The Hamlet Project

But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

Sometimes, when I see people walking down the street staring at their phones, reading their texts or their emails, or frantically typing, I think “That’s it for our civilization. We’re all going to blindly walk and text ourselves into manholes made into Human Traps and step into our distracted doom.”
But it sounds like people thought the same about books in the old days. If Hamlet is coming reading, he’s not just hanging out with his book in the window seat, he is walking and reading. Now, I love to read and I love to walk but only when I just can’t bear to not finish the paragraph I started on the train do I walk and read at the same time. In the city, particularly, it’s a risky behavior.
I guess, though, if you’re the Prince- you’ve got hallways and ballrooms to walk through and even if people unexpectedly appear in those places, they are likely to quickly get out of your way.
Doesn’t really work like that for us common folk. We could be turning the pages and find ourselves running into a prince.