{"id":"01KG8AYDCJXP4KRWADWX1Z72AX","cid":"bafkreiad37rjedsrvoc37v5yquav2sorekgxl6tscqqxeo753qcbzsbjsy","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreigigmy34yfbroq4cfolakswympmp5voawa55q5epcailcnll3n2wi","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"03_merry_wives_of_windsor_1905_page_0023.jpg","height":1778,"key":"pdf-page-1769806443566-f8au5gfu725","label":"03_merry_wives_of_windsor_1905_page_0023.jpg","page_number":23,"pdf_type":"born_digital","size":387341,"text":"Introduction\ndelusions. Yet, as the vanity of being thought accept-\nable to the other sex is one of the last that men get rid\nof, the author would naturally be led to paint Falstaff ,\nin the perilous adventures to which he had destined\nhim, as being still of an age (however ridiculous his\ncourtship would seem to Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford) to\nbe yet liable to the delusions of personal vanity, and\nexposed to its attendant mortifications. He is of\ncourse made to take his last lesson of experience in\nthat matter, before settling down into the lazy luxury\nof the Boar's Head. He is accordingly, though sub-(\nstantially the same character, made more of a viva-\ncious, dissolute old boy, and less of the sagacious;\nEpicurean wit, than he appears in Henry IV. We{\nhave, then, only to imagine an indefinite interval of\ntwo or three years, during which Pistol and Bardolph\nreturn to their old service, and Mrs. Quickly removes\nfrom the quiet shades of Windsor to the more con-\ngenial atmosphere of a London tavern, and nothing is\nwanted to make the whole consistent and probable.\"\nHartley Coleridge, in his Essays and Marginalia,\nremarks : \" That Queen Bess should have desired to\nsee Falstaff making love proves her to have been, as\nshe was, a gross-minded old baggage. Shakespeare\nhas evaded the difficulty with great skill. He knew\nthat Falstaff could not be in love, and has mixed\nbut a little, a very little, pruritus with his fortune-\nhunting courtship. But the Falstaff of the Merry\nWives is not the Falstaff of Hefiry IV. It is a big-\nMERRY WIVES — 2","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:54:03.566Z","text_extracted_by":"pdf-processor","text_has_content":true,"text_source":"born_digital","uploaded":true,"width":1084},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG89K4N3KNPAGDJAVRPVWBA4","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KG89JREDR8WY5QQGYR5FZRDY","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AYDCHX2VQ4DHXS24RPXTQ","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AYDFVMX7J94K7YDH17WQ7","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:54:03.922Z","ts":"2026-01-30T21:06:27.711Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFH6ETXGRVD10WPNP3007D6"}}