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.
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 afterward 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:
Blest 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.