Extra Credit Questions

[Eva Elisabeth]

Brilliant, Roger!!! Thanks for your endurance! I'm aware it was a hard(er) one (but the last hint was not too bad, was it?). I like this quote (and you last question reminded me of it) as to me it is quite illustrative and meaningful.

I often attended "As you like it", and like it. "All the world's a stage" is from this play.

Although Arden is a formerly heavily forested area in Warwickshire, England, not far from Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's "As You Like" refers to the Ardennes forest in Thomas Lodge's prose romance Rosalynde, and the real Ardennes in southeast Belgium.

And the tristesse of the Ardennes is something I have vivid memories of, especially of the fog. At all, Belgium is one of the most melancholic countries I know, difficult to explain (but reminiscening Brazil, thinking of Belgium might raise some Americans' melancholy, too). As melancholic as Jaques Brel's (another melancholic Jaques...) chansons:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E7zgNye6HTE
A great Belgian chansonnier with an interesting bio and "melancholic" ending:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Brel

Despite Jaques Brel, Belgium is famous for Hercules Poirot (fictionally), the surrealist painter René Magritte, chocolate, fries, beer, and laces - and if I remember correctly, Mary loved and purchased Brussels laces (can someone confirm?).

The Forest of Arden (1888 - 1897, possibly reworked 1908), Albert Pinkham Ryder. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
   
The Mock Marriage of Orlando and Rosalind from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, by Walter Howell Deverell:
   
PS: The least melancholic part of Belgium is the North Sea coast. I also recommend Brussels and Gent.

Roger, your prize is my best wishes for a very happy day tomorrow (which it here actually already is).