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Bangs, John Kendrick, 1862-1922

"The Water Ghost and Others"


I should have liked to know Shakespeare, to have been the friend of
Milton; and when I came out of my dreams it made me unhappy to think that
such I never could be, until one day this idea came to me: all the
happiness of life is bound up in the 'let's pretend' games which we learn
in childhood, and no harm results to any one. If I can imagine myself off
with my friend Phil Marsden in the lakes of England and Scotland, in the
African jungle, in the moon, anywhere, and enter so far into the spirit of
the trips as to feel that they are real and not imagination, why may I not
in fancy be all these things that I so aspire to be? Why may not the plays
of Shakespeare become the plays of Thomas Bragdon? Why may not the poems
of Milton become the poems of my dearest, closest friend Phil Marsden?
What is to prevent my achieving the highest position in letters, art,
politics, science, anything, in imagination? I acted upon the thought, and
I found the plan worked admirably up to a certain point.


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