Think of it; the noblest autumn fruit ever produced; all
kindly-sweet and warm, bathed so to speak in love's golden sunshine; his
last word to men:
"The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance...."
And then the master of many styles, including the simple, wins to a
childlike simplicity, and touches the source of tears:
"We are such stuff as dreams are made of,
And our little life is rounded with a sleep."
True, Shakespeare was not the kind of man Englishmen are accustomed to
admire. By a curious irony of fate Jesus was sent to the Jews, the most
unworldly soul to the most material of peoples, and Shakespeare to
Englishmen, the most gentle sensuous charmer to a masculine, rude race.
It may be well for us to learn what infinite virtue lay in that frail,
sensual singer.
This dumb struggling world, all in travail between Thought and Being,
longs above everything to realize itself and become articulate, and
never has it found such width of understanding, such melody of speech,
as in this Shakespeare.
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