uncan, "that he asked his female
relations what it would feel like to be jealous of Octavia if one
happened to be Cleopatra?"

"Shakespeare was a married man," said Hall, "and if his wife found the
MSS. of his sonnets lying about he must have known a jealous woman."

"Shakespeare evidently didn't trouble his friends for information on
natural history, not for a playwright," said Hall. "I myself should not
mind what liberty I took with the cuckoo, the bee, or even the basilisk.
I should not trouble you for accurate information on the subject; I
should not even mind saying the cuckoo lays eggs in its own nest if it
suited the dramatic situation."

The whole of this conversation was torture to Mrs. Bergmann.

"Shakespeare," said Lady Hyacinth, "had a universal nature; one can't
help thinking he was almost like God."

"That's what people will say of me a hundred years hence," said Hall;
"only it is to be hoped they'll leave out the 'almost.'"

"Shakespeare understood love," said Lady Herman, in a loud voice; "he
knew how a man makes love to a woman. If Richard III. had made love to
me as Shakespeare describes him doing it, I'm not sure that I could have
resisted him. But the finest of all Shakespeare's men is Othello. That's
a real man. Desdemona was a fool. It's not wonderful that Othello didn't
see through Iago; but Desdemona ought to have seen through him. The
stupidest woman can see through a clever man like him; but, of course,
Othello was a fool too."

"Yes," broke in Mrs. Lockton, "if Napoleon had married Desdemona he
would have made Iago marry one of his sisters."

"I think Desdemona is the most pathetic of Shakespeare's heroines," said
Lady Hyacinth; "don't you think so, Mr. Hall?"

"It's easy enough to make a figure pathetic, who is strangled by a
nigger," answered Hall. "Now if Desdemona had been a negress Shakespeare
would have started fair."

"If only Shakespeare had lived later," sighed Willmott, "and understood
the condition of the modern stage, he would have written quite
differently."

"If Shakespeare had lived now he would have written novels," said
Faubourg.

"Yes," said Mrs. Baldwin, "I feel sure you are right there."

"If Shakespeare had lived now," said Sciarra to Mrs. Bergmann, "we
shouldn't notice his existence; he would be just un monsieur comme tout
le monde--like that monsieur sitting next to Faubourg," he added in a
low voice.

"The problem about Shakespeare," broke in Hall, "is