The Wooden O

A new year, my masters!

Even as milord Tennyson said, though perchance his wish is no more like to come true this eve than in 1850, when 'twas writ.

Now it may soothly be said that Jack Donne, when he had got his Dean's robe on, was no friend to us players, for all his eldest daughter married one. Yet it meseemeth that this is no bad time to speak again these words from his oft-repeated Meditation XVII:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Therefore, gentles, if reading o'er these words prompts you to think on those many thousands who have lost all in this last tempest, let me entreat you send what aid ye may to these same storm-wrack'd souls. And may the tempests of time have mercy on us all.