Part 19
PORTIA: Very vilely in the morning when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk; when he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.
One other thing we may perceive, and that is our Poet’s scorn of pettiness and treachery. Individual deceit--public or private hypocrisy--these seem to Shakespeare’s mind unforgivable. The “black-handed” hit--the cruel slander--the malicious lie--against these he delivers his most trenchant blows; but farther than this we are unable to penetrate into the kingdom of his heart or sentiment.
To woman he assigns the highest place as inspirer and saviour of man; when he shows her other than this, as in Lady Macbeth, he makes remorse half condone her sins and death conclude them. He seemed to be absolutely unconscious of any superiority in himself to others of his own calling. His poetic gift was like song to a nightingale that warbles for sheer delight and amorousness, in delicious ignorance of the entrancing beauty of its melody.
What affects, or _should_ affect, us most deeply to-day is the deplorable fact that for three hundred years we have had no poet, no dramatist, to approach Shakespeare in any sense--neither in beauty of language, loftiness of thought, nor simple naturalness of expression. He towers among us as a veritable giant among pigmies--for the men of letters in all parts of the world at this epoch, men who are scrambling and pushing themselves forward to offer a very poor and inadequate “homage” to this mightiest genius of all time, are of such microscopic attainment when compared with him that one needs a mental lens to perceive them at all.
These are they for whom Self is not only the keynote, but the whole tune. Some of them take pride in their “style”; whereas Shakespeare had no “style” save his own, which has become a living part of the English language. He defied laws and conventions and dramatic “unities”; he dared to be his own master; and fortunately there were no newspapers in his day to publish venomous criticisms which might have daunted or discouraged his efforts.
The earliest newspaper, or _News Packet_, as it was called, was issued in 1619, three years after Shakespeare’s death. Shakespeare’s critics were the public--in fact, the “gallery.” He “played to the gallery,” and played “up”--never “down.” Moreover, he was apparently so indifferent to his own literary reputation that he made no effort to publish any of his works, and allowed them to be pirated wholesale. Only in the case of the two poems dedicated to the Earl of Southampton--“Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece”--does he seem to have taken any personal interest in his own productions.
One may perhaps venture to suggest that probably he attached no importance to what he knew were “adaptations” of old plays, and thought nothing of the rich poesy wherewith he had endowed them. The most of his work was this of industrious “adaptation”; so that he might have modestly considered it to be scarcely his own and that the magnificent speeches he put in the mouths of his stage puppets were only a part of what is called “business.” The superb indifference he thus displayed to his own place in the estimation of others was a striking proof of his sub-conscious power. That his contemporaries mentioned him but little would not have troubled a mind like Shakespeare’s and Robert Green’s jealous attack upon him as “an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, with his Tyger’s heart wrapt in a Player’s hide,” would but have moved him to a compassionate smile at such an outburst of malice and envy.
The chief lesson we may learn from Shakespeare’s unapproachable fame is of that greatness which is “impersonal.” The literary men of our day are all painfully personal and are seldom satisfied unless they are elbowing each other out of the way or scrambling over each other to the front; and some of them are never happier than when they can fasten themselves, like barnacles, to the splendid ship of Shakespeare’s immortal genius, which sails serenely onward over the seas of the infinite. _As_ barnacles they do no particular harm; for, cling as they will, the great waves of time generally sweep them off in the progress of the voyage, while the great Ship goes on, carrying its messages of truth, honour, and strong patriotism to all the world! And it will still sail on, till the English language shall be no more. For if, in centuries to come, nothing should be left of England but Shakespeare, his name would be sufficient to prove that England once had lived!
SHAKESPEARE’S WAR BIRTHDAY IN 1917
NEGLECTED HONOURS
Many of our newspapers devoted columns of matter to “St. George’s Day”; and the writers of the various articles on this subject “gushed” in special and particular fashion over a purely mythical knight, whom legendary lore supposes to have killed a purely mythical dragon. But a very general omission was made of a real and a far greater personage than St. George, whose day of birth and death coincides with that of the dragon-slayer, namely, William Shakespeare, “the beautifullest English soul this England confesses to have made, the pink and flower of remembered Englishmen, the greatest thing, it appears, that we have yet done and managed to produce in this world,” according to right-thinking Thomas Carlyle. America, too, bears witness to the same truth through the golden voice of her noble teacher Emerson, who thus writes: “All the sweets and all the terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly, but as softly, as the landscape lies on the eye.” He was, and is, our greatest Englishman--our finest patriot--and, when all is said and done, he will be our chief claim to remembrance in history. Very strange has it seemed to thousands of us, especially Americans, that during the present crisis and stress of war the Press of Great Britain should have apparently forgotten to mention the name of perhaps the greatest Maker of England on his natal day. Some one tells us, “It has never occurred before.” Then why has it occurred now?
Had Shakespeare been alive to-day we can easily imagine his attitude in regard to the war. Very English of English, he would have tolerated no half measures. He, like Sir Francis Drake, would have had short shrift for any foe that sought to “raid” the shores of his beloved Britain! Not for him would have been the message of the Vice-Admiral at Dover: “We were _fortunate_ in being able to save the lives of ten German officers and ninety-five men from the vessels which were sunk!” He would have exclaimed: “Out upon such ‘fortune’!” And he might have judged it as somewhat of a _mis_fortune that a British Vice-Admiral lived who could write it down as “fortunate” to rescue any members of the same savage Hun tribe that sank the _Lusitania_ and scruples not to sink hospital ships! Another word might have been found for the occasion; and Shakespeare would have been the man to find it. To Shakespeare’s mind, a friend was a friend--a foe was a foe. Treachery was his chief abhorrence. When he lived in Stratford-on-Avon for the last remaining years of his career we know by various records that he was subjected to many petty annoyances at the hands of his own townsfolk, so that almost up to his death he was involved in litigation, defending himself from libel and his daughter from scandal. The Corporation were ready enough to borrow money of him--yes! that goes without saying. But for sympathy, comprehension, and friendship he had to seek outside his native town altogether. It would seem he has to do that still; and not only has he to go outside his native town, but outside his native land. In America his works are much better known, loved, and honoured than in Great Britain; in France, where it is difficult to understand him owing to the insuperable obstacles of his language for Frenchmen, there is a “société” founded by an erudite Israelite, with a British committee who are entirely unknown as _real_ students of Shakespeare, but who have “names” distinguished in other walks of life. In Russia the bard is viewed as a sort of demi-god, for his verse translates into Russian superbly; and in the Germany of the past Lessing’s translation of the plays made him the father of German literature, as represented by Goethe, Schiller, and others who distinguished themselves before the black night of Hohenzollern decadence. But if we take our own islands--in Scotland he is hardly understood; in Ireland, seldom read or acted; in Wales, almost a sealed book; while in England itself--well, as Martin Harvey has recently said, a quarter of one day’s war expenses would establish a National Theatre, where the great plays could be produced in a fitting manner as part of the national education.
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In Stratford-on-Avon this year’s anniversary of the poet’s birth and death has passed almost unmarked. No actor has urged his willing service to his Master in the theatre by the Avon, though this, for many reasons, is not to be wondered at. True, the bells of the church rang--true, the flags of nations were unfurled, and there was a dolefully shabby “flower” procession; but in the Memorial Theatre there was only a lecture, _not_ on Shakespeare, but on a movement inaugurated by the lecturer himself. Then there were all the usual “pats on the back” of every person to the other concerned, a trifle of music, and there an end. Shakespeare himself was nowhere, though--yes!--perhaps out in the moist woods, where the primroses are beginning to push through the mould and the call of the cuckoo is faintly heard, one might have met his tranquil Spirit moving apart from all “alarums and excursions,” and have heard his voice in words which he could well address just now to England.
“Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it, for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe.”
“DON’T TRAVEL”
A HARD HIT
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)
We are all called upon to make sacrifices, both public and personal. No one can assert that we do not make them willingly, and for the most part uncomplainingly. But our Dictators appear blind to the fact that in many cases their orders and “restrictions” are ruining British trades, while affording the greatest possible relief and satisfaction to the Boches. The well-fed Huns heard with malicious glee the admission of Mr. Bonar Law that we were at one time short of fighting men by a hundred thousand--an undiplomatic avowal which for sheer bad tact ranks alongside of Lord Devonport’s “grave” warnings of “food shortage,” and Captain Bathurst’s advertised appetite for “pickled herrings.” If “shortage” of any kind exists, why “give it away” to the enemy? It is of a nature to be dealt with “in secret Session,” not in the open House, where prominent members themselves admit that whatever is said is at once taken to Germany. Is it surprising, then, that with the crazy exaggerations and falsehoods of the German Press, our foes assert that “England is starving!” and that “there are not enough men left to us to fight with!” How much wiser and more dignified it would be to let them clearly understand that, honestly, we are not suffering at all from any real food hardships, and that we shall have more than a hundred thousand extra men ready to fight them should occasion arise. Mr. Bonar Law may be a Scottish “man of iron,” but he is also very guileless if he does not realise the derision and delight of the Boche over the statements he made in the House--statements repeated throughout Germany, just as Mr. Lloyd George’s unfortunate phrase, “the horrible danger of the submarine,” was caught up by Bethmann-Hollweg, and repeated with devilish laughter at every street corner in Berlin. When we are at grips with a foe it is not advisable to show him the loose joints in our armour. To us British there should be never a thought or a word of “horrible danger,” especially as we know we can grow our own necessary food if we make up our minds to do it; nor should we ever publicly admit any “shortage” of any kind, whether in men or supplies. To admit weakness is to court attack.
Now we are told “not to travel”; not to take the much longed-for Easter rest, with Easter hope of the slowly coming spring, and there is no doubt that those of us who have comfortable homes are willing enough to stay in them. But for the brave, patient men and women who have given up their homes to toil day and night at munition work, and who naturally crave for a breath of country or sea air, whose bodies and souls are weary, and who need, if only a few hours, change of scene and movement for their very health’s sake, the restrictions of train and motor service are surely rather an exercise of tyranny? Not only does the ban affect the travelling public (we presume the Cabinet Ministers will not deny themselves their Easter recess?), but it spells ruin to thousands of hard-working folk who depend for their living at this season on letting lodgings in the country or at the seaside; to say nothing of the disaster undeservedly inflicted on all our lovely watering-places and rural resorts, which exist, in a great measure, on the influx of visitors, whose patronage keeps them going. Surely it may be asked, Why destroy the prosperity of our own people? Why lay a paralysing hand on our own trades and industries? Is it to give the Boche a better chance when the war is over? Before the outbreak of the Hohenzollern madness, hotels and lodging-houses in all our pleasure resorts were numerous and prosperous, and the greater part of them were carried on by--Germans! One could not go anywhere without meeting German managers and German waiters. Now, when there might be the faint ghost of a chance for the British hotel-keeper, the British caterer, the British tradesman, the public are warned off with “Don’t travel!” What joy for the Germans! Our Dictators simply “fall” into their hands like drugged moths into a net, and the way they go to work suggests an attempt to “Prussianise” England, and make ample preparation for a German “boom” after the war, when our own people, half ruined by “restrictions,” have not even the time to recoup their losses or start afresh on any new line of possible prosperity. If the enormous expenditure of the war is to be met by the people, every chance must be given them to earn the money wherewith to meet it. None of the workers would trouble the railway service if motor-cars and conveyances were allowed to carry them out for an Easter breath of Easter air, but though military “swaggerers” at home are allowed to dash about everywhere in cars with apparent freedom, the “restriction” on petrol holds up all the rest of the public. Yet, as a matter of common hearsay, it is asserted that “there is no real scarcity of petrol!”
What are we to believe? One thing is pretty certain, and that is that the British public, though so patient “a hass,” may kick at last and refuse to take “rations” of thistles, while the German Hog is fed on carrots and corn. To quote from a well-reasoned article in a morning contemporary: “The blind and fatal shears of promiscuous prohibition cut off the just and the unjust together. They are, moreover, a most disturbing element in trade, and are reducing our merchants to despair.” True! And if the “disturbing element” is not promptly checked, we may look out for storms!
“TE DEUM LAUDAMUS”
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)
It is time we gave thanks--indeed, it is more than time! Perhaps, had we seen more clearly into the future we might have given thanks long before this--thanks for our kinship with America--for the ties of blood, of language, of tradition, memory, and association which have made us, as some say, “cousins,” but as we prefer to believe, brothers--brothers in heart and soul, as we are to-day brothers-in-arms. Let it be admitted that we have not always quite understood each other. Small rancours, petty jealousies, trifling differences have arisen casually from time to time between the people of a great Empire and the people of a great Republic, which seem now but the merest gossamer cobwebs spun by the ever-working spiders of rumour and mischief, easily brushed away at a touch. The trumpet blast of a noble Cause has brought to our side our youngest comrade, alive with energy, passion, and enthusiasm, expressing in every attitude Tennyson’s eloquent lines:--
“I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told, And I hail once more the banner of battle, unroll’d!”
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And we have taken our comrade by both hands, and have knelt with him under the great dome of St. Paul’s, giving our thanks to God for bringing us this, our brother; and we claim to say with Lincoln that we do not presume to ask the Almighty to be on our side, but we do pray that we may be on the side of the Almighty! If President Wilson’s “Declaration of War” against Germany means anything, it means that right and justice, freedom and truth, are all of God; and therefore to fight for the maintenance of these things is to fight for God’s own Law and Order. The one piece of eloquence which stands out in distinctive greatness amid all that has yet been spoken concerning our world-contest, is this “Declaration,” which will go down to posterity as matchless for high principle, reasonableness, and clearness of diction--an oration which no statesman of old time, whether Greek or Roman, has ever surpassed, in what we know of history. It should have been read aloud in every church, every school, every theatre, every public assembly, with as much impressiveness as a Pope’s “Encyclical,” and more!
Nothing do we need so much in this country as to “catch on” to some of the enthusiasm and eagerness which fires our American Ally, as he springs to our side in the battle under the bright stars of the “Old Glory.” He is young, ardent, and ready for anything--quick eyed, alert of brain, he means to “hustle”! Some of us need to be infected by this splendid youth. A curious lethargy clings to us at times--a kind of dumb spell. Is it excess of feeling? Or--is it sheer egotism? Our French friends marvel at the indifference we show at the victories just won by Sir Douglas Haig. They thought to see all London beflagged in the great soldier’s honour. Very certainly they had hoped the “Stars and Stripes” might be flown from every public building on the day of the President’s Declaration--but no!--not even in Stratford-on-Avon, that shrine of America’s devoted Shakespeare-Worship, was any sign given of the momentous event. Rather discreditable to Stratford, remembering that in peace times Shakespeare’s Town depends very much for its livelihood on its crowds of American visitors. But what does Shakespeare himself say?
“Blow, blow thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude!”
Let us hope that it is not so much ingratitude as inability to appreciate the situation.
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No wonder Americans find it sometimes difficult to know or to understand us. For months they have heard their President persistently abused, they have seen him cruelly caricatured and jeered at in the lower sections of the British Press, and they have had to possess their souls in patience till their day of triumph came. It has come--the bitter tongues are now all honey--and their generosity in forgiving and forgetting wrongs and coming to us in perfect amity, glittering in the panoply of battle, and placing almost inexhaustible supplies at our service, is a truly great and wonderful thing. We have done ourselves honour by the thanksgiving in St. Paul’s; and some of us who knelt in the dim shadows of that vast shrine and heard the thunderous chords of the American National Hymn surging in our ears, prayed that the two great English-speaking peoples, now joined in a vaster Crusade than was ever before undertaken, might find their union cemented, not only by the blood shed for country, but by all the ties of mutual comprehension and sympathy. To-day, we are as one in the resolve, that
“God’s just wrath shall be wreaked on a giant liar, And noble thought be freer under the sun!”
And so shall the “Old Glory” help to make for us all the New!
THE WOMEN’S VOTE
NATURE VERSUS POLITICS
Those far-sighted and indulgent men who supported “Votes for Women” should surely be enjoying to the full the result of their pliability and humour! In the “Coupon Election” they expected six million feminine votes--for Coalition, of course. If we conjugate Ministerial messages as one verb, they could all have been rendered thus: “_I_ expect, _you_ expect, _he_ expects” women to do their duty. But one point seems rather overlooked, and that is, the precise idea women have of duty. When I say “women” I mean women in the grand majority--not a few hundreds or even a few thousand agitators. And I dare to suggest that these “women in the grand majority,” do not care about their “votes” in the least--and that all the roaring of a megaphone press will never make them care. Nature is, and always will be, too strong for them, and Nature has not endowed them, except in a few rare cases, with a taste for politics. But Nature has given them far greater qualities, and has organised them in a special way--a way most beautiful, wonderful, and nobly privileged; and the greatest social reformer that ever risked the oft-tried sorry business of “re-constructing” civilisation, can never alter the work for which Nature is alone responsible. I do not believe that Women, speaking in the plural of nationalities, ever wanted the vote at all--but that seeing (and hearing) the wild clamour of some of their sisters, who shrieked and smashed themselves into notoriety, they were attracted by the fun of it, the noise of it, the curious, rowdy, non-feminine spirit of it, and followed the whooping and the yells with the fascinated amusement of children running after the “One Man Band” who beats a drum with his elbows and clashes cymbals with his feet. Mr. Lloyd George is a wise thinker in his generation, but his sagacity will be at fault if it should be proved (Heaven forbid!) that after all--yes, after all the screaming and smashing of windows, and all the efforts made on their behalf--the women as a whole prove apathetic and indifferent to this wonderful privilege they have fought for and won!
There is a French story of a certain spoilt little lady whose husband adored her, from the glimmer of her topmost blonde curl to the point of her broidered shoe, and who expressed to him her ardent wish for a diamond chain she had seen in an expensive jeweller’s window. Her husband, though rich and generous, apparently paid no attention to her oft-repeated request, till one day he suddenly presented her with the coveted ornament as a “surprise packet” and token of his affection. But she pushed the gift aside and gave way to bitter tears. “Why, oh, why did you bring me such a thing?” she sobbed. “I shall never wear it! Oh, _why_ didn’t you buy me that dear weeny-teeny dog I saw yesterday! The _weeny_ pet! I would have loved it so! I would have talked to it about _you_!--it would have been _such_ a companion! Oh, I _did_ want that _weeny_ darling!”