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- if I magnify Shakespeare, it is not so much for what he did do as for
what he did not do, or refrained from doing. For in this world of lies,
Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and
only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and
other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth,--even though it be
covertly and by snatches.
But if this view of the all-popular Shakespeare be seldom taken by his
readers, and if very few who extol him have ever read him deeply, or
perhaps, only have seen him on the tricky stage (which alone made, and
is still making him, his mere mob renown)--if few men have time, or
patience, or palate, for the spiritual truth as it is in that great
genius--it is then no matter of surprise, that in a contemporaneous age,
Nathaniel Hawthorne is a man as yet almost utterly mistaken among men.
Here and there, in some quiet armchair in the noisy town, or some deep
nook among the noiseless mountains, he may be appreciated for something
of what he is. But unlike Shakespeare, who was forced to the contrary
course by circumstances, Hawthorne (either from simple disinclination,
or else from inaptitude) refrains from all the popularising noise and
show of broad farce and blood-besmeared tragedy; content with the still,
rich utterance of a great intellect in repose, and which sends few
thoughts into circulation, except they be arterialised at his large warm
lungs, and expanded in his honest heart.
Nor need you fix upon that blackness in him, if it suit you not. Nor,
indeed, will all readers discern it; for it is, mostly, insinuated to
those who may best understand it, and account for it; it is not obtruded
upon every one alike.
Some may start to read of Shakespeare and Hawthorne on the same page.
They may say, that if an illustration were needed, a lesser light might
have sufficed to elucidate this Hawthorne, this small man of yesterday.
But I am not willingly one of those who, as touching Shakespeare at
least, exemplify the maxim of Rochefoucauld, that ‘we exalt the
reputation of some, in order to depress that of others’;--who, to teach
all noble-souled aspirants that there is no hope for them, pronounce
Shakespeare absolutely unapproachable. But Shakespeare has been
approached. There are minds that have gone as far as Shakespeare into
the universe. And hardly a mortal man, who, at some time or other, has
not felt as great thoughts in him as any you will find in Hamlet. We
must not inferentially malign mankind for the sake of any one man,
whoever he may be. This is too cheap a purchase of contentment for
conscious mediocrity to make. Besides, this absolute and unconditional
adoration of Shakespeare has grown to be a part of our Anglo-Saxon
superstitions. The Thirty-Nine Articles are now forty. Intolerance has
come to exist in this matter. You must believe in Shakespeare’s
unapproachability, or quit the country. But what sort of a belief is
this for an American, a man who is bound to carry republican
progressiveness into Literature as well as into Life? Believe me, my
friends, that men not very much inferior to Shakespeare are this day
being born on the banks of the Ohio. And the day will come when you
shall say, Who reads a book by an Englishman that is a modern? The great
mistake seems to be, that even with those Americans who look forward to
the coming of a great literary genius among us, they somehow fancy he
will come in the costume of Queen Elizabeth’s day; be a writer of dramas
founded upon old English history or the tales of Boccaccio. Whereas,
great geniuses are parts of the times, they themselves are the times,
and possess a corresponding colouring. It is of a piece with the Jews,
who, while their Shiloh was meekly walking in their streets, were still
praying for his magnificent coming; looking for him in a chariot, who
was already among them on an ass. Nor must we forget that, in his own
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