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diff --git a/38105-8.txt b/38105-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..469313e --- /dev/null +++ b/38105-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2173 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shakespeare, by Robert G. Ingersoll + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Shakespeare + A Lecture + +Author: Robert G. Ingersoll + +Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38105] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +SHAKESPEARE + +A LECTURE + +By Robert G. Ingersoll + +Shakespeare.--An intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores +of thought. + + + + +SHAKESPEARE. + + + + +I. + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was the greatest genius of our world. He left to +us the richest legacy of all the dead--the treasures of the rarest soul +that ever lived and loved and wrought of words the statues, pictures, +robes and gems of thought. He was the greatest man that ever touched +this grain of sand and tears, we call the world. + +It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. +Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be +empty, all the walls naked--meaning and connection would fall from words +of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the +forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the +unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance. + +Shakespeare is too great a theme. I feel as though endeavoring to grasp +a globe so large that the hand obtains no hold. He who would worthily +speak of the great dramatist should be inspired by "a muse of fire that +should ascend the brightest heaven of invention"--he should have "a +kingdom for a stage, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene." + +More than three centuries ago, the most intellectual of the human race +was born. He was not of supernatural origin. At his birth there were +no celestial pyrotechnics. His father and mother were both English, and +both had the cheerful habit of living in this world. The cradle in which +he was rocked was canopied by neither myth nor miracle, and in his veins +there was no drop of royal blood. + +This babe became the wonder of mankind. Neither of his parents could +read or write. He grew up in a small and ignorant village on the banks +of the Avon, in the midst of the common people of three hundred years +ago. There was nothing in the peaceful, quiet landscape on which he +looked, nothing in the low hills, the cultivated and undulating fields, +and nothing in the murmuring stream, to excite the imagination--nothing, +so far as we can see, calculated to sow the seeds of the subtlest and +sublimest thought. + +So there is nothing connected with his education, or his lack of +education, that in any way accounts for what he did. It is supposed that +he attended school in his native town--but of this we are not certain. +Many have tried to show that he was, after all, of gentle blood, but the +fact seems to be the other way. Some of his biographers have sought to +do him honor by showing that he was patronized by Queen Elizabeth, but +of this there is not the slightest proof. + +As a matter of fact, there never sat on any throne, a king, queen, or +emperor who could have honored William Shakespeare. + +Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called +education. The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of +poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy. On the other hand, the +children of the rich, finding that gold does not produce happiness, are +apt to underrate the value of wealth. So the children of the educated +often care but little for books, and hold all culture in contempt. The +children of great authors do not, as a rule, become writers. + +Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget +limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions +for itself. + +Possibly, many generations of culture breed a desire for the rude joys +of savagery, and possibly generations of ignorance breed such a longing +for knowledge, that of this desire, of this hunger of the brain, Genius +is born. It may be that the mind, by lying fallow, by remaining idle for +generations, gathers strength. + +Shakespeare's father seems to have been an ordinary man of his time and +class. About the only thing we know of him is that he was officially +reported for not coming monthly to church. This is good as far as it +goes. We can hardly blame him, because at that time Richard Bifield +was the minister at Stratford, and an extreme Puritan, one who read the +Psalter by Sternhold and Hopkins. + +The church was at one time Catholic, but in John Shakespeare's day it +was Puritan, and in 1564, the year of Shakespeare's birth, they had the +images defaced. It is greatly to the honor of John Shakespeare that +he refused to listen to the "tidings of great joy" as delivered by the +Puritan Bifield. + +Nothing is known of his mother, except her beautiful name--Mary Arden. +In those days but little attention was given to the biographies of +women. They were born, married, had children, and died. No matter how +celebrated their sons became, the mothers were forgotten. In old times, +when a man achieved distinction, great pains were taken to find +out about the father and grandfather--the idea being that genius is +inherited from the father's side. The truth is, that all great men have +had great mothers. Great women have had, as a rule, great fathers. + +The mother of Shakespeare was, without doubt, one of the greatest of +women. She dowered her son with passion and imagination and the higher +qualities of the soul, beyond all other men. It has been said that a +man of genius should select his ancestors with great care--and yet +there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. +The children of the great are often small. Pigmies are born in palaces, +while over the children of genius is the roof of straw. Most of the +great are like mountains, with the valley of ancestors on one side and +the depression of posterity on the other. + +In his day Shakespeare was of no particular importance. It may be that +his mother had some marvelous and prophetic dreams, but Stratford was +unconscious of the immortal child. He was never engaged in a reputable +business. Socially he occupied a position below servants. The law +described him as "a sturdy vagabond." He was neither a noble, a soldier, +nor a priest. Among the half-civilized people of England, he who amused +and instructed them was regarded as a menial. Kings had their clowns, +the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a +servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. +Mozart was patronized by an Archbishop--lived in the palace,--but was +compelled to eat with the scullions. + +The composer of divine melodies was not fit to sit by the side of the +theologian, who long ago would have been forgotten but for the fame of +the composer. + +We know but little of the personal peculiarities, of the daily life, or +of what may be called the outward Shakespeare, and it may be fortunate +that so little is known. He might have been belittled by friendly fools. +What silly stories, what idiotic personal reminiscences, would have +been remembered by those who scarcely saw him! We have his best--his +sublimest--and we have probably lost only the trivial and the worthless. +All that is known can be written on a page. + +We are tolerably certain of the date of his birth, of his marriage and +of his death. We think he went to London in 1586, when he was twenty-two +years old. We think that three years afterwards he was part owner +of Blackfriars' Theatre. We have a few signatures, some of which are +supposed to be genuine. We know that he bought some land--that he had +two or three law-suits. We know the names of his children. We also know +that this incomparable man--so apart from, and so familiar with, all the +world--lived during his literary life in London--that he was an actor, +dramatist and manager--that he returned to Stratford, the place of his +birth,--that he gave his writings to negligence, deserted the children +of his brain--that he died on the anniversary of his birth at the age +of fifty-two, and that he was buried in the church where the images +had been defaced, and that on his tomb was chiseled a rude, absurd and +ignorant epitaph. + +No letter of his to any human being has been found, and no line written +by him can be shown. + +And here let me give my explanation of the epitaph. Shakespeare was an +actor--a disreputable business--but he made money--always reputable. He +came back from London a rich man. He bought land, and built houses. Some +of the supposed great probably treated him with deference. When he died +he was buried in the church. Then came a reaction. The pious thought the +church had been profaned. They did not feel that the ashes of an actor +were fit to lie in holy ground. The people began to say the body +ought to be removed. Then it was, as I believe, that Dr. John Hall, +Shakespeare's son-in-law, had this epitaph cut on the tomb: + +"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare To digg the dust enclosed heare: +Blese be ye man yt spares thes stones, And curst be he yt moves my +bones." + +Certainly Shakespeare could have had no fear that his tomb would be +violated. How could it have entered his mind to have put a warning, a +threat and a blessing, upon his grave? But the ignorant people of that +day were no doubt convinced that the epitaph was the voice of the dead, +and so feeling they feared to invade the tomb. In this way the dust was +left in peace. + +This epitaph gave me great trouble for years. It puzzled me to explain +why he, who erected the intellectual pyramids,--great ranges of +mountains--should put such a pebble at his tomb. But when I stood beside +the grave and read the ignorant words, the explanation I have given +flashed upon me. + + + + +II. + +IT has been said that Shakespeare was hardly mentioned by his +contemporaries, and that he was substantially unknown. This is a +mistake. In 1600 a book was published called "_England's Parnassus_" +and it contained ninety extracts from Shakespeare. In the same year +was published the "_Garden of the Muses_" containing several pieces from +Shakespeare, Chapman, Marston and Ben Johnson. "_England's Helicon_" +was printed in the same year, and contained poems from Spenser, Greene, +Harvey and Shakespeare. + +In 1600 a play was acted at Cambridge, in which Shakespeare was alluded +to as follows: "Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare who puts them all +down." John Weaver published a book of poems in 1595, in which there +was a sonnet to Shakespeare. In 1598 Richard Bamfield wrote a poem +to Shakespeare. Francis Meres, "clergyman, master of arts in both +universities, compiler of school books," was the author of the "Wits' +Treasury." In this he compares the ancient and modern tragic poets, and +mentions Marlowe, Peel, Kyd and Shakespeare. So he compares the writers +of comedies, and mentions Lilly, Lodge, Greene and Shakespeare. He +speaks of elegiac poets, and names Surrey, Wyatt, Sidney, Raleigh and +Shakespeare. He compares the lyric poets, and names Spencer, Drayton, +Shakespeare and others. This same writer, speaking of Horace, says that +England has Sidney, Shakespeare and others, and that "as the soul of +Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet-wittie soul +of Ovid lives in the mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare." He +also says: "If the Muses could speak English, they would speak in +Shakespeare's phrase." This was in 1598. In 1607, John Davies alludes in +a poem to Shakespeare. + +Of course we are all familiar with what rare Ben Jonson wrote. Henry +Chettle took Shakespeare to task because he wrote nothing on the death +of Queen Elizabeth. + +It may be wonderful that he was not better known. But is it not +wonderful that he gained the reputation that he did in so short a time, +and that twelve years after he began to write he stood at least with the +first? + + + + +III. + +BUT there is a wonderful fact connected with the writings of +Shakespeare: In the Plays there is no direct mention of any of his +contemporaries. We do not know of any poet, author, soldier, sailor, +statesman, priest, nobleman, king, or queen, that Shakespeare directly +mentioned. + +Is it not marvellous that he, living in an age of great deeds, of +adventures in far off lands and unknown seas--in a time of religious +wars--in the days of the Armada--the massacre of St. Bartholomew--the +Edict of Nantes--the assassination of Henry III.--the victory of +Lepanto--the execution of Marie Stuart--did not mention the name of any +man or woman of his time? Some have insisted that the paragraph ending +with the lines: + +"The imperial votress passed on in maiden meditation fancy free," + +referred to Queen Elizabeth; but it is impossible for me to believe that +the daubed and wrinkled face, the small black eyes, the cruel nose, the +thin lips, the bad teeth, and the red wig of Queen Elizabeth could by +any possibility have inspired these marvellous lines. + +It is perfectly apparent from Shakespeare's writings that he knew but +little of the nobility, little of kings and queens. He gives to these +supposed great people great thoughts, and puts great words in their +mouths and makes them speak--not as they really did--but as Shakespeare +thought such people should. This demonstrates that he did not know them +personally. + +Some have insisted that Shakespeare mentions Queen Elizabeth in the +last Scene of Henry VIII. The answer to this is that Shakespeare did not +write the last Scene in that Play. The probability is that Fletcher was +the author. + +Shakespeare lived during the great awakening of the world, when Europe +emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, when the discovery of +America had made England, that blossom of the Gulf-Stream, the centre +of commerce, and during a period when some of the greatest writers, +thinkers, soldiers and discoverers were produced. + +Cervantes was born in 1547, dying on the same day that Shakespeare died. +He was undoubtedly the greatest writer that Spain has produced. Rubens +was born in 1577. Camoens, the Portuguese, the author of the _Lusiad_, +died in 1597. Giordano Bruno--greatest of martyrs--was born in +1548--visited London in Shakespeare's time--delivered lectures at +Oxford, and called that institution "the widow of learning." Drake +circled the globe in 1580. Galileo was born in 1564--the same year +with Shakespeare. Michael Angelo died in 1563. Kepler--he of the Three +Laws--born in 1571. Calderon, the Spanish dramatist, born in 1601. +Corneille, the French poet, in 1606. Rembrandt, greatest of painters, +1607. Shakespeare was born in 1564. In that year John Calvin died. What +a glorious exchange! + +Seventy-two years after the discovery of America Shakespeare was born, +and England was filled with the voyages and discoveries written by +Hakluyt, and the wonders that had been seen by Raleigh, by Drake, by +Frobisher and Hawkins. London had become the centre of the world, and +representatives from all known countries were in the new metropolis. The +world had been doubled. The imagination had been touched and kindled by +discovery. In the far horizon were unknown lands, strange shores beyond +untraversed seas. Toward every part of the world were turned the prows +of adventure. All these things fanned the imagination into flame, +and this had its effect upon the literary and dramatic world. And +yet Shakespeare--the master spirit of mankind--in the midst of these +discoveries, of these adventures, mentioned no navigator, no general, no +discoverer, no philosopher. + +Galileo was reading the open volume of the sky, but Shakespeare did not +mention him. This to me is the most marvellous thing connected with this +most marvellous man. + +At that time England was prosperous--was then laying the foundation of +her future greatness and power. + +When men are prosperous, they are in love with life. Nature grows +beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and +sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected--and this life with +which men are in love, is represented in a thousand forms. + +Nature, or Fate, or Chance prepared a stage for Shakespeare, and +Shakespeare prepared a stage for Nature. + +Famine and faith go together. In disaster and want the gaze of man is +fixed upon another world. He that eats a crust has a creed. Hunger falls +upon its knees, and heaven, looked for through tears, is the mirage +of misery. But prosperity brings joy and wealth and leisure--and the +beautiful is born. + +One of the effects of the worlds awakening was Shakespeare. We account +for this man as we do for the highest mountain, the greatest river, the +most perfect gem. We can only say: He was. + + "It hath been taught us from the primal state + That he which is was wished until he were." + + + + +IV. + +IN Shakespeare's time the actor was a vagabond, the dramatist a +disreputable person--and yet the greatest dramas were then written. In +spite of law, and social ostracism, Shakespeare reared the many-colored +dome that fills and glorifies the intellectual heavens. + +Now the whole civilized world believes in the theatre--asks for some +great dramatist--is hungry for a play worthy of the century, is anxious +to give gold and fame to any one who can worthily put our age upon the +stage--and yet no great play has been written since Shakespeare died. + +Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. He did not seek to put his +characters in a position where it was right to do wrong. He was sound +and healthy to the centre. It never occurred to him to write a play in +which a wife's lover should be jealous of her husband. + +There was in his blood the courage of his thought. He was true to +himself and enjoyed the perfect freedom of the highest art. He did not +write according to rules--but smaller men make rules from what he wrote. + +How fortunate that Shakespeare was not educated at Oxford--that the +winged god within him never knelt to the professor. How fortunate +that this giant was not captured, tied and tethered by the literary +Liliputians of his time. + +He was an idealist. He did not--like most writers of our time--take +refuge in the real, hiding a lack of genius behind a pretended love of +truth. All realities are not poetic, or dramatic, or even worth knowing. +The real sustains the same relation to the ideal that a stone does to +a statue--or that paint does to a painting. Realism degrades and +impoverishes. In no event can a realist be more than an imitator and +copyist. According to the realist's philosophy, the wax that receives +and retains an image is an artist. + +Shakespeare did not rely on the stage-carpenter, or the scenic painter. +He put his scenery in his lines. There you will find mountains and +rivers and seas, valleys and cliffs, violets and clouds, and over all +"the firmament fretted with gold and fire." He cared little for plot, +little for surprise. He did not rely on stage effects, or red fire. The +plays grow before your eyes, and they come as the morning comes. Plot +surprises but once. There must be something in a play besides surprise. +Plot in an author is a kind of strategy--that is to say, a sort of +cunning, and cunning does not belong to the highest natures. + +There is in Shakespeare such a wealth of thought that the plot becomes +almost immaterial--and such is this wealth that you can hardly know the +play--there is too much. After you have heard it again and again, it +seems as pathless as an untrodden forest. + +He belonged to all lands. "Timon of Athens" is as Greek as any tragedy +of Eschylus. "Julius Caesar" and "Coriolanus" are perfect Roman, and as +you read, the mighty ruins rise and the Eternal City once again becomes +the mistress of the world. No play is more Egyptian than "Antony and +Cleopatra"--the Nile runs through it, the shadows of the pyramids +fall upon it, and from its scenes the Sphinx gazes forever on the +outstretched sands. + +In "Lear" is the true pagan spirit. "Romeo and Juliet" is +Italian--everything is sudden, love bursts into immediate flower, and in +every scene is the climate of the land of poetry and passion. + +The reason of this is, that Shakespeare dealt with elemental things, +with universal man. He knew that locality colors without changing, and +that in all surroundings the human heart is substantially the same. + +Not all the poetry written before his time would make his sum--not all +that has been written since, added to all that was written before, would +equal his. + +There was nothing within the range of human thought, within the horizon +of intellectual effort, that he did not touch. He knew the brain and +heart of man--the theories, customs, superstitions, hopes, fears, +hatreds, vices and virtues of the human race. + +He knew the thrills and ecstacies of love, the savage joys of hatred and +revenge. He heard the hiss of envy's snakes and watched the eagles of +ambition soar. There was no hope that did not put its star above his +head--no fear he had not felt--no joy that had not shed its sunshine +on his face. He experienced the emotions of mankind. He was the +intellectual spendthrift of the world. He gave with the generosity, the +extravagance, of madness. + +Read one play, and you are impressed with the idea that the wealth +of the brain of a god has been exhausted--that there are no more +comparisons, no more passions to be expressed, no more definitions, no +more philosophy, beauty, or sublimity to be put in words--and yet, the +next play opens as fresh as the dewy gates of another day. + +The outstretched wings of his imagination filled the sky. He was the +intellectual crown o' the earth. + + + + +V. + +THE plays of Shakespeare show so much knowledge, thought and learning, +that many people--those who imagine that universities furnish +capacity--contend that Bacon must have been the author. + +We know Bacon. We know that he was a scheming politician, a courtier, +a time-server of church and king, and a corrupt judge. We know that he +never admitted the truth of the Copernican system--that he was +doubtful whether instruments were of any advantage in scientific +investigation--that he was ignorant of the higher branches of +mathematics, and that, as a matter of fact, he added but little to the +knowledge of the world. When he was more than sixty years of age, he +turned his attention to poetry, and dedicated his verses to George +Herbert. + +If you will read these verses you will say that the author of "Lear" and +"Hamlet" did not write them. + +Bacon dedicated his work on the _Advancement of Learning, Divine and +Human_, to James I., and in his dedication he stated that there had not +been, since the time of Christ, any king or monarch so learned in all +erudition, divine or human. He placed James the First before Marcus +Aurelius and all other kings and emperors since Christ, and concluded +by saying that James the First had "the power and fortune of a king, +the illumination of a priest, the learning and universality of a +philosopher." This was written of James the First, described by Macauley +as a "stammering, slobbering, trembling coward, whose writings were +deformed by the grossest and vilest superstitions--witches being the +special objects of his fear, his hatred, and his persecution." + +It seems to have been taken for granted that if Shakespeare was not the +author of the great dramas, Lord Bacon must have been. + +It has been claimed that Bacon was the greatest philosopher of his +time. And yet in reading his works we find that there was in his mind a +strange mingling of foolishness and philosophy. He takes pains to tell +us, and to write it down for the benefit of posterity, that "snow +is colder than water, because it hath more spirit in it, and that +quicksilver is the coldest of all metals, because it is the fullest of +spirit." + +He stated that he hardly believed that you could contract air by putting +opium on top of the weather glass, and gave the following reason: + +"I conceive that opium and the like make spirits fly rather by malignity +than by cold." + +This great philosopher gave the following recipe for staunching blood: + +"Thrust the part that bleedeth into the body of a capon, new ripped and +bleeding. This will staunch the blood. The blood, as it seemeth, sucking +and drawing up by similitude of substance the blood it meeteth with, and +so itself going back." + +The philosopher also records this important fact: + +"Divers witches among heathen and Christians have fed upon man's flesh +to aid, as it seemeth, their imagination with high and foul vapors." + +Lord Bacon was not only a philosopher, but he was a biologist, as +appears from the following: + +"As for living creatures, it is certain that their vital spirits are a +substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter, and although air and +flame being free will not mingle, yet bound in by a body that hath some +fixing, will." + +Now and then the inventor of deduction reasons by analogy. He says: + +"As snow and ice holpen, and their cold activated by nitre or salt, will +turn water into ice, so it may be it will turn wood or stiff clay into +stone." + +Bacon seems to have been a believer in the transmutation of metals, and +solemnly gives a formula for changing silver or copper into gold. He +also believed in the transmutation of plants, and had arrived at such +a height in entomology that he informed the world that "insects have no +blood." + +It is claimed that he was a great observer, and as evidence of this +he recorded the wonderful fact that "tobacco cut and dried by the fire +loses weight;" that "bears in the winter wax fat in sleep, though they +eat nothing;" that "tortoises have no bones;" that "there is a kind of +stone, if ground and put in water where cattle drink, the cows will give +more milk;" that "it is hard to cure a hurt in a Frenchman's head, but +easy in his leg; that it is hard to cure a hurt in an Englishman's leg, +but easy in his head;" that "wounds made with brass weapons are easier +to cure than those made with iron;" that "lead will multiply and +increase, as in statues buried in the ground;" and that "the rainbow +touching anything causeth a sweet smell." + +Bacon seems also to have turned his attention to ornithology, and says +that "eggs laid in the full of the moon breed better birds," and that +"you can make swallows white by putting ointment on the eggs before they +are hatched." + +He also informs us "that witches cannot hurt kings as easily as they can +common people;" that "perfumes dry and strengthen the brain;" that "any +one in the moment of triumph can be injured by another who casts an +envious eye, and the injury is greatest when the envious glance comes +from the oblique eye." + +Lord Bacon also turned his attention to medicine, and he states that +"bracelets made of snakes are good for curing cramps;" that the "skin of +a wolf might cure the colic, because a wolf has great digestion;" that +"eating the roasted brains of hens and hares strengthens the memory;" +that "if a woman about to become a mother eats a good many quinces and +considerable coriander seed, the child will be ingenious," and that +"the moss which groweth on the skull of an unburied dead man is good for +staunching blood." + +He expresses doubt, however, "as to whether you can cure a wound by +putting ointment on the weapon that caused the wound, instead of on the +wound itself." + +It is claimed by the advocates of the Baconian theory that their hero +stood at the top of science; and yet "it is absolutely certain that he +was ignorant of the law of the acceleration of falling bodies, although +the law had been made known and printed by Galileo thirty years before +Bacon wrote upon the subject. Neither did this great man understand the +principle of the lever. He was not acquainted with the precession of the +equinoxes, and as a matter of fact was ill-read in those branches of +learning in which, in his time, the most rapid progress had been made." + +After Kepler discovered his third law, which was on the 15th of May, +1618, Bacon was more than ever opposed to the Copernican system. This +great man was far behind his own time, not only in astronomy, but in +mathematics. In the preface to the "Descriptio Globi Intellectualisa" it +is admitted either that Bacon had never heard of the correction of the +parallax, or was unable to understand it. He complained on account of +the want of some method for shortening mathematical calculations; and +yet "Napier's Logarithms" had been printed nine years before the date of +his complaint. + +He attempted to form a table of specific gravities by a rude process +of his own, a process that no one has ever followed; and he did this in +spite of the fact that a far better method existed. + +We have the right to compare what Bacon wrote with what it is claimed +Shakespeare produced. I call attention to one thing--to Bacon's opinion +of human love. It is this: + +"The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. As to the +stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies, +but in life it doth much mischief--sometimes like a siren, sometimes +like a fury. Amongst all the great and worthy persons there is not one +that hath been transported to the mad degree of love, which shows that +great spirits and great business do keep out this weak passion." + +The author of "Romeo and Juliet" never wrote that. + +It seems certain that the author of the wondrous Plays was one of the +noblest of men. + +Let us see what sense of honor Bacon had. + +In writing commentaries on certain passages of Scripture, Lord Bacon +tells a courtier, who has committed some offense, how to get back into +the graces of his prince or king. Among other things he tells him not to +appear too cheerful, but to assume a very grave and modest face; not to +bring the matter up himself; to be extremely industrious, so that the +prince will see that it is hard to get along without him; also to get +his friends to tell the prince or king how badly he, the courtier, +feels; and then he says, all these failing, "let him contrive to +transfer the fault to others." + +It is true that we know but little of Shakespeare, and consequently +do not positively know that he did not have the ability to write the +Plays--but we do know Bacon, and we know that he could not have +written these Plays--consequently, they must have been written by a +comparatively unknown man--that is to say, by a man who was known by no +other writings. The fact that we do not know Shakespeare, except through +the Plays and Sonnets, makes it possible for us to believe that he was +the author. + +Some people have imagined that the Plays were written by several--but +this only increases the wonder, and adds a useless burden to credulity. + +Bacon published in his time all the writings that he claimed. Naturally, +he would have claimed his best. Is it possible that Bacon left the +wondrous children of his brain on the door-step of Shakespeare, and kept +the deformed ones at home? Is it possible that he fathered the failures +and deserted the perfect? + +Of course, it is wonderful that so little has been found touching +Shakespeare--but is it not equally wonderful, if Bacon was the +author, that not a line has been found in all his papers, containing a +suggestion, or a hint, that he was the writer of these Plays? Is it +not wonderful that no fragment of any scene--no line--no word--has been +found? + +Some have insisted that Bacon kept the authorship secret, because it +was disgraceful to write Plays. This argument does not cover the +Sonnets--and besides, one who had been stripped of the robes of office, +for receiving bribes as a judge, could have borne the additional +disgrace of having written "Hamlet." The fact that Bacon did not claim +to be the author, demonstrates that he was not. Shakespeare claimed +to be the author, and no one in his time or day denied the claim. This +demonstrates that he was. + +Bacon published his works, and said to the world: This is what I have +done. + +Suppose you found in a cemetery a monument erected to John Smith, +inventor of the Smith-churn, and suppose you were told that Mr. +Smith provided for the monument in his will, and dictated the +inscription--would it be possible to convince you that Mr. Smith was +also the inventor of the locomotive and telegraph? + +Bacon's best can be compared with Shakespeare's common, but +Shakespeare's best rises above Bacon's best, like a domed temple above a +beggar's hut. + + + + +VI. + +OF course it is admitted that there were many dramatists before and +during the time of Shakespeare--but they were only the foot hills of +that mighty peak the top of which the clouds and mists still hide. +Chapman and Marlowe, Heywood and Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher +wrote some great lines, and in the monotony of declamation now and then +is found a strain of genuine music--but all of them together constituted +only a herald of Shakespeare. In all these Plays there is but a hint, +a prophecy, of the great drama destined to revolutionize the poetic +thought of the world. + +Shakespeare was the greatest of poets. What Greece and Rome produced was +great until his time. "Lions make leopards tame." + +The great poet is a great artist. He is painter and sculptor. The +greatest pictures and statues have been painted and chiseled with words. +They outlast all others. All the galleries of the world are poor and +cheap compared with the statues and pictures in Shakespeare's book. + +Language is made of pictures represented by sounds. The outer world is +a dictionary of the mind, and the artist called the soul uses this +dictionary of things to express what happens in the noiseless and +invisible world of thought. First a sound represents something in the +outer world, and afterwards something in the inner, and this sound at +last is represented by a mark, and this mark stands for a picture, +and every brain is a gallery, and the artists--that is to say, the +souls--exchange pictures and statues. + +All art is of the same parentage. The poet uses words--makes pictures +and statues of sounds. The sculptor expresses harmony, proportion, +passion, in marble; the composer, in music; the painter in form and +color. The dramatist expresses himself not only in words, not only +paints these pictures, but he expresses his thought in action. + +Shakespeare was not only a poet, but a dramatist, and expressed the +ideal, the poetic, not only in words, but in action. There are the +wit, the humor, the pathos, the tragedy of situation, of relation. The +dramatist speaks and acts through others--his personality is lost. +The poet lives in the world of thought and feeling, and to this the +dramatist adds the world of action. He creates characters that seem to +act in accordance with their own natures and independently of him. He +compresses lives into hours, tells us the secrets of the heart, shows us +the springs of action--how desire bribes the judgment and corrupts the +will--how weak the reason is when passion pleads, and how grand it is to +stand for right against the world. + +It is not enough to say fine things,--great things, dramatic things, +must be done. + +Let me give you an illustration of dramatic incident accompanying the +highest form of poetic expression: + +Macbeth having returned from the murder of Duncan says to his wife: + + "Methought I heard a voice cry: + Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep; the innocent sleep; + Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, + The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, + Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, + Chief nourisher in life's feast." * * * + + "Still it cried: + Sleep no more, to all the house, + Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor + Shall sleep no more--Macbeth shall sleep no more." + +She exclaims: + + "Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy + Thane, you do unbend your noble strength + To think so brain-sickly of things; get some water, + And wash this filthy witness from your hand. + Why did you bring the daggers from the place?" + +Macbeth was so overcome with horror at his own deed, that he not only +mistook his thoughts for the words of others, but was so carried away +and beyond himself that he brought with him the daggers--the evidence of +his guilt--the daggers that he should have left with the dead. This is +dramatic. + +In the same play, the difference of feeling before and after the +commission of a crime is illustrated to perfection. When Macbeth is +on his way to assassinate the king, the bell strikes, and he says, or +whispers: + + "Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell." + +Afterward, when the deed has been committed, and a knocking is heard at +the gate, he cries: + + "Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst." + +Let me give one more instance of dramatic action. When Antony speaks +above the body of Cæsar he says: + + "You all do know this mantle: I remember + The first time ever Cæsar put it on-- + 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, + That day he overcame the Nervii: + Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through: + See what a rent the envious Casca made! + Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed, + And as he plucked his cursed steel away, + Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it." + + + + +VII. + +THERE are men, and many of them, who are always trying to show that +somebody else chiseled the statue or painted the picture,--that the poem +is attributed to the wrong man, and that the battle was really won by a +subordinate. + +Of course Shakespeare made use of the work of others--and, we might +almost say, of all others. Every writer must use the work of others. +The only question is, how the accomplishments of other minds are used, +whether as a foundation to build higher, or whether stolen to the end +that the thief may make a reputation for himself, without adding to the +great structure of literature. + +Thousands of people have stolen stones from the Coliseum to make huts +for themselves. So thousands of writers have taken the thoughts of +others with which to adorn themselves. These are plagiarists. But the +man who takes the thought of another, adds to it, gives it intensity and +poetic form, throb and life,--is in the highest sense original. + +Shakespeare found nearly all of his facts in the writings of others +and was indebted to others for most of the stories of his plays. The +question is not: Who furnished the stone, or who owned the quarry, but +who chiseled the statue? + +We now know all the books that Shakespeare could have read, and +consequently know many of the sources of his information. We find in +_Pliny's Natural History_, published in 1601, the following: "The sea +Pontis evermore floweth and runneth out into the Propontis; but the sea +never retireth back again with the Impontis." This was the raw material, +and out of it Shakespeare made the following: + + "Like to the Pontic Sea, + Whose icy current and compulsive course + Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on + To the Propontic and the Hellespont------ + + "Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, + Shall ne'er turn back, ne'er ebb to humble love, + Till that a capable and wide revenge + Swallow them up." + +Perhaps we can give an idea of the difference between Shakespeare and +other poets, by a passage from "Lear." When Cordelia places her hand +upon her father's head and speaks of the night and of the storm, an +ordinary poet might have said: + + "On such a night, a dog + Should have stood against my fire." + +A very great poet might have gone a step further and exclaimed: + + "On such a night, mine enemy's dog + Should have stood against my fire." + +But Shakespeare said: + + "Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, + Should have stood, that night, against my fire." + +Of all the poets--of all the writers--Shakespeare is the most original. +He is as original as Nature. + +It may truthfully be said that "Nature wants stuff to vie strange forms +with fancy, to make another." + + + + +VIII. + +THERE is in the greatest poetry a kind of extravagance that touches the +infinite, and in this Shakespeare exceeds all others. + +You will remember the description given of the voyage of Paris in search +of Helen: + + "The seas and winds, old wranglers, made a truce, + And did him service; he touched the ports desired," + +And for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive, + + "He brought a Grecian queen whose youth and freshness + Wrinkles Apollo, and makes stale the morning." + +So, in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out: + + "O Helicanus! strike me, honored sir; + Give me a gash, put me to present pain, + Lest this great sea of joys, rushing upon me, + O'erbear the shores of my mortality." + +The greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is +this line: + + "Eyes that do mislead the morn." + +Nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic. + +In that marvellous play, the "Midsummer Nights Dream," is one of the +most extravagant things in literature: + + "Thou rememberest + Since once I sat upon a promontory, + And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back + Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath + That the rude sea grew civil at her song, + And certain stars shot madly from their spheres + To hear the sea-maid's music." + +This is so marvellously told that it almost seems probable. + +So the description of Mark Antony: + + "For his bounty + There was no winter in't--an autumn t'was + That grew the more by reaping. + His delights Were dolphin-like--they showed his back above + The element they lived in." + +Think of the astronomical scope and amplitude of this: + + "Her bed is India--there she lies a pearl." + +Is there anything more intense than these words of Cleopatra? + + "Rather on Nilus mud lay me stark naked + And let the water-flies blow me into abhorring." + +Or this of Isabella: + + "The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, + And strip myself to death as to a bed + That longing I've been sick for, ere I yield + My body up to shame." + +Is there an intellectual man in the world who will not agree with this? + + "Let me not live + After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff + Of younger spirits." + +Can anything exceed the words of Troilus when parting with Cressida: + + "We two, that with so many thousand sighs + Did buy each other, most poorly sell ourselves + With the rude brevity and discharge of one. + + "Injurious time now with a robber's haste + Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how; + As many farewells as be stars in heaven, + With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them, + He fumbles up into a loose adieu, + And scants us with a single famished kiss, + Distasted with the salt of broken tears." + +Take this example, where pathos almost touches the grotesque. + + "O dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair? + Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, + And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps thee here + I' the dark, to be his paramour?" + +Often when reading the marvellous lines of Shakespeare, I feel that his +thoughts are "too subtle potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, for the +capacity of my ruder powers." Sometimes I cry out, "O churl!--write all, +and leave no thoughts for those who follow after." + + + + +IX. + +SHAKESPEARE was an innovator, an iconoclast. He cared nothing for +the authority of men or of schools. He violated the "unities," and +cared--nothing for the models of the ancient world. + +The Greeks insisted that nothing should be in a play that did not tend +to the catastrophe. They did not believe in the episode--in the sudden +contrasts of light and shade--in mingling the comic and the tragic. +The sunlight never fell upon their tears, and darkness did not overtake +their laughter. They believed that nature sympathized or was in harmony +with the events of the play. When crime was about to be committed--some +horror to be perpetrated--the light grew dim, the wind sighed, the trees +shivered, and upon all was the shadow of the coming event. + +Shakespeare knew that the play had little to do with the tides and +currents of universal life--that Nature cares neither for smiles nor +tears, for life nor death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins +as on cradles. + +The first time I visited the Place de la Concorde, where during the +French Revolution stood the guillotine, and where now stands an +Egyptian obelisk--a bird, sitting on the top, was singing with all its +might.--Nature forgets. + +One of the most notable instances of the violation by Shakespeare of the +classic model, is found in the 6th Scene of the I. Act of Macbeth. + +When the King and Banquo approach the castle in which the King is to be +murdered that night, no shadow falls athwart the threshold. So beautiful +is the scene that the King says: + + "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air + Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself + Unto our gentle senses." + +And Banquo adds: + + "This guest of summer, + The temple-haunting martlet, does approve + By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath + Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze, + Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird + Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle. + Where they most breed and haunt, + I have observed + The air is delicate." + +Another notable instance is the porter scene immediately following +the murder. So, too, the dialogue with the clown who brings the asp to +Cleopatra just before the suicide, illustrates my meaning. + +I know of one paragraph in the Greek drama worthy of Shakespeare. This +is in "Medea." When Medea kills her children she curses Jason, using the +ordinary Billingsgate and papal curse, but at the conclusion says: "I +pray the gods to make him virtuous, that he may the more deeply feel the +pang that I inflict." + +Shakespeare dealt in lights and shadows. He was intense. He put noons +and midnights side by side. No other dramatist would have dreamed of +adding to the pathos--of increasing our appreciation of Lear's agony, +by supplementing the wail of the mad king with the mocking laughter of a +loving clown. + + + + +X. + +THE ordinary dramatists--the men of talent--(and there is the same +difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone-mason +and a sculptor) create characters that become types. Types are +of necessity caricatures--actual men and women are to some extent +contradictory in their actions. Types are blown in the one direction by +the one wind--characters have pilots. + +In real people, good and evil mingle. Types are all one way, or all the +other--all good, or all bad, all wise or all foolish. + +Pecksniff was a perfect type, a perfect hypocrite--and will remain a +type as long as language lives--a hypocrite that even drunkenness could +not change. Everybody understands Pecksniff, and compared with him +Tartuffe was an honest man. Hamlet is an individual, a person, an actual +being--and for that reason there is a difference of opinion ias to his +motives and as to his character. We differ About Hamlet as we do about +Cæsar, or about Shakespeare himself. + +Hamlet saw the ghost of his father and heard again his father's voice, +and yet, afterwards, he speaks of + + "the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns." + +In this there is no contradiction. The reason outweighs the senses. If +we should see a dead man rise from his grave, we would not, the next +day, believe that we did. No one can credit a miracle until it becomes +so common that it ceases to be miraculous. + +Types are puppets--controlled from without--characters act from within. +There is the same difference between characters and types that there +is between springs and water-works, between canals and rivers, between +wooden soldiers and heroes. + +In most plays and in most novels the characters are so shadowy that we +have to piece them out with the imagination. + +One waking in the morning sometimes sees at the foot of his bed a +strange figure--it may be of an ancient lady with cap and ruffles and +with the expression of garrulous and fussy old age--but when the light +gets stronger, the figure gradually changes and he sees a few clothes on +a chair. + +The dramatist lives the lives of others, and in order to delineate +character must not only have imagination but sympathy with the character +delineated. The great dramatist thinks of a character as an entirety, as +an individual. + +I once had a dream, and in this dream I was discussing a subject with +another man. It occurred to me that I was dreaming, and I then said +to myself: If this is a dream, I am doing the talking for both +sides--consequently I ought to know in advance what the other man is +going to say. In my dream I tried the experiment. I then asked the other +man a question, and before he answered made up my mind what the answer +was to be. To my surprise, the man did not say what I expected he would, +and so great was my astonishment that I awoke. + +It then occurred to me that I had discovered the secret of Shakespeare. +He did, when awake, what I did when asleep--that is, he threw off a +character so perfect that it acted independently of him. + +In the delineation of character Shakespeare has no rivals. He creates no +monsters. His characters do not act without reason, without motive. + +Iago had his reasons. In Caliban, nature was not destroyed--and Lady +Macbeth certifies that the woman still was in her heart, by saying: + + "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it." + +Shakespeare's characters act from within. They are centres of energy. +They are not pushed by unseen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. They +have objects, desires. They are persons--real, living beings. + +Few dramatists succeed in getting their characters loose from the +canvas--their backs stick to the wall--they do not have free and +independent action--they have no background, no unexpressed motives--no +untold desires. They lack the complexity of the real. + +Shakespeare makes the character true to itself. Christopher Sly, +surrounded by the luxuries of a lord, true to his station, calls for a +pot of the smallest ale. + +Take one expression by Lady Macbeth. You remember that after the murder +is discovered--after the alarm bell is rung--she appears upon the scene +wanting to know what has happened. Macduff refuses to tell her, saying +that the slightest word would murder as it fell. At this moment Banquo +comes upon the scene and Macduff cries out to him: + + "Our royal master's murdered." + +What does Lady Macbeth then say? She in fact makes a confession of +guilt. The weak point in the terrible tragedy is that Duncan was +murdered in Macbeth's castle. So when Lady Macbeth hears what they +suppose is news to her, she cries: + + "What! In our house!" + +Had she been innocent, her horror of the crime would have made her +forget the place--the venue. Banquo sees through this, and sees through +her. + +Her expression was a light, by which he saw her guilt--and he answers: + + "Too cruel anywhere." + +No matter whether Shakespeare delineated clown or king, warrior or +maiden--no matter whether his characters are taken from the gutter or +the throne--each is a work of consummate art, and when he is unnatural, +he is so splendid that the defect is forgotten. + +When Romeo is told of the death of Juliet, and thereupon makes up his +mind to die upon her grave, he gives a description of the shop where +poison could be purchased. He goes into particulars and tells of the +alligators stuffed, of the skins of ill-shaped fishes, of the beggarly +account of empty boxes, of the remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes +of roses--and while it is hardly possible to believe that under such +circumstances a man would take the trouble to make an inventory of a +strange kind of drug-store, yet the inventory is so perfect--the picture +is so marvellously drawn--that we forget to think whether it is natural +or not. + +In making the frame of a great picture--of a great scene--Shakespeare +was often careless, but the picture is perfect. In making the sides of +the arch he was negligent, but when he placed the keystone, it burst +into blossom. Of course there are many lines in Shakepeare that never +should have been written. In other words, there are imperfections in his +plays. But we must remember that Shakespeare furnished the torch that +enables us to see these imperfections. + +Shakespeare speaks through his characters, and we must not mistake what +the characters say, for the opinion of Shakespeare. No one can believe +that Shakespeare regarded life as "a tale told by an idiot, full of +sound and fury, signifying nothing." That was the opinion of a murderer, +surrounded by avengers, and whose wife--partner in his crimes--troubled +with thick-coming fancies--had gone down to her death. + +Most actors and writers seem to suppose that the lines called "The Seven +Ages" contain Shakespeare's view of human life. Nothing could be farther +from the truth. The lines were uttered by a cynic, in contempt and scorn +of the human race. + +Shakespeare did not put his characters in the livery and uniform of +some weakness, peculiarity or passion. He did not use names as tags or +brands. He did not write under the picture, "This is a villain." His +characters need no suggestive names to tell us what they are--we see +them and we know them for ourselves. + +It may be that in the greatest utterances of the greatest characters in +the supreme moments, we have the real thoughts, opinions and convictions +of Shakespeare. + +Of all writers Shakespeare is the most impersonal.. He speaks through +others, and the others seem to speak for themselves. The didactic is +lost in the dramatic. He does not use the stage as a pulpit to enforce +some maxim. He is as reticent as Nature. + +He idealizes the common and transfigures all he touches--but he does not +preach. He was in-terested in men and things as they were. He did not +seek: to change them--but to portray, he was _Nature's mirror_--and in +that mirror Nature saw herself. + +When I stood amid the great trees of California that lift their +spreading capitals against the clouds, looking like Nature's columns to +support the sky, I thought of the poetry of Shakespeare. + + + + +XI. + +WHAT a procession of men and women--statesmen and warriors--kings and +clowns--issued from Shakespeare's brain. What women! + +Isabella--in whose spotless life love and reason blended into perfect +truth. + +Juliet--within whose heart passion and purity met like white and red +within the bosom of a rose. + +Cordelia--who chose to suffer loss, rather than show her wealth of love +with those who gilded lies in hope of gain. + +Hermione--"tender as infancy and grace"--who bore with perfect hope and +faith the cross of shame, and who at last forgave with all her heart. + +Desdemona--so innocent, so perfect, her love so pure, that she was +incapable of suspecting that another could suspect, and who with dying +words sought to hide her lover's crime--and with her last faint breath +uttered a loving lie that burst into a perfumed lily between her pallid +lips. + +Perdita--A violet dim, and sweeter than the lids of Junos eyes--"The +sweetest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward." And +Helena--who said: + + "I know I love in vain, strive against hope-- + Yet in this captious and intenable sieve + I still pour in the waters of my love, + And lack not to lose still, + Thus, Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adore + The sun that looks upon his worshipper, + But knows of him no more." + +Miranda--who told her love as gladly as a flower gives its bosom to the +kisses of the sun. + +And Cordelia, whose kisses cured and whose tears restored. And stainless +Imogen, who cried: + + "What is it to be false?" + +And here is the description of the perfect woman: + + "To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love; + To keep her constancy in plight and youth-- + Outliving beauty's outward with a mind + That doth renew swifter than blood decays." + +Shakespeare done more for woman than all the other dramatists of the +world. + +For my part. I love the Clowns. I love _Launce_ and his dog Crabb, and +_Gobbo_, whose conscience threw its arms around the neck of his heart, +and _Touchstone_, with his lie seven times removed; and dear old +_Dogberry_--a pretty piece of flesh, tedious as a king. And _Bottom_, +the very paramour for a sweet voice, longing to take the part to tear +a cat in; and _Autolycus_, the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, +sleeping out the thought for the life to come. And great _Sir John_, +without conscience, and for that reason unblamed and enjoyed--and who +at the end babbles of green fields, and is almost loved. And ancient +_Pistol_, the world his oyster. And _Bardolph_, with the flea on his +blazing nose, putting beholders in mind of a damned soul in hell. And +the poor _Fool_, who followed the mad king, and went "to bed at +noon." And the clown who carried the worm of Nilus, whose "biting was +immortal." And _Corin_, the shepherd--who described the perfect man: +"I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat--get that I wear--owe no man +aught--envy no man's happiness--glad of other men's good--content." + +And mingling in this motley throng, _Lear_, within whose brain a tempest +raged until the depths were stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a +life was given back to memory--and then by madness thrown to storm and +night--and when I read the living lines I feel as though I looked upon +the sea and saw it wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried +treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years were cast upon the +shores. + +And _Othello_--who like the base Indian threw a pearl away richer than +all his tribe. + +And _Hamlet_--thought-entangted--hesitating between two worlds. + +And _Macbeth_--strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping +the sure harvest of successful crime--"Curses not loud but +deep--mouth-honor,--breath." + +And _Brutus_, falling on his sword that Cæsar might be still. + +And _Romeo_, dreaming of the white wonder of Juliet's hand. And +_Ferdinand_, the patient log-man for Miranda's sake. And _Florizel_, +who, "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the +profound seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born lass. And +_Constance_, weeping for her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant +garments with his form." + +And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, +we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human +heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts +of good and evil--and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old +nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that +hurries by a ruined mill. + +From every side the characters crowd upon us--the men and women born of +Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of +the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and +vividly as though they really lived with us. + +Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase--has +ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has +imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a +position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It +is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into +blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine +perfume. + +In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to +gold--passions became virtues--weeds became exotics, from some diviner +land--and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian +Gods. In his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests +the infinite--that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and +mathematical--dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is +tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and +waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted +gold and unnumbered gems. + +Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the +Greeks, and the music of Wagner. + + + + +XII. + +Shakespeare was the greatest of philosophers. + +He knew the conditions of success--of happiness--the relations _that men, +sustain_ to each other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and +currents of the heart--the cliffs and caverns of the brain. He knew the +weakness of the will, the sophistry of desire--and "That pleasure +and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true +decision." + +He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world--that flesh is but a +mask, and that "There is no art to find the mind's construction In the +face." + +He knew that courage should be the servant of judgment, and that + + "When valor preys on reason it eats the sword It fights with." + +He knew that man is never "master of the event, that he is to some +extent the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that + + "In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men." + +Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen +is as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says: + + "Let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way." + +Shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers +happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. Looking in +pity upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and +cruelties, the limping travelers on the thorny paths, he was great and +good enough to say: + + "There is no darkness but ignorance." + +In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This great truth fills +the heart with pity. + +He knew that place and power do not give happiness--that the crowned are +subject as the lowest to fate and chance. + + "Within the hollow crown + That rounds the mortal temples of a king + Keeps death his Court, and there the antic sits + Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, + Allowing him a brief and little scene + To monarchize by fear and kill with looks, + Infusing him with self and vain conceit-- + As if this flesh that walls about our life + Were brass impregnable; and humored thus, + Comes at the last and with a little pin + Bores through his castle wall--and farewell king!" + +So, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy--that death and +misfortune come alike to rich and poor, because: + + "If thou art rich thou art poor; + For like an ass whose back with ingots bows + Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, + And death unloads thee." + +In some of his philosophy there was a kind of scorn--a hidden meaning +that could not in his day and time have safely been expressed. You will +remember that Laertes was about to kill the king, and this king was the +murderer of his own brother, and sat upon the throne by reason of his +crime--and in the mouth of such a king Shakespeare puts these words: + + "There's such divinity doth hedge a king." + +So, in Macbeth + + "How he solicits + Heaven himself best knows; but strangely visited people + All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, + The mere despairs of surgery, he cures; + Hanging a golden stamp about their necks. + Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken + To the succeeding royalty--he leaves + The healing benediction. + + "With this strange virtue + He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, + And sundry blessings hang about his throne, + That speak him full of grace." + +Shakespeare was the master of the human heart--knew all the hopes, fears, +ambitions, and passions that sway the mind of man; and thus knowing, he +declared that + + "Love is not love that alters + When it alteration finds." + +This is the sublimest declaration in the literature of the world. + +Shakespeare seems to give the generalization--the result--without the +process of thought. He seems always to be at the conclusion--standing +where all truths meet. + +In one of the Sonnets is this fragment of a line that contains the +highest possible truth: + + "Conscience is born of love." + +If man were incapable of suffering, the words right and wrong never +could have been spoken. If man were destitute of imagination, the flower +of pity never could have blossomed in his heart. + +We suffer--we cause others to suffer--those that we love--and of this +fact conscience is born. + +Love is the many-colored flame that makes the fireside of the heart. It +is the mingled spring and autumn--the perfect climate of the soul. + + + + +XIII. + +IN the realm of comparison Shakespeare seems to have exhausted the +relations, parallels and similitudes of things, He only could have said: + + "Tedious as a twice-told tale + Vexing the ears of a drowsy man." + + "Duller than a great thaw. + Dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." + +In the words of Ulysses, spoken to Achilles, we find the most wonderful +collection of pictures and comparisons ever compressed within the same +number of lines: + + "Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, + Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,-- + A great-sized monster of ingratitudes-- + Those scraps are good deeds passed; which are devoured + As fast as they are made, forgot as soon + As done; perseverance, dear my lord, + Keeps honor bright: to have done is to hang + Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. + + "Take the instant way; + For honor travels in a strait so narrow + Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path; + For emulation hath a thousand sons + That one by one pursue; if you give way, + Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, + Like to an entered tide, they all rush by + And leave you hindmost: + Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, + Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, + O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present, + Tho' less than yours in past, must o' ertop yours; + For time is like a fashionable host + That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, + And with his arms outstretched as he would fly, + Grasps in the comer: + Welcome ever smiles, + And Farewell goes out sighing." + +So the words of Cleopatra, when Charmain speaks: + + "Peace, peace: + Dost thou not see my baby at my breast + That sucks the nurse asleep?" + + + + +XIV. + +NOTHING is more difficult than a definition--a crystallization of +thought so perfect that it emits light. Shakespeare says of suicide: + + "It is great to do that thing + That ends all other deeds, + Which shackles accident, and bolts up change." + +He defines drama to be: + + "Turning the accomplishments of many years + Into an hour glass." + +Of death: + + "This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod, + To lie in cold obstruction and to rot." + +Of memory: + + "The warder of the brain." + +Of the body: + + "This muddy vesture of decay." + +And he declares that + + "Our little life is rounded with a sleep." + +He speaks of Echo as: + + "The babbling gossip of the air"-- + +Romeo, addressing the poison that he is about to take, says: + + "Come, bitter conduct, come unsavory guide, + Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on + The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark." + +He describes the world as + + "This bank and shoal of time." + +He says of rumor-- + + "That it doubles, like the voice and echo." + +It would take days to call attention to the perfect definitions, +comparisons and generalizations of Shakespeare. He gave us the deeper +meanings of our words--taught us the art of speech. He was the lord of +language--master of expression and compression. + +He put the greatest thoughts into the shortest words--made the poor rich +and the common royal. + +Production enriched his brain. Nothing exhausted him. The moment his +attention was called to any subject--comparisons, definitions, metaphors +and generalizations filled his mind and begged for utterance. His +thoughts like bees robbed every blossom in the world, and then with +"merry march" brought the rich booty home "to the tent royal of their +emperor." + +Shakespeare was the confidant of Nature. To him she opened her "infinite +book of secrecy," and in his brain were "the hatch and brood of time." + + + + +XV. + +THERE is in Shakespeare the mingling of laughter and tears, humor and +pathos. Humor is the rose, wit the thorn. Wit is a crystallization, +humor an efflorescence. Wit comes from the brain, humor from the heart. +Wit is the lightning of the soul. + +In Shakespeare's nature was the climate of humor. He saw and felt the +sunny side even of the saddest things. "You have seen sunshine and rain +at once." So Shakespeare's tears fell oft upon his smiles. In moments of +peril--on the very darkness of death--there comes a touch of humor that +falls like a fleck of sunshine. + +Gonzalo, when the ship is about to sink, having seen the boatswain, +exclaims: + + "I have great comfort from this fellow; + Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; + His complexion is perfect gallows." + +Shakespeare is filled with the strange contrasts of grief and laughter. +While poor Hero is supposed to be dead--wrapped in the shroud of +dishonor--Dogberry and Verges unconsciously put again the wedding wreath +upon her pure brow. + +The soliloquy of Launcelot--great as Hamlet's--offsets the bitter and +burning words of Shylock. + +There is only time to speak of Maria in "Twelfth Night," of Autolycus in +the "Winter's Tale," of the parallel drawn by Fluellen between Alexander +of Macedon and Harry of Monmouth, or of the marvellous humor of +Falstaff, who never had the faintest thought of right or wrong--or of +Mercutio, that embodiment of wit and humor--for of the grave-diggers who +lamented that "great folk should have countenance in this world to drown +and hang themselves, more than their even Christian," and who reached +the generalization that + + "the gallows does well because it does well to those who do ill." + +There is also an example of grim humor--an example without a parallel in +literature, so far as I know. Hamlet having killed Polonius is asked: + + "Where's Polonais?" + "At supper." + "At supper! where?" + "Not where he eats, but where he is eaten." + +Above all others, Shakespeare appreciated the pathos of situation. + +Nothing is more pathetic than the last scene in "Lear." No one has +ever bent above his dead who did not feel the words uttered by the mad +king,--words born of a despair deeper than tears: + + "Oh, that a horse, a dog, a rat hath life + And thou no breath!" + +So Iago, after he has been wounded, says: + + "I bleed, sir; but not killed." + +And Othello answers from the wreck and shattered remnant of his life: + + "I would have thee live; + For in my sense it is happiness to die." + +When Troilus finds Cressida has been false, he cries: + + "Let it not be believed for womanhood; + Think! we had mothers." + +Ophelia, in her madness, "the sweet bells jangled out o' tune," says +softly: + + "I would give you some violets; + But they withered all when my father died." + +When Macbeth has reaped the harvest, the seeds of which were sown by his +murderous hand, he exclaims,--and what could be more pitiful? + + "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun." + +Richard the Second feels how small a thing it is to be, or to have been, +a king, or to receive honors before or after power is lost; and so, of +those who stood uncovered before him, he asks this piteous question: + + "I live with bread, like you; feel want, + Taste grief, need friends; subjected thus, + How can you say to me I am a king?" + +Think of the salutation of Antony to the dead Cæsar: + + "Pardon me, thou piece of bleeding earth." + +When Pisanio informs Imogen that he had been ordered by Posthumus to +murder her, she bares her neck and cries: + + "The lamb entreats the butcher: + Where is thy knife? + Thou art too slow + To do thy master's bidding when I desire it." + +Antony, as the last drops are falling from his self-inflicted wound, +utters with his dying breath to Cleopatra, this: + + "I here importune death awhile, until + Of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips." + +To me, the last words of Hamlet are full of pathos: + + "I die, Horatio. + The potent poison quite o'er crows my spirit * * * + The rest is silence." + + + + +XVI. + +SOME have insisted that Shakespeare must have been a physician, for +the reason that he shows such knowledge of medicine--of the symptoms of +disease and death--was so familiar with the brain, and with insanity in +all its forms. + +I do not think he was a physician. He knew too much--his generalizations +were too splendid. He had none of the prejudices of that profession +in his time. We might as well say that he was a musician, a composer, +because we find in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" nearly every musical +term known in Shakespeare's time. + +Others maintain that he was a lawyer, perfectly acquainted with the +forms, with the expressions familiar to that profession--yet there is +nothing to show that he was a lawyer, or that he knew more about law +than any intelligent man should know. + +He was not a lawyer. His sense of justice was never dulled by reading +English law. + +Some think that he was a botanist, because he named nearly all known +plants. Others, that he was an astronomer, a naturalist, because he gave +hints and suggestions of nearly all discoveries. + +Some have thought that he must have been a sailor, for the reason that +the orders given in the opening of "The Tempest" were the best that +could, under the circumstances, have been given to save the ship. + +For my part, I think there is nothing in the plays to show that he was +a lawyer, doctor, botanist or scientist. He had the observant eyes +that really see, the ears that really hear, the brain that retains all +pictures, all thoughts, logic as unerring as light, the imagination +that supplies defects and builds the perfect from a fragment. And these +faculties, these aptitudes, working together, account for what he did. + +He exceeded all the sons of men in the splendor of his imagination. To +him the whole world paid tribute, and nature poured her treasures at his +feet. In him all races lived again, and even those to be were pictured +in his brain. + +He was a man of imagination--that is to say, of genius, and having seen +a leaf, and a drop of water, he could construct the forests, the rivers, +and the seas--and in his presence all the cataracts would fall and foam, +the mists rise, the clouds form and float. + +If Shakespeare knew one fact, he knew its kindred and its neighbors. +Looking at a coat of mail, he instantly imagined the society, the +conditions, that produced it and what it, in turn, produced. He saw +the castle, the moat, the draw-bridge, the lady in the tower, and the +knightly lover spurring across the plain. He saw the bold baron and the +rude retainer, the trampled serf, and all the glory and the grief of +feudal life. + +He lived the life of all. + +He was a citizen of Athens in the days of Pericles. He listened to the +eager eloquence of the great orators, and sat upon the cliffs, and with +the tragic poet heard "the multitudinous laughter of the sea." He saw +Socrates thrust the spear of question through the shield and heart of +falsehood. He was present when the great man drank hemlock, and met the +night of death, tranquil as a star meets morning. He listened to the +peripatetic philosophers, and was unpuzzled by the sophists. He watched +Phidias as he chiseled shapeless stone to forms of love and awe. + +He lived by the mysterious Nile, amid the vast and monstrous. He knew +the very thought that wrought the form and features of the Sphinx. He +heard great Memnon's morning song when marble lips were smitten by +the sun. He laid him down with the embalmed and waiting dead, and felt +within their dust the expectation of another life, mingled with cold and +suffocating doubts--the children born of long delay. + +He walked the ways of mighty Rome, and saw great Cæsar with his legions +in the field. He stood with vast and motley throngs and watched the +triumphs given to victorious men, followed by uncrowned kings, the +captured hosts, and all the spoils of ruthless war. He heard the +shout that shook the Coliseums roofless walls, when from the reeling +gladiator's hand the short sword fell, while from his bosom gushed the +stream of wasted life. + +He lived the life of savage men. He trod the forests' silent depths, and +in the desperate game of life or death he matched his thought against +the instinct of the beast. + +He knew all crimes and all regrets, all virtues and their rich rewards. +He was victim and victor, pursuer and pursued, outcast and king. He +heard the applause and curses of the world, and on his heart had fallen +all the nights and noons of failure and success. + +He knew the unspoken thoughts, the dumb desires, the wants and ways of +beasts. He felt the crouching tigers thrill, the terror of the ambushed +prey, and with the eagles he had shared the ecstasy of flight and poise +and swoop, and he had lain with sluggish serpents on the barren rocks +uncoiling slowly in the heat of noon. + +He sat beneath the bo-tree's contemplative shade, wrapped in Buddha's +mighty thought, and dreamed all dreams that light, the alchemist, has +wrought from dust and dew, and stored within the slumbrous poppy's +subtle blood. + +He knelt with awe and dread at every shrine--he offered every sacrifice, +and every prayer--felt the consolation and the shuddering fear--mocked +and worshipped all the gods--enjoyed all heavens, and felt the pangs of +every hell. + +He lived all lives, and through his blood and brain there crept the +shadow and the chill of every death, and his soul, like Mazeppa, was +lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and love and hate. + +The Imagination had a stage in Shakespeare's brain, whereon were set all +scenes that lie between the morn of laughter and the night of tears, and +where his players bodied forth the false and true, the joys and griefs, +the careless shallows and the tragic deeps of universal life. + +From Shakespeare's brain there poured a Niagara of gems spanned by +Fancy's seven-hued arch. He was as many-sided as clouds are many-formed. +To him giving was hoarding--sowing was harvest--and waste itself the +source of wealth. Within his marvellous mind were the fruits of all +thought past, the seeds of all to be. As a drop of dew contains the +image of the earth and sky, so all there is of life was mirrored forth +in Shakespeare's brain. + +Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the +shores of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny +and will; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; +upon which fell the gloom and darkness of despair and death and all the +sunlight of content and love, and within which was the inverted sky lit +with the eternal stars--an intellectual ocean--towards which all rivers +ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive +their dew and rain. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shakespeare, by Robert G. 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