Buch lesen: «The Man. A Story of To-day», Seite 5
CHAPTER XIV.
FIFTH SUNDAY – A REVELATION
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!’”
CHAPTER XV.
SHAKESPEARIANA – “TRUTH, LORD.”
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.”
