I
want to hear you talk, Hardage. My time is limited; and you have
no right to shut out from me so much that you know--your learning,
your wisdom, yourself. And I know a few things that I have picked
up in a lifetime. Surely we ought to have something to say to each
other."
But when he came, Professor Hardage was glad to let him find relief
in his monologues--fragments of self-revelation. This last phase
of their friendship had this added significance: that the Judge no
longer spent his Sunday evenings with Mrs. Conyers. The last
social link binding him to womankind had been broken. It was a
final loosening and he felt it, felt the desolation in which it
left him. His cup of life had indeed been drained, and he turned
away from the dregs.
One afternoon Professor Hardage found him sitting with his familiar
Shakespeare on his knees. As he looked up, he stretched out his
hand in eager welcome and said: "Listen once more;" and he read the
great kindling speech of King Henry to his English yeomen on the
eve of battle.
He laid the book aside.
"Of course you have noticed how Shakespeare likes this word
'mettle,' how he likes the _thing_. The word can be seen from afar
over the vast territory of his plays like the same battle-flag set
up in different parts of a field. It is conspicuous in the heroic
English plays, and in the Roman and in the Greek; it waves alike
over comedy and tragedy as a rallying signal to human nature.
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