88	ONE THOUSAND  FAMOUS  THINGS
Shakespeare's  Countryman
n
ot without honour my days ran,
Nor yet without a boast shall end,
For I was Shakespeare's countryman,
And were you not my friend ?
William Wateon
Queen Elizabeth Speaks
m
y hands were stained with blood, my heart was proud and cold,
My soul is black with shame ... but I gave Shakespeare gold.
So after aeons of flame I may, by grace of God,
Rise up to kiss the dust that Shakespeare's feet have trod.
Jo'i/ce Kilmer
Alone With Shakespeare
w
hen I went out of office after eleven years, very tired and for the
time not fit for anything, I spent some weeks alone in the
country. During that time I read several of Shakespeare's plays.
The impression produced upon me by his incredible power and range
was really that of awe ; I felt almost afraid to be alone in the room
with him, as if I were in the presence of something supernatural.
Lord Grey ofFallodon
Finis
A
 thousand years of European history thus came to a close. . . *
The empire that had once extended 'from the Carpathians to
Spain had vanished from the eyes of men. The great edifice had
collapsed with less noise than accompanies the fall of some aged
tapestry from the wail that has been its home for countless years.
The Empire was in truth not unlike a faded piece of tapestry* . » ,
The colours faded* The gaily-clad knights and ladies lost their
animation and became somewhat ridiculous in their stiff and formal
attitudes. The wall that supported the tapestry began to crumble
ever so gradually with the passage of time* Outside the dim room
a new life and new civilisation had sprung up. It had even begun to
invade the room itself with strange new pieces of furniture that
made the tapestry look still more faded and worn. One day the
supports that had upheld the tapestry through so many years quietly
gave way, and it lay like a dusty old piece of cloth upon the floor,
As with the tapestry, so with the Hapsburg Monarchy. Age had
sapped its virility. For long it stood tottering upon its crumbling
foundations. As the wind lays some aged forest giant upon the
ground, so the World War swept away the Hapsbutgs and their
Empire into the limbo that awaits outworn institutions. Felix nuJbe
—if he read that famous phrase in exile, Karl's lips must have been
twisted into a smile at once ironic and pitiful*
On the ffiapsbnrg Monarchy—the last words of ihe
last  article m the last number of the Edinburgh
, on closing its career after more than a century