Sunday morning came. The day was perfect. Great white billowy clouds
floated lazily across the face of the blue ether, a gentle breeze
scarcely noticeable stirred the leaves of the trees, and all nature
seemed sublime. The birds twittered in the pine-trees as we walked
beneath, and the air was saturated with health and healing.
The Man had told me the week before that what he would tell me to-day
was of much importance--that I need not write it down at once for I
could not forget. Naturally I was somewhat expectant.
“You have read Shakespeare some of course,” he began. “Yes, I know,
at school, and then you have seen his plays. This has given you a
glimpse of his mind; but one could study years, certainly much longer
than it took him to write them, and then not get the full import of
Shakespeare’s words. Still, the difference between your mind and that
of Shakespeare is not so great as one might at first imagine. You
yourself think great thoughts--they come to you at times in great
waves, almost threatening to engulf you; high and holy aspirations;
sublime impulses, that you dare not attempt to put in words for mortal
ear, for you doubt your own strength, and also fear you will be
misunderstood. So your best thought is never expressed, for there is
no receptacle where you can pour it out--you feel that you go through
life alone, so the thought goes through your brain in the twinkling of
a second and is gone forever.
“All persons think great thoughts--few have the power to seize the
electric spark and clothe it in words. Now just to that extent that
you understand Shakespeare, are you his equal. If you see a beautiful
thought recorded and detect its beauty, it was already yours or you
would not have recognized it. It was yours before, but you never
claimed your heritage. That same thought had gone floating through your
brain, either in this life or a former one, but you failed to hold
it fast; but when it comes back from the lips of the preacher, or is
whispered to you from out pages of a great writer you say, ‘Ah yes, how
true! I have thought the same thing myself.’
“Now Shakespeare had the faculty (and a more or less mechanical one
it is) of seizing with a grasp as strong as iron and as soft as
silken cord, every sublime thought that passed through his mind. Your
troop of fancies run wild over the prairies of imagination, mine and
Shakespeare’s are harnessed and bridled. We guide or lead them where
we will; we master them, not they us. The beautiful thought you rode
on like a whirlwind yesterday, where is it now? You strive to recall
it--but no, all is dark, misty, and obscure. It has gone!
“Now under right conditions you can call up these glowing, prancing
thoughts at will, orderly, one at a time, clean and complete as race
horses where each is led before you by a competent groom; not in a
wild rush of frenzy that leaves you afterward depleted and depressed,
but gently, surely, firmly--_but the conditions must be right_. Now
what are these conditions, you ask. Well, if I describe to you the
conditions that surrounded Shakespeare from the year 1585 when he went
to London, to 1615 when he returned to Stratford, you will then know
what are the right conditions for mental growth.
“The mother of William Shakespeare, Mary Arden, was a great and noble
woman. Words elude me when I attempt to describe her! Soul secretes
body, and how can I have you see the dwelling-place of this great and
lofty spirit as I now behold it with my inward eyes? Tall, rather than
otherwise, a willowy lithe form that was strong as whalebone, yet
at first you would have thought her delicate; hair light, inclining
to auburn, wavy; her eyes heaven’s own blue, with a dreamy far-away
expression, not fixed on things of earth, but looking into the beyond.
She saw things others never saw, she heard music that came not to the
ears of others. Her face I cannot describe! Some envious women said she
was homely, for her features were rather large and irregular; but a few
saw in that face the look of gentle greatness, for the really great are
always gentle and modest. They speak with lowered voice--they hesitate.
Is it fear? They are silent when we say they should affirm--and Pilate
marveled.
“This woman bore eight children, four boys and four girls. Only one
of these attained eminence--this was her third child. The others were
born under seemingly equal favorable circumstances, but the spirit she
called to her when she conceived in that year 1563, was of a different
nature from that which prevailed with the other seven. She was then
thirty-one years old; her mind working in the direction of the Ideal;
her life calm; all of the surroundings at their best. But we must
hasten on.”
I had brought my stenographic notebook, and almost from the first I
took the words of The Man exact, as I feared I would not remember
them. We were seated on a log under the great pine-trees, and as The
Man talked slowly, I got the exact words as I give them to you in this
book. The Man continued:
“John Shakespeare was not the equal of his wife by any means, but a
good man withal, who loved his wife and feared her just a little.
She was good and gentle, yet so self-reliant in spite of her seeming
sensitiveness, that the good man could never fully comprehend her; but
he ever treated her with the awkward yet becoming tenderness of the
great, strong, hairy, simple-hearted man that he was.
“William caused his parents more trouble and sorrow than all the
other children together. They could not comprehend him at all. He was
smart, yet would not study; he was strong, yet would not work except
by spells. He would disappear from the task at which he had been set,
and be found lying on his back out under the trees, looking up through
the branches at the great white clouds floating in the sky. He had
hiding-places all his own in the woods and glens where he would spend
hours alone, and yet in the childish frolics and games of youth he
could always hold his own.
“At eighteen (I hate to think of those awful times) he married Anne
Hathaway, ten years his senior. This woman was delivered of a child one
month after her marriage. I could tell you the full details of that
affair; of how he married this ignorant and stupid woman to defend
another, but let us pass over it lightly. The world need not know the
bad, it hears too much of it now. Let us only dwell on the good, think
the good, speak the good, and we will then live the good.
“For three years Shakespeare ostensibly lived with this woman, who was
whimsical, ignorant, fault-finding, jealous--ever upbraiding and too
fond of giving advice, and a most uncleanly and slovenly housekeeper
beside. When he married her Shakespeare accepted her for better for
worse, it proved to be worse, but he was determined to endure and live
it out; but after three years of purgatory he brushed away the starting
tears, took a few small necessary things, tied them in a handkerchief,
and without saying ‘good-bye’ even to the dear mother whom he loved
(although she did not understand him), started on foot for London,
anxious to lose himself in the great throng. He arrived penniless,
ragged and footsore, and sought vainly for employment; but what
could the poor country boy do? No trade, no education, no experience
with practical things! If he had been used to the manners of polite
people he could have hired out as a servant; but, alas! he was only
a country boor, unused to city ways, and driven almost to the verge
of starvation, he hung about the entrance to the theatre, and offered
to hold the horses of visitors who went within. At this he picked up
enough to pay for his scanty food and lodging. Besides holding horses
he carried a lantern, and increased his little income by attending
people home after the play, going before carrying lantern and staff.
London streets, you know, were not lighted in those days, and robbers
were also plentiful under cover of the night, so strong young men able
to give protection were needed. Occasionally he was called into the
theatre to act as a soldier or supernumerary.
“One night he was engaged to attend a lady and her daughter from
their home to the play, and back again after the performance. This
woman was the widow of an Italian nobleman, Bowenni by name, who was
driven from his home for political reasons. He died in London leaving
the widow and daughter with an income which by prudent management
was amply sufficient for their needs. The daughter was twenty-four
years old at the time I have mentioned, a girl of most rare education
and refinement. Like all Italians she was a born linguist, and spoke
French, German, Greek and Latin with fluency. Her father was a scholar,
and for years he was the tutor and the only playmate of this daughter.
Together they studied Homer and Plato (the wonders of Greece were just
then for the first time being opened up in England), and the beauties
of the French Moralists they dissected day by day with ever increasing
delight; for the girl had that fine glad recipiency for the trinity of
truth, beauty and goodness, each of which comprehends the other. Her
father took good care that only the best of mental nourishment should
be hers. In their exile they had traveled through Egypt, spent months
in Denmark, Spain and Portugal, knew Rome, Venice and the Mediterranean
by heart, and wherever they went, the father secured the best books
of the place--for you must remember that in those days the books of an
author very seldom went out of his own country, certainly were never
offered for sale in other countries, and the works of French dramatists
were almost unknown in England.
“After our youth had left the mother and daughter at the door of their
dwelling, and they had entered, the daughter asked: ‘My mother, didst
thou notice the respectful attitude of the young man whom we engaged to
attend us?--how alert he was to see that no accident did befall us? Yet
he spoke no word, nor forced on us attention, but only seemed intent on
his duty doing.’
“‘Yes,’ said the mother, ‘a youth of goodly parts and fair to view
withal; not large in stature, but strong. He does not bear himself
pompously, and bend back as other servants do; but the manly chest--it
leads, and methinks the crown is in its proper place. We will him
engage again, for honest work well done shall ever bring its own
reward.’
“But I must hasten on, and not spend time with mere detail. Suffice it
to say, that the young man was hired to attend the noble lady and the
daughter to the theatre each Thursday night, and that after four weeks
the daughter suggested that as the young man was so gentlemanly in his
bearing, so modest, and of such comely features, that there would be no
harm for him to attend them as their friend and escort. ‘No one need
know,’ she naïvely said, and after much misgiving on the mother’s part
the plan was suggested to the young man, who only bowed with uncovered
head and said, ‘Madame, I am your hired servant, and therefore at your
service to do all that you may command, which cannot be but right.’
“So suitable raiment was purchased, and when the youth appeared the
women were much surprised to see a perfect gentleman, grave, and ‘to
the manor born.’ No longer now did he hold horses at the entrance,
but occasionally appeared on the stage in a non-speaking part, at
which times the young Italian lady saw but one figure on the stage.
The mother and the young man often when walking homeward discussed
the play, and the young man seemed to remember each part, and would
repeat entire stanzas when asked to do so, word for word; and then
with no show of egotism but frankly, say ‘It should have been thus
expressed--or thus.’ To all of which the mother and daughter made no
answer, but looked at each other in amazement to think that one who had
not traveled, and knew not the ways of courts, nor had scarcely learned
to read, could make amends to Marlowe.
“One night before the play the manager appeared and offered five and
twenty pounds as reward for the best play--all given by the Earl of
Southampton. After the play as they walked home, flushed were the
daughter’s cheeks, and fast beat her heart. Her blood ran high, as in
mad riot. She scarcely seemed to touch the earth as fast she walked and
held fast and fast and tighter still to the young man’s arm. At last he
turned his face--his eyes met hers--her voice came with a bound--
“‘The play--the play’s the thing! We’ll write it--you and I! The plot?
It’s mine already, all in a big French book, musty and hid away. Yes,
the plot we’ll borrow and give it back again if France demand. Ha--you,
William, come to-morrow night, and you shall write it out in your own
matchless words while I translate. The play’s the thing--the play is
the thing!’
“Thus spoke the impetuous Italian girl, and the mother was much
surprised at the wild outburst of her artless child, but gave assent,
and gently the mother mused in accent low as echo answers voice--‘The
play’s the thing!’ And the young man to himself, as homeward he did
stroll, did softly say, ‘The play’s the thing! The play’s the thing!’”