After dinner in the cabin we moved our chairs out under the trees, and
The Man said:
“Yes, I know you wish to hear more about Shakespeare, but before I
tell you more of his personal history, let us consider two or three
facts in reference to him. First, you know he was not technically a
scholar. Between him and the great ancient hearts he was to read there
intervened no frosty twilight of antiquarian lore. He had not to clip
and measure and adjust amid moth-eaten cerements and rusty armor that
he might be able to fashion forth the exterior and shell of times long
since gone by, but only to cast asunder the gates of the human heart,
that those deathless notes might be heard which are the undertone of
human emotion in all times.
“Well it was that he who was to give to our tongue that tune which it
was never to lose, whose language, exhaustless in range, in delicacy,
force and extent, taking every hue of thought or feeling, of good and
base alike, as the sky takes shade or shadow, or as the forest takes
storm or calm, was to remain forever the emblem of the multitudinous
life, as contrasted with that affected gravity and ossified
scholasticism which we so often see--was tempted by no familiarity with
ancient writing to any formal rotundity or college-professor mannerism
of diction. His audience is the world, and the numbers increase as
civilization grows--he moves to-day a broader stratum of human sympathy
than any other man who ever lived save one--and this could not have
been had he passed into that narrow chamber called a school. And yet no
four walls of a college could have held him, for he of all men would
have been least apt to prefer the poor glitter of learned paint to
God’s sunlight of living smiles. When one thinks how much learning has
done to veil genius and impede progress, it is impossible to suppress
a sense of satisfaction at the thought that the greatest author of all
mankind was not learned! His only teacher was nature, his only need was
freedom. Who gave him this?--_a woman_!
“Now do not suppose that I have no sympathy with colleges, for no man
knows their worth better than I; but it is better to build for eternity
than for a Regents’ examination. Another thing you must remember is
that Shakespeare was surrounded by no circle of admirers. Healthy,
whole-hearted, it never occurred to him to ask what precise position
he might occupy in the world of letters. He did his work for the
approbation of one alone, and she being pleased he was content.
“No jealousy, strife or contention, do you see on that smooth brow; no
hate or fear of unjust rivalry. He was monarch of one loving, truthful,
trusting heart, so what cared he for popular applause? A prophet has
said, ‘Oh, thou foul Circean draught of popular applause, thy end is
madness and the grave!’ This most subtle and deadly of all poisons
was never mingled in the cup of Shakespeare, and never can be in that
of anyone if they work only for the applause of honest love, that can
dissemble not. To work for popular applause is to court death; to
succeed in winning it, is to be carried to the pinnacle of the temple
and cast upon the stones beneath.
“If a man toil for the good-will of the multitude, there will come as
sure as fate, the time when the egotism of acquirement will render
callous day by day all of his finer perceptions, kill his delicate
sensibilities, destroy his manhood. No longer will he hold the mirror
up to nature; no longer will the ray of light shine through the prism,
reflecting the beauty of the rainbow--he is opaque, dead; and the only
sound he gives is ego, _Ego_, EGO.
“Need I give illustrations? Look about you on every hand. Where in all
the realm of books is the author free from this taint! But yes, there
are some. This century has seen a few, but you can count them on the
fingers of one hand. Hero worship is twice cursed. It bewilders the
hero into fantastic error and extravagance, and the fools who worship
accept for a time anything the man whom they have damned sets before
them and proclaim it truth. They extol his eccentricities into models,
his follies into virtues. Thus does hero worship work double harm.
“What is the cure? Is oblivion the only good? Is to do, to die? If I
achieve must my life go out like that of certain insects who die in the
act of generation? Wise men ask these questions over and over again. I
give you the answer. It is this--_Together man and woman were put out
of Eden. Only together hand in hand can they return._
“Woman’s love saved Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s love saved the woman,
although the world knows her not as yet. He never realized his power,
and if it had been told him that his name would go thundering down
the ages, the greatest literary name of all times, he would have been
staggered with incredulity; for if a man ever realizes or imagines he
is at the top, at once his head grows dizzy. But never fear, the heart
of woman can hold him firm. Duality exists throughout all nature. A man
alone is only half a man--a woman alone is only half a woman. The man
and woman make the perfect man. There is the male man and the female
man. Only where these two half spirits work together can they reach
perfection. For every woman there is somewhere on the earth, or in
the spirit realm a mate, for every man there is his other half; and
some time in this life or in another they will meet, and no priest
or justice of the peace can join what God has not ordained. But when
the right man meets the right woman and they live rightly, there is
an atmosphere formed where no poisonous draught can enter. These two
will say, ‘_Between us there must be honesty and truth for evermore._’
Then each will work for the approbation of the other; there will be no
flattery, for there is honesty; there will be commendation always when
deserved, but no fulsome praise. Neither will excel the other. Each
may be able to do certain things better than the other, so there will
ever be a friendly rivalry for good. The tendency to grow egotistical
is ever corrected, the poison is constantly neutralized, for how can
you be egotistical when you only work for the approbation of one who
has contributed to your work as much as you? There is ever a sharing of
every joy, of every exalted thought, of every acquisition; so the good
gained is fused. There is a perfect commingling. It is not ‘mine,’ nor
‘thine,’ but ‘ours.’ No selfish satisfaction can you take in your own
attainment when by your side stands another as great as yourself. You
are gentle, modest, and you two working together cannot but recognize a
higher power, a greater than you, a Source you look up to, and ever do
you say, ‘Not unto us, not unto us.’ Thus is growth attained and thus
only can perfection be reached.
“Of course I know that some men are not as able as some women; and
that some men have wives who are only echoes; and that there are
men who in their blindness desire nothing else--but a woman who can
only applaud her husband is fixing him in untruth, and they are each
dragging the other down. For we only need the applause of those who
are our equals, otherwise they will not discern but will applaud
simply because we say it. Then once having tasted blood we resort to
sophistry, trickery and device, knowing we can deceive, to win this
deadly thing our morbid souls do crave.
“Well do I know that as the highest joys of sense and soul come from
love, and sadly do I say it, love misplaced, diverted, thwarted,
causes more misery, heartaches, sickness, death, than all other causes
combined. The throes of childbirth were sent as punishment for love
wrongly used, and this awful curse can yet be cured; not in this life
perhaps, but it will come, for God did not design that life should be
sacrificed in order that others still might also have life.”