Shakespeare's Planet Read Online Free PDF

somehow a great many people came to hear of him—not perhaps for anything he had ever done (for, truth to tell, he had done but little), but for the things he seemed to stand for, for his way of life. As he thought about it now, he wondered whether there had not been a misconception—if his piety may not have stemmed from his devotion, as everyone seemed to think, but from his very fear and, because of his fear, his conscious attempts at self-effacement. A trembling mouse, he thought, that became a holy mouse because of its very trembling.
    But however that might have been, he finally came to stand as a symbol for the Age of Faith in a materialistic world and one writer who had interviewed him described him as a medieval man persisting into modern times. The profile that came from the interview, published in a magazine of wide circulation and written by a perceptive man who, for dramatic effect, did not hesitate to gild the lily slightly, had provided the impetus that, after several years, had elevated him to greatness as a simple man who held the necessary insight to return to basic faith and the strength of soul to hold that faith against the inroads of humanistic thought.
    He could have been an abbot, he thought with a surge of pride; perhaps more than an abbot. And when he became aware of the pride, made no more than a token effort to quash it. For pride, he thought, pride and, finally, honesty, were all that he had left. When the abbot had been called to God, it had been made known to him in various subtle ways, that he could succeed the abbot. But, suddenly afraid again, this time of responsibility and place, he had pleaded to remain with his simple cell and simple tasks, and because the order held him in high regard, he was granted his petition. Although, thinking of it since and now drenched in honesty, he allowed the suspicion that he had suppressed before out into the open. It was this: had his petition been granted not because of the order’s high regard of him, but because the order, knowing him too well, had realized what a poor stick of an abbot he would have made? In view of the favorable publicity his appointment would have afforded because of the wide acclaim which had been accorded him, had the order been forced into a position where it had felt bound to make at least the offer? And had there been a wholehearted sigh of relief throughout the entire house when he had declined?
    Fear, he thought—a man hounded all his life by fear—if not a fear of death, then the fear of life itself. Maybe, after all, there had been no need of fear. Perhaps, after all the fearfulness, there had been nothing actually to fear. It had been, more than likely, his own inadequacy and his lack of understanding that had driven him to fear.
    I am thinking like a man of flesh and bone , he told himself, not like a disembodied brain. The flesh still clings to me; the bones will not dissolve .
    The scientist was still talking. We must refrain especially , he was saying, from automatically thinking of the manifestation as something that had a mystical or a spiritual quality.
    It was just one of those simple things , said the grande dame, glad to get it settled.
    We must keep firmly in our consciousness , said the scientist, that there are no simple things in the universe. No happenings to be brushed casually to one side. There is a purpose in everything that happens. There always is a cause — you may be sure of that — and in time there will be effect as well .
    I wish , said the monk, I could be as positive as you are .
    I wish , said the grande dame, we hadn’t landed on this planet. It is an ishy place .

7
    â€œYou must restrain yourself,” Nicodemus said. “Not too much. The vichyssoise, one small slice of roast, half of the potato. You must realize that your gut has been inactive for hundreds of years. Frozen, certainly, and subject to no deterioration, but, even so, it must be given an