The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume III Part 5

And _Hamlet_--thought-entangled--hesitating between two worlds.

And _Macbeth_--strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful crime--"Curses not loud but deep--mouth-honor--breath."

And _Brutus_, falling on his sword that Caesar might be still.

And _Romeo_, dreaming of the white wonder of Juliet's hand. And _Ferdinand_, the patient log-man for Miranda's sake. And _Florizel_, who, "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born la.s.s. And _Constance_, weeping for her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant garments with his form."

And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of good and evil--and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that hurries by a ruined mill.

From every side the characters crowd upon us--the men and women born of Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really lived with us.

Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase--has ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine perfume.

In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold--pa.s.sions became virtues--weeds became exotics from some diviner land--and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian G.o.ds. In his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite--that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and mathematical--dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems.

Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner.

XII.

SHAKESPEARE was the greatest of philosophers. He knew the conditions of success--of happiness--the relations that men sustain to each other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and currents of the heart--the cliffs and caverns of the brain. He knew the weakness of the will, the sophistry of desire--and

"That pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than Adders to the voice of any true decision."

He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world--that flesh is but a mask, and that

"There is no art to find the mind's construction In the face."

He knew that courage should be the servant of judgment, and that

"When valor preys on reason it eats the sword It fights with."

He knew that man is never master of the event, that he is to some extent the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that

"In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men."

Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen is as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says:

"Let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way."

Shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. Looking in pity upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and cruelties, the limping travelers on the th.o.r.n.y paths, he was great and good enough to say:

"There is no darkness but ignorance."

In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This great truth fills the heart with pity.

He knew that place and power do not give happiness--that the crowned are subject as the lowest to fate and chance.

"For within the hollow crown, That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court; and there the antick sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit.-- As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were bra.s.s impregnable; and, humour'd thus; Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and--farewell king!"

So, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy--that death and misfortune come alike to rich and poor, because:

"If thou art rich thou art poor; For like an a.s.s whose back with ingots bows Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee."

In some of his philosophy there was a kind of scorn--a hidden meaning that could not in his day and time have safely been expressed. You will remember that Laertes was about to kill the king, and this king was the murderer of his own brother, and sat upon the throne by reason of his crime--and in the mouth of such a king Shakespeare puts these words:

"There's such divinity doth hedge a king."

So, in Macbeth:

"How he solicits Heaven himself best knows; but strangely visited people All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despairs of surgery, he cures; Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken To the succeeding royalty--he leaves The healing benediction.

With this strange virtue He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace."

Shakespeare was the master of the human heart--knew all the hopes, fears, ambitions and pa.s.sions that sway the mind of man; and thus knowing, he declared that

"Love is not love that alters When it alteration finds."

This is the sublimest declaration in the literature of the world.

Shakespeare seems to give the generalization--the result--without the process of thought. He seems always to be at the conclusion--standing where all truths meet.

In one of the Sonnets is this fragment of a line that contains the highest possible truth:

"Conscience is born of love."

If man were incapable of suffering, the words right and wrong never could have been spoken. If man were dest.i.tute of imagination, the flower of pity never could have blossomed in his heart.

We suffer--we cause others to suffer--those that we love--and of this fact conscience is born.

Love is the many-colored flame that makes the fireside of the heart. It is the mingled spring and autumn--the perfect climate of the soul.

XIII.

IN the realm of comparison Shakespeare seems to have exhausted the relations, parallels and similitudes of things, He only could have said:

"Tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the ears of a drowsy man."

"Duller than a great thaw.

Dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage."

In the words of Ulysses, spoken to Achilles, we find the most wonderful collection of pictures and comparisons ever compressed within the same number of lines:

"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,-- A great-sized monster of ingrat.i.tudes-- Those sc.r.a.ps are good deeds past; which are devoured As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done; perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honor bright: to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honor travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue; if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an entered tide, they all rush by And leave you hindmost: Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present, Tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretched as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles, And Farewell goes out sighing."

So the words of Cleopatra, when Charmain speaks:

"Peace, peace: Dost thou not see my baby at my breast That sucks the nurse asleep?"

XIV.