My own impression is that Shakespeare had a free and happy childhood,
and grew up without much check from his elders. It is the child who sees
hypocrites. These preposterous grown-up people, who, if they are
well-mannered, do not seem to enjoy their food, who are fussy about
meaningless employments, and never give way to natural impulses, must
surely assume this veil of decorum with intent to deceive. Charles
Dickens was hard driven in his childhood, and the impressions that were
then burnt into him governed all his seeing. The creative spirit in him
transformed his sufferings into delight; but he never outgrew them; and,
when he died, the eyes of a child were closed upon a scene touched, it
is true, here and there with rapturous pleasure, rich in oddity, and
trembling with pathos, but, in the main, as bleak and unsatisfying as
the wards of a workhouse. The intense emotions of his childhood made the
usual fervours of adolescence a faint thing in the comparison, and if
you want to know how lovers think and feel you do not go to Dickens to
tell you. You go to Shakespeare, who put his childhood behind him, so
that he almost forgot it, and ran forward to seize life with both hands.
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