lost sight of in what grows out of them; but the issues, of which
there are many, are all exactly to our mind; we feel them to be just
about right, and would not have them otherwise. For example, touching
Frederick and Oliver, our wish is that they should repent, and repair
the wrong they have done, in brief, that they should become good;
which is precisely what takes place; and as soon as they do this, they
naturally love those who were good before. Jaques, too, is so fitted
to moralize the discrepancies of human life, so happy and at home, and
withal so agreeable, in that exercise, that we would not he should
follow the good Duke when in his case those discrepancies are
composed. The same might easily be shown in respect of the other
issues. Indeed I dare ask any genial, considerate reader, Does not
every thing turn out just _as you like it_? Moreover there is an
indefinable something about the play that puts us in a receptive frame
of mind; that opens the heart, soothes away all querulousness and
fault-finding, and makes us easy and apt to be pleased. Thus the Poet
here disposes us to like things as they come, and at the same time
takes care that they shall come as we like. The whole play indeed is
_as you like it_.

Much has been said by one critic and another about the improbabilities
in this play. I confess they have never troubled me; and, as I have
had no trouble here to get out of, I do not well know how to help
others out. Wherefore, if any one be still annoyed by these things, I
will turn him over to the elegant criticism of the poet Campbell:
"Before I say more of this dramatic treasure, I must absolve myself by
a confession as to some of its improbabilities. Rosalind asks her
cousin Celia, 'Whither shall we go?' and Celia answers, 'To seek my
uncle in the Forest of Arden.' But, arrived there, and having
purchased a cottage and sheep-farm, neither the daughter nor niece of
the banished Duke seem to trouble themselves much to inquire about
either father or uncle. The lively and natural-hearted Rosalind
discovers no impatience to embrace her sire, until she has finished
her masked courtship with Orlando. But Rosalind was in love, as I have
been with the comedy these forty years; and love is blind; for until a
late period my eyes were never couched so as to see this objection.
The truth however is, that love is _wilfully_ blind; and now that my
eyes are opened, I shut them against the fault. Away with your
bes