“The disappointment caused by the harsh rejection of this first play
of William Shakespeare and Harriette Bowenni was not great. Each had
had a more than speaking acquaintanceship with sorrow, and trouble is
only comparative anyway; so they looked upon the matter rather as a
thing to be expected, an amusing circumstance. _They knew the play was
better than the one accepted_, and that was enough. ‘Is not William
Shakespeare just as great as though his name _was_ on the bill board?’
the lady said. Another reason that made them look on the matter lightly
was that each read their fate in the other’s face, and as long as no
separation is threatened love not only laughs at locksmiths but at all
disaster. No awkward love-making scene had ever come between them,
no formal declaration. As he wrote that first night, the young man
unconsciously reached out his hand toward the girl. She took it, and
held it lovingly between her own. When they parted he stooped and their
lips met.
“When next they walked along the street, among other things he said, ‘I
love you, dear.’ The young woman made no sign of surprise, but when
she wrote to him the following day (strange how lovers find excuse to
write so often!), there were terms of endearment, all inserted without
apology. No wooing--no effort at winning--no affected coyness. They
loved, and true love need not be ashamed, for ’tis God’s own gift, and
given only to the worthy.
“Each day she wrote a letter to her lover--each day he wrote to her.
These messages were often in verse, and part of them are preserved in
the sonnets of Shakespeare, one hundred and fifty-four in number. These
sonnets, it will be noticed, have no special relation one to the other.
Part, it can be seen, are written by a woman to her lover. Mixed in
with these are others written by a man. You will notice that in those
written by the woman she entreats the young man to marry, and expresses
much regret and surprise that though he loves her well he will not wed.
“These sonnets were first published in 1609, and were dedicated--
“‘_To Mr. W. H. Their onlie begetter._’
“The W stands for William, the H for Harriette. The prefix of ‘Mr.’
is a mere whimsicality, (a thing all lovers are guilty of, yet which
we are ever ready to forgive), simply to mystify the world. The first
twenty-six of these sonnets were written by Harriette during the years
1585 and 1586, before she knew that Shakespeare was already married;
and the perplexity in her ignorance of the real facts of his life can
be imagined.
“Long years after these letters were written, Shakespeare turned those
which were not already in rhyme into verse for his and her amusement,
and now that they had come to know each other perfectly and the
oneness was complete, many was the laugh they had over their youthful
trials. Anyone who will read the Sonnets, _Venus and Adonis_ and the
_Passionate Pilgrim_, and read them carefully in the light of what I
now tell, will get a clear idea of the first few years’ relations of
Shakespeare and this beautiful and accomplished young woman. I do not
attempt to defend the style or wording of these poems. They are written
in all the hot restless desire of youth where flesh is not ruled by
soul--where the earthy is not yet transmuted into the spiritual.
“Said ‘rare Ben Jonson’--‘I loved the man, and do reverence his memory
on this side of idolatry as much as any! He was honest and of an open
and free nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions and excellent
expressions, wherein he flowed with such facility that sometimes it was
necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power--would the
rule of it had been so too! but he redeemed his vices with his virtues.
There was in him ever more to be praised than pardoned. The players
have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare that in his writing
whatsoe’er he penned he never blotted out a line. My answer has been,
Would he had blotted out a thousand.’
“So with Ben Jonson I say, Oh would that these two had left unwritten a
thousand lines!--but who shall dictate to genius?
“When Shakespeare left Stratford he attempted to leave the last year’s
dwelling for the new--to steal the shining archway through--close
up the idle door. The past was to him dead. He did not hug it to
his heart, mourn over it, and attempt to kiss it back to life. He
said, ‘The past we cannot recall, the future we cannot reach, the
present only is ours.’ So with no attempt at concealment, yet with no
disclosure of his history, he said to Harriette Bowenni:
“‘That I do love you, you do know; that I do desire to wed you, you may
guess; and that I cannot is but fact. Now why should speak I more? You
put your arms about my neck and swear your faith in pretty verse, and
next you contradict this faith by still demanding _Why_? No! If I say
it is not best, is not that _Why_ enough?’
“In sonnet number twenty the appearance of Shakespeare is described at
this time. A writer says, ‘He has a lady’s face and scarce a beard.’
“Harriette urged the youth to leave his shabby lodgings, marry her, and
take up his abode with her and her mother; and in _Venus and Adonis_
we hear of the number of noble lovers that had sought her hand, and yet
she almost on her knees besought William to wed her. In a spirit of
jolly ridicule of this wooing on the part of Harriette, he wrote the
poem of _Venus and Adonis_ and presented it to her. In this poem you
will notice he represents himself as cold and unfeeling, when the real
truth is he was just as full of desire to marry as she; but the divorce
laws of England at that time were very strict, so much so that only the
rich or influential could secure a divorce at all.
“Shakespeare should have been frank with this girl and told her his
history at once, but he did not do so until over a year after their
first acquaintance. You can well imagine the surprise of mother and
daughter when he one night said, ‘Come, my history you would know.
Well, I’ll run it through, even from my boyish days, to the very moment
that you bade me tell it,’ and so he told from childhood to the time
he took one last look at the little village and set his face toward
London. The story being done she gave him for his pains a world of
sighs. She swore in faith ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange, ’twas
pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful! she wished she had not heard it. Yet
she wished that heaven had made her such a man. She thanked him, and
bade him if he had a friend that lov’d her, he should teach him how to
tell the story, and that would woo her. On this hint he spake:
“‘Now you do know full well why I, according to England’s law, do not
you wed--yet heaven hath decreed it so. You are my rightful mate; and
here and now, in the sacred presence of her who brought you forth, I do
declare you shall be from now henceforth my true and only wife.’
“Madame Bowenni was generous, gentle and good, a woman of most rare
and discriminating mind, great and loving. Years had not soured nor
turned to dross the great and tender heart. She knew for her daughter
to accept William Shakespeare for her husband without the consent of
England’s law, would not be the one thousandth part the sin as to see
her wed a man she did not love, although good and noble the man might
be. So Shakespeare took up his abode with this fair lady, and was a
faithful and true husband to her, and she a loving and true wife till
death called her hence.
“Harriette Bowenni died in the year 1614, leaving one child,
Shakespeare’s only son. Anne Hathaway had died some years before, and
be it said to his credit Shakespeare sent her ample funds from time
to time, and that she shared in his prosperity. It is greatly to be
regretted that Harriette died before her lover, otherwise she would
have acted as his literary executor and collected his writings in
proper form. As it is this work was done by those entirely unfitted
for it, and his papers were brought together from many sources seven
years after his death; and to-day not a single scrap of his manuscript
exists, excepting the letters I possess and the diary of Harriette
Bowenni, in which are various entries made by Shakespeare. All these
letters and the diary you shall see.
“From his grief at the death of Harriette, Shakespeare never rallied.
He left London, the scene of his mighty success, and back to his
boyhood’s home did he turn, broken in health and spirit. City men who
were once country boys, always look forward to the coming of old age,
when they can return again to their childhood’s home. In less than two
short years those simple villagers carried to its last resting-place
the worn out body of the mightiest man of thought the world has ever
known.
“When Shakespeare took Harriette Bowenni as his wife, at once they
began their life-work in earnest. Women then were never recognized
in literary work, and in fact did not ever act upon the stage, their
parts being taken by boys. Harriette knew English history probably
better than any man in England at that time, having studied it for
several years with her father, and written it out for the nobleman. The
first successful plays of Shakespeare were those of English history.
Then followed tragedy and comedy in rapid and startling succession.
Thirty-seven plays are known positively to be Shakespeare’s, all
written in the space of twenty-six years; there being scarcely any
repetition of plot or plan, all sweeping forward in that matchless and
noble diction possessed by no other writer. The source of nearly all
the plots have been well traced. Many of the plays are combinations
of two or three others. In several instances the story is taken pure
and simple from other writers, and the dialogue changed, modified,
interpolated, as if it was necessary to get the play out at a certain
time; yet the work is always nobly done, although many of the plays
show very plainly the work of two persons.
“In every one of these thirty-seven plays William Shakespeare and
Harriette Bowenni worked side by side, she supplying the plot and
historical connection and he the language. The philosophy and by-play
was worked in between them.
“Shakespeare’s conception of womanhood is higher than that of any
other dramatist, even of modern time. Generally we find the saints
and sinners pretty evenly divided between the sexes. Not so with the
Master! His women are wise, gentle and good. Look at Portia, Rosalind,
Cecelia, Viola, Jessica and others. The character of Lady Macbeth was
worked out by Harriette alone, as I will show you in her diary where
she protests against William parsing excellencies in the feminine
gender continually, and she asks leave to portray Lady Macbeth herself
alone.
“Each was constantly alert for metaphor, hyperbole, figure, trope,
philosophy or poetical expression. Nothing escaped--every thought or
fancy to which love could give birth was woven in. Neither went in
society, and the fact that Shakespeare could not present this woman
as his wife, was rather an advantage than otherwise. They had no
friends but books, and thus were not distracted, diverted or dragged
down by common-place connections, ignorant or vain people. To be with
people was to lose their relationship to the whole. They were merely
onlookers in Venice--the world knew them not. This fully accounts for
the total lack of knowledge we possess of Shakespeare’s life. It has
been stated that Shakespeare belonged to the club to which belonged
Sir Walter Raleigh, Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Donne, Selden and
others, that met at the Mermaid Tavern, but there is no proof at all
that he ever attended these meetings. How such a man lived with such
a mind and still was not known, has astounded humanity; and it is
not to be wondered at that many now doubt that he ever wrote at all,
and very plausibly prove (or think they do), that this unlettered,
untraveled and untutored man _could not_ (mark the words) have written
Shakespeare. It is not to be wondered at that they cast about for the
most learned man of his time, and pick out Lord Bacon, not knowing that
six Lords Bacon all melted into one _could never_ (_mark my words_)
equal the work of one great man and one great woman, who having put
away all society but each other, cast out all frivolity, set themselves
the task (if task it may be called) solely to assist that alchemist,
the only one who can transmute base material into good--_Love_,
undying _Love_. Love is creative. It is the one and only source of all
creation!”
* * * * *
I had been taking the words of The Man at the rate of one hundred words
a minute. Suddenly they came faster, faster. I could scarcely keep
up. For the first time I saw The Man had lost his composure. I looked
up. The tears were streaming down his cheeks. He arose from his seat,
paused, raised his hands and exclaimed:
“This woman, Harriette Bowenni; she was my mother!!”