say we fall to some dancing?”

“Indeed, why must we always talk? Words, words, words,”---said Miss Farquhar---“Dancing will be so delightful”----said Miss Shanka “”---“How I long to dance again,”---said Mr. Brockden---“Truly, nothing is greater than going to a ball,”---said Miss Carrington---“O to have first dance with any of the ladies here, ‘twould be a great honor---said Mr. Brockden---“”Twould be an even greater honor for me”---said Mr.Chatterjee---“No, ‘twould be the biggest honor for me”---said Mr. Lishmago, etc. etc. 

“Now tell me, Slepovitch,” quoth I. “as I am dying to know, what sort of dancer are you? Were your Russian ancestors, like the sprightly grasshoppers in the field, not fine dancers themselves? I’faith, you have such lusty legs and thighs, man. Now let me see you caper. Come on, give me a Scotch jig.”

“Ha, if it please you, Mr.Richardson,” said Slepovitch. So after taking a hearty sip from his goblet, and as Miss Carrington played the piano, and as the merry gentlemen shouted “Higher! Higher!” he cut a lovely Scotch jig in the middle of the room to everyone’s apparent satisfaction. When the sprightly number was completed, I proposed that Slepovitch dance something in a slower mode, such as a stately measure; which he kindly obliged, and was accompanied on the piano, as ever, by the delightful Miss Carrington. When the measure was completed, I bade that Slepovitch and Byrd now burst forth into a cineque-pace. They gladly obliged me by doing the galliard together, leaping into the air, and madly wiggling their feet, to our utmost delight, prompting much applause. Yet Slepovitch soon became so exhausted and so short of breath, his legs giving way, that he collapsed on the floor---the spectacle being too shocking for some of the ladies.---Yet the men quickly hoisted him up, and he was promptly revived with the aid of smelling salts. With his humors thus restored, he was as radiant as a lantern. Still, I knew exactly what needed to be done. In less than twenty minutes, I dispatched nine separate taxi rides to carry my friends safely to their respective homes.

Later that evening, ere going to bed, I had made a note in my octavo, scribbling thus: “Slep.’s deplorable dancing: reminds Beatrice, Much Ado about Nothing, “Wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.”   

  

    

Beauty's inventory

It pleases me to relate for my dear readers the following conversation piece from a recent gathering of my MeetUp society, known as the Amateur Shakespeare Society, of which I am both the Supreme Leader and Founder.

Upon this evening, a number of us had been assembled in my house, and some of us were either playing backgammon, or reading the New York Times, skimming over penetrating journalistic accounts of the world’s damnation,. Happily, in the pages of the Art Section my attention was captured by a photograph of some movie actress, “I say, if this isn’t most lovely pair of lips on a woman, then I’m a rotten villain. See for yourself, ladies and gentlemen, if these lips be not some miracle of nature. Oh to have such a deep red too. Such heavenly shade as was never seen before. ” Following my panaegeric upon the lady’s lips, everyone had turned to the said photograph to confirm for themselves the truth of my discovery.

“Aye, no doubt these be the loveliest lips,”---said Mr. Slepovitch.---“They are delicious,”---said Mr. Byrd.---“Marvelous lips. Marvelous. Spectacular. Large but not vulgar,”---said Mr. Brockden.---“Forsooth, they are charming and deserve to be respected by all human creatures,”—said Miss Farquhar.

While my friends were thus admiring the lady’s lips, I had come across another photograph in the newspaper, upon which I was compelled to make the following observation, “Egad, are these eyes not but the orbs of heaven?” I could hardly believe my own luck in having made such splendid discoveries twice in a row. “Aye, and with such lids to them. Do they not flutter like the wings of a cherub? Now, I say, ladies and gentlemen, let us worship these heavenly eyes that belong to this sublunary creature in the photograph.”

“Indeed, I adore her eye,”---said Mr. Slepovitch.—“I love her eyes,”—said Mr.Chatterjee.---“I worship her eyes,”---said Mr. Byrd.---“More beautiful than my own wife’s,”---said Mr. Lishmago.---“Their expression so highly articulated,”---declared Miss Carrington.---“They ought to be set up as models for nature to bestow upon all honest members the fair sex,”---said Miss Farquhar.---“The nonpareil of eyes,”---said Mr. Brockden.

Mr. Lismahago, being highly desirous to satisfy the people in like manner, turned to his newspaper and found one photograph that particularly struck his fancy, for he thus spoke forth, “I’faith, look at this fine chin. I would be a damnable friend indeed if I didn’t show you this chin as you see here in this photograph. How graceful a line is here, what think you? And look how proudly she carries her chin. Have you seen a chin this gorgeous before?” And he identified the photograph where such a chin may be found, to which we had all turned to marvel at its beauty.

“I’ll grant you, a fine, strong chin,”---said Slepovitch.---“No, ’tis only an average chin,”---said Miss Shanka.---“My chin is no doubt superior to this chin here,”---said Miss Farquhar.---“There may be grace, but, alas, little intelligence to it,”---said Mr. Chatterjee.---“A little too much pride in that chin, I’m afraid,”---said Mr. Hutchenson.

It appeared to us that Lismahago was rather vexed by the mixed reception he received, and troubled by his inability to identify real beauty, as I evidently could. So my attention returned to the newspaper, whereupon I endeavored to read several articles about the sorry state of our society. Yet another picture of a lady had suddenly caught my attention, “I beseech you all to have a look at her beautiful nose. Come look, admire its charm, and those delicate nostrils. Upon my word, a woman with a lovelier proboscis lives not among us.” Everyone turned to the place in the newspaper where this nose could be found and, if my words held true, to be properly commended.

“A most handsome nose. Very gentle too,”---said Mr. Slepovitch---“I would give my chin for her nose,”---said Miss Farquahar.---“Splendid. Splendid nose,”---said Mr. Brockden.---“Such nose can not be worth less than four hundred ducats. It may fetch a fine sum of money indeed on the market,”---said Mr. Rosenthall.---“Zounds man, it may fetch five hundred ducats any day,”---said Mr. Lismahago---“What blasphemy. Six hundred ducats for that nose, and not a pfennig less,”---said Slepovitch---“Nay, six hundred and fifty,”---said Brockden.

“Please, gentlemen, cease your knockabouts. We are here to praise beauty, not to appraise her. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, let us raise our goblets high to Lady Beauty.” And so we swallowed our glasses empty---and shortly thereafter the ladies burst forth into much coquettish laughter, while the gentlemen did fraternally start to pat each other on the back, and then proceeded to shake each other’s hands for several merry rounds.

“Gentlemen, let us not forget the marvels of earthly beauty we have here in the flesh,” declared I, indicating all the ladies in the room, with a swarth of my arm, for we were indeed blessed to have upon attendance such beautiful female creatures as Miss Ursula Farquhar, Miss Constantina Carrington, and Miss Betsey Shanka.

“Were lovelier cheekbones ever seen than Miss Farquhar’s? “proclaimed I. “What say you my friends to a drink to Miss Farquhar and her superior cheekbones.” So we all took another hearty gulp of wine to honor Miss Farquhar’s cheekbones.

“And let us not forget Miss Constantina’s hair,” said Lismahago, “and give her hair the proper worship it deserves. Would that you join me in drinking to Miss Constantina’s hair. I confess to being a life-long admirer of that lovely fleece,” finished Mr. Lismahago, and we all took in a thimbleful of wine in honor of Miss Constantina’s beautiful hide.

“Upon my word, if anyone has seen a lovelier pair of elbows than those of Miss Shanka’s, I would surely like to see them.” declared Mr. Rosenthall. “By Gad, I’d wager any man seven hundred ducats a more handsome pair of elbows cannot be found in all Christendom. So let the canakins clink, my friends, in tribute to Miss Shanka’s elbows,” said Mr Rosenthall. We refilled our bumpers with sack, and took in another bibulous round. O'er flowing with the sanguine press, Slepovitch performed a Russian jig to our utmost satisfaction.     

And in such manner did we spend another meeting of our society, in a worshipful inventorying of Lady Beauty’s virtues.