One of the best ways to read Shakespeare is to take a scene from one of his plays, such as the Casket scene in _The Merchant of Venice_, assign the characters to different people, boys and girls, or men and women, and then read the scene aloud, each character speaking in his turn. You will enjoy the reading better if someone first tells the complete story of the play. The whole world highly regards, and very many people dearly love, Shakespeare's plays. There are many of them. Some of the plays to choose first for reading are, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Julius Caesar_, scenes from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, from _As You Like It_, _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Twelfth Night_. How delightful you will find the fairy scenes in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and the scenes in the forest from _As You Like It_. _Julius Caesar_ is a political play. Politics, as you know, is one of the great pursuits of men; and more recently, political questions are becoming of importance to women. Politics is not a way to earn one's living, like farming, or being a doctor, or an engineer; but it offers one of the chief avenues by which one may serve one's country. _Julius Caesar_, besides being a very interesting story, is a splendidly wise and clear picture of how men and women are influenced by political questions and actions. {40} Shakespeare wrote and put into his plays numbers of very beautiful songs. They are so beautiful and natural that to read them is almost like listening to the song of a bird. In _The Tempest_ you will find Ariel's songs, "Come unto these yellow sands", "Full fathom five thy father lies", and "Where the bee sucks, there suck I". There are songs in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Amiens in _As You Like It_, sings "Under the greenwood tree", and "Blow, blow, thou winter wind". "It was a lover and his lass" comes near the end of the play. _Twelfth Night_, too, is rich in songs, "O mistress mine, where are you roaming?", "Come away, come away, death"; the play ends with the inimitable, "When that I was and a little tiny boy". Shakespeare is as great in the poetry of his plays as he is in their dramatic action. He had the power so to suit his thoughts with words that our minds are filled and enriched with life and beauty. Read Prospero's great speech which you will find in _The Tempest_, act iv, scene i. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. {41} CHAPTER VII SHAKESPEARE--THE GREAT WORLD ITSELF