. . NOW then, you're all right; come ahead on the
starboard; straighten up and go 'long, never tremble: or be alive again,
and dare me to the desert DAMNATION can't you keep away from that greasy
water? pull her down! snatch her! snatch her baldheaded! with thy sword;
if trembling I inhabit then, lay in the leads!--no, only with the
starboard one, leave the other alone, protest me the baby of a girl.
Hence horrible shadow! eight bells--that watchman's asleep again, I
reckon, go down and call Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence!
He certainly was a good reader, and splendidly thrilling and stormy and
tragic, but it was a damage to me, because I have never since been able
to read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way. I cannot rid it of his
explosive interlardings, they break in everywhere with their irrelevant,
"What in hell are you up to NOW! pull her down! more! MORE!--there now,
steady as you go," and the other disorganizing interruptions that were
always leaping from his mouth. When I read Shakespeare now I can hear
them as plainly as I did in that long-departed time--fifty-one years ago.
I never regarded Ealer's readings as educational. Indeed, they were a
detriment to me.
His contributions to the text seldom improved it, but barring that detail
he was a good reader; I can say that much for him. He did not use the
book, and did not need to; he knew his Shakespeare as well as Euclid ever
knew his multiplication table.
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