"I've not time!" he replied.
"You'll need little time!" was the rejoinder. Each was correct.
There it ended! Shakespeare himself could use no more than the
commonplace to express what is incapable of expression. "The rest
is silence!" The few familiar words, among the simplest in the
language, conveying an idea trite beyond rivalry, served
Shakespeare, and, as yet, no one has said more. A few weeks
afterwards, one warm evening in early July, as Adams was
strolling down to dine under the trees at Armenonville, he
learned that Hay was dead. He expected it; on Hay's account, he
was even satisfied to have his friend die, as we would all die if
we could, in full fame, at home and abroad, universally
regretted, and wielding his power to the last. One had seen
scores of emperors and heroes fade into cheap obscurity even when
alive; and now, at least, one had not that to fear for one's
friend. It was not even the suddenness of the shock, or the sense
of void, that threw Adams into the depths of Hamlet's
Shakespearean silence in the full flare of Paris frivolity in its
favorite haunt where worldly vanity reached its most futile
climax in human history; it was only the quiet summons to follow
-- the assent to dismissal. It was time to go. The three friends
had begun life together; and the last of the three had no motive
-- no attraction -- to carry it on after the others had gone.
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