Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare | Page 3

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This Etext prepared by Morrie Wilson

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
By E. Nesbit

"It may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil
and economical prudence. He has been imitated by all succeeding writers; and it may be
doubted whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more
rules of practical prudence can be collected than he alone has given to his country."--Dr.
SAMUEL JOHNSON.

PREFACE

The writings of Shakespeare have been justly termed "the richest, the purest, the fairest,
that genius uninspired ever penned."
Shakespeare instructed by delighting. His plays alone (leaving mere science out of the
question), contain more actual wisdom than the whole body of English learning. He is the
teacher of all good-- pity, generosity, true courage, love. His bright wit is cut out "into
little stars." His solid masses of knowledge are meted out in morsels and proverbs, and
thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner of the English-speaking world to-day which he
does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich. His bounty is like the sea,
which, though often unacknowledged, is everywhere felt. As his friend, Ben Jonson,
wrote of him, "He was not of an age but for all time." He ever kept the highroad of
human life whereon all travel. He did not pick out by-paths of feeling and sentiment. In
his creations we have no moral highwaymen, sentimental thieves, interesting villains, and
amiable, elegant adventuresses--no delicate entanglements of situation, in which the
grossest images are presented to the mind disguised under the superficial attraction of
style and sentiment. He flattered no bad passion, disguised no vice in the garb of virtue,
trifled with no just and generous principle. While causing us to laugh at folly, and
shudder at crime, he still preserves our love for our fellow-beings, and our reverence for
ourselves.
Shakespeare was familiar with all beautiful forms and images, with all that is sweet or
majestic in the simple aspects of nature, of that indestructible love of flowers and
fragrance, and dews, and clear waters--and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies and
woodland solitudes, and moon-light bowers, which are the material elements of
poetry,--and with that fine sense of their indefinable relation to mental emotion, which is
its essence and vivifying soul--and which, in the midst of his most busy and tragical
scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and ruins--contrasting with all that is
rugged or repulsive, and reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter elements.
These things considered, what wonder is it that the works of Shakespeare, next to the
Bible, are the most highly esteemed of all the classics of English literature. "So
extensively have the characters of Shakespeare been drawn upon by artists, poets, and
writers of fiction," says an American author,--"So interwoven are these characters in the
great body of English literature, that to be ignorant of the plot of these dramas is often a
cause of embarrassment."
But Shakespeare wrote for grown-up people, for men and women, and in words that little
folks cannot understand.
Hence this volume. To reproduce the entertaining stories contained in the plays of
Shakespeare, in a form so simple that children can understand and enjoy them, was the
object had in view by the author of these Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.
And that the youngest readers may not stumble in pronouncing any unfamiliar names to
be met with in the stories, the editor has prepared and included in the volume a
Pronouncing Vocabulary of Difficult Names. To which is added a collection of
Shakespearean Quotations, classified in alphabetical order, illustrative of the wisdom and
genius