Part 1

THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

"GIVE ME THE STORM AND TEMPEST OF THOUGHT AND ACTION, RATHER THAN THE DEAD CALM OF IGNORANCE AND FAITH. BANISH ME FROM EDEN WHEN YOU WILL; BUT FIRST LET ME EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE."

IN TWELVE VOLUMES, VOLUME III.

LECTURES

1900

THE DRESDEN EDITION

CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.

SHAKESPEARE

(1891.)

I. The Greatest Genius of our World--Not of Supernatural Origin or of Royal Blood--Illiteracy of his Parents--Education--His Father--His Mother a Great Woman--Stratford Unconscious of the Immortal Child--Social Position of Shakespeare--Of his Personal Peculiarities--Birth, Marriage, and Death--What we Know of Him--No Line written by him to be Found--The Absurd Epitaph--II. Contemporaries by whom he was Mentioned--III. No direct Mention of any of his Contemporaries in the Plays--Events and Personages of his Time--IV. Position of the Actor in Shakespeare's Time--Fortunately he was Not Educated at Oxford--An Idealist--His Indifference to Stage-carpentry and Plot--He belonged to All Lands--Knew the Brain and Heart of Man--An Intellectual Spendthrift--V. The Baconian Theory--VI. Dramatists before and during the Time of Shakespeare--Dramatic Incidents Illustrated in Passages from "Macbeth" and "Julius Cæsar"--VII. His Use of the Work of Others--The Pontic Sea--A Passage from "Lear"--VIII. Extravagance that touches the Infinite--The Greatest Compliment--"Let me not live after my flame lacks oil"--Where Pathos almost Touches the Grotesque--IX. An Innovator and Iconoclast--Disregard of the "Unities"--Nature Forgets--Violation of the Classic Model--X. Types--The Secret of Shakespeare--Characters who Act from Reason and Motive--What they Say not the Opinion of Shakespeare--XI. The Procession that issued from Shakespeare's Brain--His Great Women--Lovable Clowns--His Men--Talent and Genius--XII. The Greatest of all Philosophers--Master of the Human Heart--Love--XIII. In the Realm of Comparison--XIV. Definitions: Suicide, Drama, Death, Memory, the Body, Life, Echo, the World, Rumor--The Confidant of Nature--XV. Humor and Pathos--Illustrations--XVI. Not a Physician, Lawyer, or Botanist--He was a Man of Imagination--He lived the Life of All--The Imagination had a Stage in Shakespeare's Brain.

ROBERT BURNS.

(1878.)

Poetry and Poets--Milton, Dante, Petrarch--Old-time Poetry in Scotland--Influence of Scenery on Literature--Lives that are Poems--Birth of Burns--Early Life and Education--Scotland Emerging from the Gloom of Calvinism--A Metaphysical Peasantry--Power of the Scotch Preacher--Famous Scotch Names--John Barleycorn vs. Calvinism--Why Robert Burns is Loved--His Reading--Made Goddesses of Women--Poet of Love: His "Vision," "Bonnie Doon," "To Mary in Heaven"--Poet of Home: "Cotter's Saturday Night," "John Anderson, My Jo"--Friendship: "Auld Lang-Syne"--Scotch Drink: "Willie brew'd a peck o' maut"--Burns the Artist: The "Brook," "Tam O'Shanter"--A Real Democrat: "A man's a man for a' that"--His Theology: The Dogma of Eternal Pain, "Morality," "Hypocrisy," "Holy Willie's Prayer"--On the Bible--A Statement of his Religion--Contrasted with Tennyson--From Cradle to Coffin--His Last words--Lines on the Birth-place of Burns.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

(1894.)

I. Simultaneous Birth of Lincoln and Darwin--Heroes of Every Generation--Slavery--Principle Sacrificed to Success--Lincoln's Childhood--His first Speech--A Candidate for the Senate against Douglass--II. A Crisis in the Affairs of the Republic--The South Not Alone Responsible for Slavery--Lincoln's Prophetic Words--Nominated for President and Elected in Spite of his Fitness--III. Secession and Civil War--The Thought uppermost in his Mind--IV. A Crisis in the North--Proposition to Purchase the Slaves--V. The Proclamation of Emancipation--His Letter to Horace Greeley--Waited on by Clergymen--VI. Surrounded by Enemies--Hostile Attitude of Gladstone, Salisbury, Louis Napoleon, and the Vatican--VII. Slavery the Perpetual Stumbling-block--Confiscation--VIII. His Letter to a Republican Meeting in Illinois--Its Effect--IX. The Power of His Personality--The Embodiment of Mercy--Use of the Pardoning Power--X. The Vallandigham Affair--The Horace Greeley Incident--Triumphs of Humor--XI. Promotion of General Hooker--A Prophecy and its Fulfillment--XII.--States Rights vs. Territorial Integrity--XIII. His Military Genius--The Foremost Man in all the World: and then the Horror Came--XIV. Strange Mingling of Mirth and Tears--Deformation of Great Historic Characters--Washington now only a Steel Engraving--Lincoln not a Type--Virtues Necessary in a New Country--Laws of Cultivated Society--In the Country is the Idea of Home--Lincoln always a Pupil--A Great Lawyer--Many-sided--Wit and Humor--As an Orator--His Speech at Gettysburg contrasted with the Oration of Edward Everett--Apologetic in his Kindness--No Official Robes--The gentlest Memory of our World.

VOLTAIRE.

(1894.)

I. Changes wrought by Time--Throne and Altar Twin Vultures--The King and the Priest--What is Greatness?--Effect of Voltaire's Name on Clergyman and Priest--Born and Baptized--State of France in 1694--The Church at the Head--Efficacy of Prayers and Dead Saints--Bells and Holy Water--Prevalence of Belief in Witches, Devils, and Fiends--Seeds of the Revolution Scattered by Noble and Priest--Condition in England--The Inquisition in full Control in Spain--Portugal and Germany burning Women--Italy Prostrate beneath the Priests, the Puritans in America persecuting Quakers, and stealing Children--II. The Days of Youth--His Education--Chooses Literature as a Profession and becomes a Diplomat--In Love and Disinherited--Unsuccessful Poem Competition--Jansenists and Molinists--The Bull Unigenitus--Exiled to Tulle--Sent to the Bastile--Exiled to England--Acquaintances made there--III. The Morn of Manhood--His Attention turned to the History of the Church--The "Triumphant Beast" Attacked--Europe Filled with the Product of his Brain--What he Mocked--The Weapon of Ridicule--His Theology--His "Retractions"--What Goethe said of Voltaire--IV. The Scheme of Nature--His belief in the Optimism of Pope Destroyed by the Lisbon Earthquake--V. His Humanity--Case of Jean Calas--The Sirven Family--The Espenasse Case--Case of Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde--Voltaire Abandons France--A Friend of Education--An Abolitionist--Not a Saint--VI. The Return--His Reception--His Death--Burial at Romilli-on-the-Seine--VII. The Death-bed Argument--Serene Demise of the Infamous--God has no Time to defend the Good and protect the Pure--Eloquence of the Clergy on the Death-bed Subject--The Second Return--Throned upon the Bastile--The Grave Desecrated by Priests--Voltaire.

A Testimonial to Walt Whitman--Let us put Wreaths on the Brows of the Living--Literary Ideals of the American People in 1855--"Leaves of Grass"--Its reception by the Provincial Prudes--The Religion of the Body--Appeal to Manhood and Womanhood--Books written for the Market--The Index Expurgatorius--Whitman a believer in Democracy--Individuality--Humanity--An Old-time Sea-fight--What is Poetry?--Rhyme a Hindrance to Expression--Rhythm the Comrade of the Poetic--Whitman's Attitude toward Religion--Philosophy--The Two Poems--"A Word Out of the Sea"--"When Lilacs Last in the Door"--"A Chant for Death"--

The History of Intellectual Progress is written in the Lives of Infidels--The King and the Priest--The Origin of God and Heaven, of the Devil and Hell--The Idea of Hell born of Ignorance, Brutality, Cowardice, and Revenge--The Limitations of our Ancestors--The Devil and God--Egotism of Barbarians--The Doctrine of Hell not an Exclusive Possession of Christianity--The Appeal to the Cemetery--Religion and Wealth, Christ and Poverty--The "Great" not on the Side of Christ and his Disciples--Epitaphs as Battle-cries--Some Great Men in favor of almost every Sect--Mistakes and Superstitions of Eminent Men--Sacred Books--The Claim that all Moral Laws came from God through the Jews--Fear--Martyrdom--God's Ways toward Men--The Emperor Constantine--The Death Test--Theological Comity between Protestants and Catholics--Julian--A childish Fable still Believed--Bruno--His Crime, his Imprisonment and

LIBERTY IN LITERATURE.

(1890.)

"Old Age"--"Leaves of Grass"

THE GREAT INFIDELS.

(1881.)

Martyrdom--The First to die for Truth without Expectation of Reward--The Church in the Time of Voltaire--Voltaire--Diderot--David Hume--Benedict Spinoza--Our Infidels--Thomas Paine--Conclusion.

WHICH WAY?

(1884.)

I. The Natural and the Supernatural--Living for the Benefit of your Fellow-Man and Living for Ghosts--The Beginning of Doubt--Two Philosophies of Life--Two Theories of Government--II. Is our God superior to the Gods of the Heathen?--What our God has done--III. Two Theories about the Cause and Cure of Disease--The First Physician--The Bones of St. Anne Exhibited in New York--Archbishop Corrigan and Cardinal Gibbons Countenance a Theological Fraud--A Japanese Story--The Monk and the Miraculous Cures performed by the Bones of a Donkey represented as those of a Saint--IV.--Two Ways of accounting for Sacred Books and Religions--V-Two Theories about Morals--Nothing Miraculous about Morality--The Test of all Actions--VI. Search for the Impossible--Alchemy--"Perpetual Motion"--Astrology--Fountain of Perpetual Youth--VII. "Great Men" and the Superstitions in which they have Believed--VIII. Follies and Imbecilities of Great Men--We do not know what they Thought, only what they Said--Names of Great Unbelievers--Most Men Controlled by their Surroundings--IX. Living for God in Switzerland, Scotland, New England--In the Dark Ages--Let us Live for Man--X. The Narrow Road of Superstition--The Wide and Ample Way--Let us Squeeze the Orange Dry--This Was, This Is, This Shall Be.

ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.

(1894.)

The Truth about the Bible Ought to be Told--I. The Origin of the Bible--Establishment of the Mosaic Code--Moses not the Author of the Pentateuch--Some Old Testament Books of Unknown Origin--II. Is the Old Testament Inspired?--What an Inspired Book Ought to Be--What the Bible Is--Admission of Orthodox Christians that it is not Inspired as to Science--The Enemy of Art--III. The Ten Commandments--Omissions and Redundancies--The Story of Achan--The Story of Elisha--The Story of Daniel--The Story of Joseph--IV. What is it all Worth?--Not True, and Contradictory--Its Myths Older than the Pentateuch--Other Accounts of the Creation, the Fall, etc.--Books of the Old Testament Named and Characterized--V. Was Jehovah a God of Love?--VI. Jehovah's Administration--VII. The New Testament--Many Other Gospels besides our Four--Disagreements--Belief in Devils--Raising of the Dead--Other Miracles--Would a real Miracle-worker have been Crucified?--VIII. The Philosophy of Christ--Love of Enemies--Improvidence--Self-Mutilation--The Earth as a Footstool--Justice--A Bringer of War--Division of Families--IX. Is Christ our Example?--X. Why should we place Christ at the Top and Summit of the Human Race?--How did he surpass Other Teachers?--What he left Unsaid, and Why--Inspiration--Rejected Books of the New Testament--The Bible and the Crimes it has Caused.

SHAKESPEARE

I.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was the greatest genius of our world. He left to us the richest legacy of all the dead--the treasures of the rarest soul that ever lived and loved and wrought of words the statues, pictures, robes and gems of thought.

It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius. Take from our world what they have given, and all the niches would be empty, all the walls naked--meaning and connection would fall from words of poetry and fiction, music would go back to common air, and all the forms of subtle and enchanting Art would lose proportion and become the unmeaning waste and shattered spoil of thoughtless Chance.

Shakespeare is too great a theme. I feel as though endeavoring to grasp a globe so large that the hand obtains no hold. He who would worthily speak of the great dramatist should be inspired by "a muse of fire that should ascend the brightest heaven of invention"--he should have "a kingdom for a stage, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene."

More than three centuries ago, the most intellectual of the human race was born. He was not of supernatural origin. At his birth there were no celestial pyrotechnics. His father and mother were both English, and both had the cheerful habit of living in this world. The cradle in which he was rocked was canopied by neither myth nor miracle, and in his veins there was no drop of royal blood.

This babe became the wonder of mankind. Neither of his parents could read or write. He grew up in a small and ignorant village on the banks of the Avon, in the midst of the common people of three hundred years ago. There was nothing in the peaceful, quiet landscape on which he looked, nothing in the low hills, the cultivated and undulating fields, and nothing in the murmuring stream, to excite the imagination--nothing, so far as we can see, calculated to sow the seeds of the subtlest and sublimest thought.

So there is nothing connected with his education, or his lack of education, that in any way accounts for what he did. It is supposed that he attended school in his native town--but of this we are not certain. Many have tried to show that he was, after all, of gentle blood, but the fact seems to be the other way. Some of his biographers have sought to do him honor by showing that he was patronized by Queen Elizabeth, but of this there is not the slightest proof.

As a matter of fact, there never sat on any throne a king, queen, or emperor who could have honored William Shakespeare.

Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education. The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy. On the other hand, the children of the rich, finding that gold does not produce happiness, are apt to underrate the value of wealth. So the children of the educated often care but little for books, and hold all culture in contempt. The children of great authors do not, as a rule, become writers.

Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself.

Possibly, many generations of culture breed a desire for the rude joys of savagery, and possibly generations of ignorance breed such a longing for knowledge, that of this desire, of this hunger of the brain, Genius is born. It may be that the mind, by lying fallow, by remaining idle for generations, gathers strength.

Shakespeare's father seems to have been an ordinary man of his time and class. About the only thing we know of him is that he was officially reported for not coming monthly to church. This is good as far as it goes. We can hardly blame him, because at that time Richard Bifield was the minister at Stratford, and an extreme Puritan, one who read the Psalter by Sternhold and Hopkins.

The church was at one time Catholic, but in John Shakespeare's day it was Puritan, and in 1564, the year of Shakespeare's birth, they had the images defaced. It is greatly to the honor of John Shakespeare that he refused to listen to the "tidings of great joy" as delivered by the Puritan Bifield.

Nothing is known of his mother, except her beautiful name--Mary Arden. In those days but little attention was given to the biographies of women. They were born, married, had children, and died. No matter how celebrated their sons became, the mothers were forgotten. In old times, when a man achieved distinction, great pains were taken to find out about the father and grandfather--the idea being that genius is inherited from the father's side. The truth is, that all great men have had great mothers. Great women have had, as a rule, great fathers.

The mother of Shakespeare was, without doubt, one of the greatest of women. She dowered her son with passion and imagination and the higher qualities of the soul, beyond all other men. It has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care--and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. The children of the great are often small. Pigmies are born in palaces, while over the children of genius is the roof of straw. Most of the great are like mountains, with the valley of ancestors on one side and the depression of posterity on the other.

In his day Shakespeare was of no particular importance. It may be that his mother had some marvelous and prophetic dreams, but Stratford was unconscious of the immortal child. He was never engaged in a reputable business. Socially he occupied a position below servants. The law described him as "a sturdy vagabond." He was neither a noble, a soldier, nor a priest. Among the half-civilized people of England, he who amused and instructed them was regarded as a menial. Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. Mozart was patronized by an Archbishop--lived in the palace,--but was compelled to eat with the scullions.

The composer of divine melodies was not fit to sit by the side of the theologian, who long ago would have been forgotten but for the fame of the composer.

We know but little of the personal peculiarities, of the daily life, or of what may be called the outward Shakespeare, and it may be fortunate that so little is known. He might have been belittled by friendly fools. What silly stories, what idiotic personal reminiscences, would have been remembered by those who scarcely saw him! We have his best--his sublimest--and we have probably lost only the trivial and the worthless. All that is known can be written on a page.

We are tolerably certain of the date of his birth, of his marriage and of his death. We think he went to London in 1586, when he was twenty-two years old. We think that three years afterward he was part owner of Blackfriars' Theatre. We have a few signatures, some of which are supposed to be genuine. We know that he bought some land--that he had two or three law-suits. We know the names of his children. We also know that this incomparable man--so apart from, and so familiar with, all the world--lived during his literary life in London--that he was an actor, dramatist and manager--that he returned to Stratford, the place of his birth,--that he gave his writings to negligence, deserted the children of his brain--that he died on the anniversary of his birth at the age of fifty-two, and that he was buried in the church where the images had been defaced, and that on his tomb was chiseled a rude, absurd and ignorant epitaph.

No letter of his to any human being has been found, and no line written by him can be shown.

And here let me give my explanation of the epitaph. Shakespeare was an actor--a disreputable business--but he made money--always reputable. He came back from London a rich man. He bought land, and built houses. Some of the supposed great probably treated him with deference. When he died he was buried in the church. Then came a reaction. The pious thought the church had been profaned. They did not feel that the ashes of an actor were fit to lie in holy ground. The people began to say the body ought to be removed. Then it was, as I believe, that Dr. John Hall, Shakespeare's son-in-law, had this epitaph cut on the tomb:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare To digg the dust enclosed heare: Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones, And curst be he yt moves my bones."

Certainly Shakespeare could have had no fear that his tomb would be violated. How could it have entered his mind to have put a warning, a threat and a blessing, upon his grave? But the ignorant people of that day were no doubt convinced that the epitaph was the voice of the dead, and so feeling they feared to invade the tomb. In this way the dust was left in peace.

This epitaph gave me great trouble for years. It puzzled me to explain why he, who erected the intellectual pyramids,--great ranges of mountains--should put such a pebble at his tomb. But when I stood beside the grave and read the ignorant words, the explanation I have given flashed upon me.

II.

IT has been said that Shakespeare was hardly mentioned by his contemporaries, and that he was substantially unknown. This is a mistake. In 1600 a book was published called _England's Parnassus_, and it contained ninety extracts from Shakespeare. In the same year was published the _Garden of the Muses_, containing several pieces from Shakespeare, Chapman, Marston and Ben Jonson. _England's Helicon_ was printed in the same year, and contained poems from Spenser, Greene, Harvey and Shakespeare.

In 1600 a play was acted at Cambridge, in which Shakespeare was alluded to as follows: "Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare who puts them all down." John Weaver published a book of poems in 1595, in which there was a sonnet to Shakespeare. In 1598 Richard Bamfield wrote a poem to Shakespeare. Francis Meres, "clergyman, master of arts in both universities, compiler of school books," was the author of the _Wits Treasury_. In this he compares the ancient and modern tragic poets, and mentions Marlowe, Peele, Kyd and Shakespeare. So he compares the writers of comedies, and mentions Lilly, Lodge, Greene and Shakespeare. He speaks of elegiac poets, and names Surrey, Wyatt, Sidney, Raleigh and Shakespeare. He compares the lyric poets, and names Spenser, Drayton, Shakespeare and others. This same writer, speaking of Horace, says that England has Sidney, Shakespeare and others, and that "as the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet-wittie soul of Ovid lives in the mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare." He also says: "If the Muses could speak English, they would speak in Shakespeare's phrase." This was in 1598. In 1607, John Davies alludes in a poem to Shakespeare.

Of course we are all familiar with what rare Ben Jonson wrote. Henry Chettle took Shakespeare to task because he wrote nothing on the death of Queen Elizabeth.

It may be wonderful that he was not better known. But is it not wonderful that he gained the reputation that he did in so short a time, and that twelve years after he began to write he stood at least with the first?

III.

BUT there is a wonderful fact connected with the writings of Shakespeare: In the Plays there is no direct mention of any of his contemporaries. We do not know of any poet, author, soldier, sailor, statesman, priest, nobleman, king, or queen, that Shakespeare directly mentioned.

Is it not marvelous that he, living in an age of great deeds, of adventures in far-off lands and unknown seas--in a time of religious wars--in the days of the Armada--the massacre of St. Bartholomew--the Edict of Nantes--the assassination of Henry III.--the victory of Lepanto--the execution of Marie Stuart--did not mention the name of any man or woman of his time? Some have insisted that the paragraph ending with the lines: "The imperial votress passed on in maiden meditation fancy-free," referred to Queen Elizabeth; but it is impossible for me to believe that the daubed and wrinkled face, the small black eyes, the cruel nose, the thin lips, the bad teeth, and the red wig of Queen Elizabeth could by any possibility have inspired these marvelous lines.

It is perfectly apparent from Shakespeare's writings that he knew but little of the nobility, little of kings and queens. He gives to these supposed great people great thoughts, and puts great words in their mouths and makes them speak--not as they really did--but as Shakespeare thought such people should. This demonstrates that he did not know them personally.