I
cannot but think that his portrait will thus gain more in truth than it
can lose in ideal beauty. Or let me come nearer to my purpose by means
of a simile. Talking with Sir David Gill one evening on shipboard about
the fixed stars, he pointed one out which is so distant that we cannot
measure how far it is away from us and can form no idea of its
magnitude. "But surely," I exclaimed, "the great modern telescopes must
bring the star nearer and magnify it?" "No," he replied, "no; the best
instruments make the star clearer to us, but certainly not larger." This
is what I wish to do in regard to Shakespeare; make him clearer to men,
even if I do not make him larger.
And if I were asked why I do this, why I take the trouble to re-create a
man now three centuries dead, it is first of all, of course, because he
is worth it--the most complex and passionate personality in the world,
whether of life or letters--because, too, there are certain lessons
which the English will learn from Shakespeare more quickly and easily
than from any living man, and a little because I want to get rid of
Shakespeare by assimilating all that was fine in him, while giving all
that was common and vicious in him as spoil to oblivion.
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