His silence was noticed, and
Chettle challenged him to write in praise of the dead sovereign, because
she had been kind to him; but he would not: he had come to realise the
harsh nature of Elizabeth, and he detested her ruthless cruelties. Like
a woman, he found it difficult to forgive one who had injured those he
loved. Now that I have discussed at some length Shakespeare's character,
its powers and its weaknesses, let us for a moment consider his
intellect. All sorts and conditions of men talk of it in superlatives;
but that does not help us much. It is as easy to sit in Shakespeare's
brain and think from there, as it is from Balzac's. If we have read
Shakespeare rightly, his intelligence was peculiarly self-centred; he
was wise mainly through self-knowledge, and not, as is commonly
supposed, through knowledge of others and observation; he was assuredly
anything but worldly-wise. Take one little point. In nearly every play
he discovers an intense love of music and of flowers; but he never tells
you anything about the music he loves, and he only mentions a dozen
flowers in all his works.
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