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Article: The Arctic Hedonist. (At Large And At Small).(arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson)
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- January 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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My father was an insomniac. He used to while away the small hours of the night with mental games, of which his favorite was called I Shook Hands with Shakespeare. He had shaken hands with the actress Cornelia Otis Skinner, who had in turn presumably shaken hands with her father, Otis Skinner. He had shaken hands with Edwin Booth ... and so on, down through Junius Brutus Booth, Edmund Kean, David Garrick, Thomas Betterton, Sir William D'Avenant, and Richard Burbage. Finally, as dawn crept through the blinds, William Shakespeare extended his hand. (My father admitted a shaky manual link between Kean, who was born in 1787, and Garrick, who died in 1779.)
I myself ...