In the case of some peculiarities I have only a mere suggestion to go
upon, in that of others a bare surmise, a hint so fleeting that it may
well seem to the judicious as if the meshes of language were too coarse
to catch such evanescent indication.
Fortunately in this work I am not called on to limit myself to that
which can be proved beyond question, or to the ordinary man. I think my
reader will allow me, or indeed expect me, now to throw off constraint
and finish my picture as I please.
In this second book then I shall try to correct Shakespeare's portraits
of himself by bringing out his concealed faults and vices--the
shortcomings one's vanity slurs over and omits. Above all I shall try to
notice anything that throws light upon his life, for I have to tell here
the story of his passion and his soul's wreck. At the crisis of his life
he revealed himself almost without affectation; in agony men forget to
pose. And this more intimate understanding of the man will enable us to
reconstruct, partially at least, the happenings of his life, and so
trace not only his development, but the incidents of his life's journey
from his school days in 1575 till he crept home to Stratford to die
nearly forty years later.
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