To visit, or not to visit--that is the question:
Whether your wallet can suffer
The entrance fee of outrageous fortune
Or qualify for a bewildering sea of discounts
And by choosing enter. To visit, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we're bored
The headache, and the thousand interpretation panels
That eyes are witness to. 'Tis then a cup of tea
Devoutly to be wished. But to visit, not to sleep--
To wake--perchance to enjoy: ay, there's the rub,
For in that interactivity what fun may come
When we have shuffled off our duffle coats,
Must give us pause. There's that desire
That makes bearable so long a visit.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of museum visits,
Th' receptionist's wrong, the room steward's contumely
The pangs of despised stairs, the lift's delay,
The insolence of staff, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' visitor takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a guide book? Who would rubbish buy,
To grunt and sweat under a weary audio,
But that the dread of something in the shop,
The undiscovered marmalade, from whose taste
No traveller recovers from, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear Tesco's own brand
Than fly to jam that we know not of?
Thus a museum does make cowards of us all,
And thus the prospect of repeat visiting
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
About scones of great depth and hardness
With this regard their currants turn awry
And lose the name of edible. -- Soft you now,
Fair cream tea! -- Museum, in thy thoughts
Be all my visits remembered.
