"The one that's painted there," answered Malcolm, "does look as if
he might know that the least a goddess may claim of a worshipper
is, that he should come into her presence pure enough to understand
her purity. I came upon a fine phrase the other evening in your
English prayer book. I never looked into it before, but I found
one lying on a book stall, and it happened to open at the marriage
service. There, amongst other good things, the bridegroom says:
'With my body I thee worship.'--'That's grand,' I said to myself.
'That's as it should be. The man whose body does not worship
the woman he weds, should marry a harlot.' God bless Mr William
Shakspere!--he knew that. I remember Mr Graham telling me once,
before I had read the play, that the critics condemn Measure
for Measure as failing in poetic justice. I know little about the
critics, and care less, for a man who has to earn his bread and
feed his soul as well, has enough to do with the books themselves
without what people say about them; and Mr Graham would not tell
me whether he thought the critics right or wrong; he wanted me to
judge for myself. But when I came to read the play, I found, to
my mind, a most absolute and splendid justice in it. They think, I
suppose, that my lord Angelo should have been put to death.
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