MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 18 September 1912, Page 3

MORE ABOUT SHAKESPEARE

TO THE EDITOB. Sir,—Enclosed please find a letter from that idolised, and therefore, I #%^*"J£j over-rated poet, ShakeX^pea^T^iiow I got it I decline to say, bSLt {there can be, I think, but one opinion as to its genuineness. It con-* tain's some interesting details of a place few of us know much about at present, and of which it is to be hoped none of us will ever know anv thing about by personal experience. As to the suggestion that in my letter to you on Shakespeare I copied lines from him and passed them off as my own, I deny that I did consciously any such thing. That some of the ideas and expressions in my poetry are in Shakespeare I do not deny. Looking ' over my verses I find that there is scarcely a single line that does not contain some idea or expression that other people have used before me. But what of that ? Originality does not consist in restricting oneself to new ideas and expressions, any more than it consists in confining one'self to new words; it consists in a different arrangement of both old and new expressions to new Uses.' I am, etc., Maeshall H. Hudson. Following is the letter referred to above: — 22 Gehenna Road, City of Hades, Purgatory. August, 1912. Sit, — Through the courtesy of a Mr Hudson, I have received two copies of your paper, one .containing a letter by him about my unworthy self, which I find to be very correct. The other paper contains a copy'of a letter purporting to come from me, but it was not from me at all. It was addressed from " The-Realms of Bliss," You will see by the heading of this letter that I have not yet taken up my abode in that happy place, but I . hope.to be able to do so shortly, as my purgation is now coming to an end. Why was I here so long ? Not for sins actually committed, but for selfish apathy ; for the sin of neglecting to do the good I might have done. When I was on earth I had great literary abilities—greater than I myself was aware of at the t;me—but great gifts bring in their train great responsibilities ; my gifts I only used for pandering to the frivolous and coarse tastes of my audiences, and for making as much money as I could. Instead of which, I should have used those abilities for the enlightenment and uplifting of my fellow-creatures. And now, while I am writing tn you I may as well tell you about the country lam living in. We are not connected with any postal union, yet twice a year a messenger arrives from Upperworldo bringing a small packet of letters and papers. The service is strictly supervised or censored, and not much of a cheering or amusing nature is allowed to come through. One of the most surprising things is the ignorance of you Moderns uf everything relating to this place. Purgatory is a large underground country about the shape of Ireland, but much larger and more densely populated. It is situated just beneath the North Polar regions and is many thousands of feet below the surface of the earth, We are here in the same bodies that we had on Earth. Ten years after death our bodies are brought here in some miraculous way which has been revealed to none of us. At death we became unconscious ; we remain so for ten years. Wo then wake up in the same bodies and resume our lives. Our punishment consists, not in excess sive heat or bodily pain, but in mental distress, in regret for the opportunities we lost while living our former lives. Hopelessly bad people are not sent to this pJace at all. After death they remain unconscious until the Day of Judgment; they then receive their sentence and are anihilated. Those lesser sinners who have much goodness of heart but who were not reconciled to God before death, are purged from their sins in this place, then they sink into a profound sleep until the Judgment Day, when they rise to live with Christ on Earth. It is v a remarkable fact that most of those who now come to this place from New Zealand are Fharn Reformers, —Conservatives ashamed of the name—very few of the Labour Party and no true, earnest M former ever comes here. I see now I did not see until my purgation was'weli on to completion, that the great sin of your age, of my age, of every age, 13 the allowing of unjust social arrangements to continue. Collective injustice is the worst form of injustice. People support it without knowing or caring to know the wrong they do. They cannot thus escape responsibility ; it is everyone's duty to examine social questions, find out all social injustice and hunt it down to the death. Hoping soon to see some more of your interesting newspapers I am, Your sincere friend, William Shakespeare.