Читать книгу The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll - Robert Green Ingersoll - Страница 139

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THAT a procession of men and women—statesmen and warriors—kings and clowns—issued from Shakespeare's brain! What women!

Isabella—in whose spotless life love and reason blended into perfect truth.

Juliet—within whose heart passion and purity met like white and red within the bosom of a rose.

Cordelia—who chose to suffer loss, rather than show her wealth of love with those who gilded lies in hope of gain.

Hermione—"tender as infancy and grace"—who bore with perfect hope and faith the cross of shame, and who at last forgave with all her heart.

Desdemona—so innocent, so perfect, her love so pure, that she was incapable of suspecting that another could suspect, and who with dying words sought to hide her lover's crime—and with her last faint breath uttered a loving lie that burst into a perfumed lily between her pallid lips.

Perdita—"a violet dim, and sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes"—"The sweetest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward." And

Helena—who said:

"I know I love in vain, strive against hope—

Yet in this captious and intenable sieve

I still pour in the waters of my love,

And lack not to lose still,

Thus, Indian-like,

Religious in mine error, I adore

The sun that looks upon his worshiper,

But knows of him no more."

Miranda—who told her love as gladly as a flower gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun. And Cordelia—whose kisses cured and whose tears restored. And stainless

Imogen—who cried: "What is it to be false?" And here is the description of the perfect woman:

"To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;

To keep her constancy in plight and youth—

Outliving beauty's outward with a mind

That doth renew swifter than blood decays."

Shakespeare has done more for woman than all the other dramatists of the world.

For my part, I love the Clowns. I love Launce and his dog Crabb, and Gobbo, whose conscience threw its arms around the neck of his heart, and Touchstone, with his lie seven times removed; and dear old Dogberry—a pretty piece of flesh, tedious as a king. And Bottom, the very paramour for a sweet voice, longing to take the part to tear a cat in; and Autolycus, the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, sleeping out the thought for the life to come. And great Sir John, without conscience, and for that reason unblamed and enjoyed—and who at the end babbles of green fields, and is almost loved. And ancient Pistol, the world his oyster. And Bardolph, with the flea on his blazing nose, putting beholders in mind of a damned soul in hell. And the poor Pool, who followed the mad king, and went "to bed at noon." And the clown who carried the worm of Nilus, whose "biting was immortal." And Corin, the shepherd—who described the perfect man: "I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat—get that I wear—owe no man aught—envy no man's happiness—glad of other men's good—content."

And mingling in this motley throng, Lear, within whose brain a tempest raged until the depths were stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a life was given back to memory?—and then by madness thrown to storm and night—and when I read the living lines I feel as though I looked upon the sea and saw it wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years were cast upon the shores.

And Othello—who like the base Indian threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe.

And Hamlet—thought-entangled—hesitating between two worlds.

And Macbeth—strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful crime—"Curses not loud but deep—mouth-honor—breath."

And Brutus, falling on his sword that Cæsar might be still.

And Romeo, dreaming of the white wonder of Juliet's hand. And Ferdinand, the patient log-man for Miranda's sake. And Florizel, who, "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born lass. And Constance, weeping for her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant garments with his form."

And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of good and evil—and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that hurries by a ruined mill.

From every side the characters crowd upon us—the men and women born of Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really lived with us.

Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase—has ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine perfume.

In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold—passions became virtues—weeds became exotics from some diviner land—and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian Gods. In his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite—that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and mathematical—dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems.

Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner.