Horace Howard Furness

“ Can dramatist, of imagination so compact that at will he becomes another person, different in every fibre of his nature from himself, have a decided character of his own? Can a strongly marked character, by any amount of imagination, be always obliterated? Can a man, stubbornly moulded, create Portia of Belmont, or Rosalind, or Juliet, or, most marvelous of all, Cleopatra? May it not be affirmed that the less decided a poet’s own personal character is, and the greater his imagination, the more perfect is his capacity to become a dramatist? ”

“ Here was practice in the field,—such as any engineer double young Rogers's age would have been glad to gain,—under an officer the highest authority in the land in Civil Engineering, the most rigid and punctilious of military disciplinarians when on duty, the genial, warm-hearted friend, and, within the limits of becoming mirth, the most jovial of companions in hours of relaxation. Sterile, indeed, must be the soil which would not respond to such influences. In young Rogers's case the soil was ready to teem with flower and fruit. ”

“ Have words ever fallen from human lips more wise in their charity than Madame de Staël’s Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner? In unveiling to us the innermost thoughts of his characters, as he does in soliloquies, Shakespeare enables us to understand everything, and can we then withhold a pardoning sigh? ”

“ Shakespeare himself warns us to look below the surface. Prince Hal, when his heart was inwardly breaking on account of his father’s sickness, asks Poins, “What would’st thou think of me, if I should weep?” “I would think thee,” replied Poins, “a most princely hypocrite.” “It would be every man’s thought,” rejoins the Prince, “and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks; never a man’s thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine.” Therefore, in estimating a character, avoid the uncritical, humdrum road-way. ”

“ Here and there beams forth the twinkle of a laughter-loving eye, such as: 'If a man has not hands enough to spare one to take off his hat to bow to a lady, he should continue to practise driving until he can find one;' and, again, 'There is something so exhilarating in the motion behind four horses, through the fresh air, that even stupid people wake up, and for once make themselves agreeable;' again, the humorous description of an unhappy beginner's first experience on the box, when 'the reins seem to be all edges,' speaks home to the heart of every driver. ”

“ Are we arrogant enough to suppose that we can see what he could not? But inasmuch as, when heard on the stage, these phrases, even the most obscure, convey some vague kind of fleeting sense, Shakespeare suffered them to pass uncorrected, knowing, moreover, that he was writing solely for the stage and not for the poring eyes of critics and commentators, of whose existence he, with all his imagination, could never have dreamed.
Surprise is often expressed at Shakespeare’s apparent indifference to the fate of his plays. ”

“ And, next, that his knowledge of human nature is infinite and supreme. His arrangement of scenes, his archaic words, his obscure expressions, his anachronisms, his ill-timed levity, his verbal conceits, all have been criticised at one time or another, and condemned; but his knowledge of human nature, with all its springs of action and of emotion, has never been questioned. Dr. Johnson goes so far as boldly to assert that Shakespeare “has not only shown human nature as it acts in real exigencies, but as it would be found to act in trials to which it cannot be exposed.” ”

“ A choicer spirit has seldom visited this earth. To a keen intellect were united clearness of exposition and a retentive memory. Warm and loyal in his friendship, he never cherished an ill-feeling,—for no one ever did him an unkindness. On many an institution in his native city an ineffaceable impression has been left of his judicious devotion ”

“ Let me here make a digression, for a moment, to another land, and another dramatic literature. The French, as you know, adopted in their drama the three unities of Time, Place, and Action, but failed to adopt the Chorus. Now it is the Chorus alone which makes the unities of time and place necessary. The Chorus is composed of men or women, and inasmuch as they have to watch the whole play and even take part in it, their presence is limited by their power of endurance. Human nature cannot, while watching any proceeding, hold out, at the extremest limit, longer than from sunrise to sunset. ”

“ Thus it was that this many-sided man touched life at such diverse points, and his solid worth dignified them all. The hand that could delicately adjust the compass on an iron ship lost none of our respect when it deftly caught a whip-lash in a double thong. ”

“ Very early in the play Shakespeare will tell you where the scene is laid, the time of the year, if it be necessary, and sometimes, by inference, even the day of the week, and you will neither know the source of the plot, nor care not a doit for it, if you did. Your conception of the characters must be formed, as in real life, by their words and their deeds. ”

“ The realisation of such an ideal Professor Rogers, in the maturity of his powers, now resolved to attempt. The result was, in 1899, given to the public in A Manual of Coaching, a work which it would be difficult to praise too highly. By maintaining no standard lower than perfection in the humblest details of coach, of harness, of driving, it elevates what is perhaps supposed to be merely the pastime of luxurious ease into the dignity of an art worthy of respect. A terret or a splinter-bar may be an insignificant thing, but perfection is not ”

“ All we mortals, however, must win what we can of perfection by long, weary, and heavy labor, and at the cost of many dismal failures on the way. To this law of labor and of growth Shakespeare was no exception. When he came to London, there were already great luminaries in the dramatic world, whose plays were alike the delight of the Court and of the people. ”

“ The care and responsibility of so many interests where others were involved could not fail, as the years ran on, to make themselves felt to one as conscientious in the performance of every duty as was Professor Rogers. ”

“ The Fool never ceases to hope that he can drive Lear to reassert himself, recall Cordelia, and resume his throne until he sees that his Master is hopelessly and helplessly crazed, and then Shakespeare withdraws him; the need of a Chorus is at an end. Let me say, in passing, that I think those actors err who present the Fool on the stage as a young boy. To me, he is a man, one of the shrewdest, tenderest of men, whom long life has made wise, and whom sorrow has made tender ”

“ The study of the human heart, its sympathies, its antipathies, its emotions, you can pursue as unerringly in Shakespeare’s pages as you can in real life. Herein, when forming your conclusions, beware of accepting what the characters may say of each other, but take only what the characters say and do themselves;—especially study their soliloquies. ”

“ Consequently, what a priceless boon to humanity these seven years of obscurity have proved! What a chance is here, in this long passage of time, to account for the acquisition of that universal knowledge which is attributed to him. Accordingly, if we are to believe his editors, commentators, and critics, it was during these seven, silent years, while holding horses betimes, pray observe, at the doors of theatres for his daily bread, that Shakespeare made himself a thorough master of Law and Practice ”

“ It is impossible to say how much Shakespeare in the perfection of his powers owed to study or to his native genius. It has been remarked that he gave to Enobarbus in Anthony and Cleopatra, at times, the office of a Greek Chorus. But there is another tragedy, wherein Shakespeare felt, I think, even more keenly than in Anthony and Cleopatra the need of just such aid as a Greek Chorus would supply. ”

“ In its internal design and arrangement much that is admirable and best is owing to his careful and earnest thought.
'Upon completion of the work in 1876,—the year of the Nation's Centennial Anniversary,—he became Chairman of the Committee on Instruction. The period was an important era in Art Education in the United States. Under Mr. Rogers the school system of the Academy was wholly reorganized upon a basis so thorough that the schools rose to the highest point reached in this country, and for the first time women were admitted to them upon the same conditions as men. ”

“ Johnson reminds me of the Preface to his edition of Shakespeare, published in 1765. Never, since Dryden, has Shakespeare’s pre-eminence been more vigorously proclaimed. To be sure, Pope has said of Shakespeare’s “power over our passions,” that the “heart swells and tears burst out just at the proper places,” a very notable confession, considering the source. But listen to Dr. Johnson: “Shakespeare’s drama is the mirrour of life,” and therein may be found “scenes from which a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of the passions. ”

“ After the return from his wedding tour in Europe he was busily occupied, until the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861, in giving series after series of Lectures on Physics and its branches at The Franklin Institute and on Civil Engineering at The University of Pennsylvania, where he had been installed in the chair of that department. Later, in 1861, he delivered a lecture on 'Roads' before The Smithsonian Institution in Washington ”

“ No “Oration” will you hear from me to-day. If you will permit, I will only speak right on and tell you that which you yourselves do know, and consider you simply as a gathering of friends, met charitably to listen to the maunderings of an old man, who has been enticed hither by the venerable apothegm that “Philosophy is the guide of life.” ”

“ Shakespeare hurls his spells into the spongy air, and we are powerless to resist. This to and fro movement of time, which so thoroughly deceives us and is the effect of consummate art, Shakespeare uses even in the historic plays. Thanks to our great Greek scholar, of whom all Harvard is proud, this very device in the treatment of dramatic time has been detected in the opening scene of the Agamemnon. Thus we find the two greatest dramatic poets of the world using a kindred art in producing kindred dramatic effects. ”

“ A reason, genuinely valid, is to be found, I think, in Shakespeare’s delicate sense of honor. He was the dramatist of his company, the breadwinner, to whom his fellow-actors looked for their livelihood. He wrote his drama, taking as his plot, in order to save time and eliminate as far as possible all chance of failure, either some old play, whereof the dramatic power had been already tested, or some popular novel, or some chapter of history ”

“ Can no Act of Parliament be passed forbidding, under pain of death, without benefit of clergy, all further research into Shakespeare’s life? Can we not all fervently reëcho: “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear, To touch the dust enclosed here!” ”

“ There is in us all an eager and commendable curiosity to learn the incidents in the lives of notable personages, whereby we may be enabled to reanimate them and see them in their habits as they lived. In certain circumstances, may not this curiosity be pushed too far, and lead us to inquire too closely into everyday life? ”

“ Even to such a monster as Caliban, Shakespeare imparted so much of human nature as to make him appear at least possible. By the way, did it ever occur to you to wonder why this misshapen, abhorred slave speaks in rhythm, a privilege which Shakespeare does not, in general, accord even to well-behaved servants or country-folk? There is no character in the play whose words fall at times into sweeter cadences. Why did Shakespeare thus endow him with lofty words? Does not Caliban himself indirectly tell us, when he says to Prospero ”

“ The fable is so unspeakably abhorrent that many editors have rejected the whole play as spurious. This is not, I think, a sufficing reason. The plot is directly in the line of popularity, and Shakespeare needed money, and so far from softening the horrors of the old play, I incline to the belief that, wherever he could, Shakespeare deepened them. Why should he not? The worse it is, the better it is. An author named Meres, in 1598, enumerates Titus Andronicus among the tragedies which had made Shakespeare famous, and I can readily believe it. ”

“ With the lavish prodigality of youth, on every hand he scatters jewels, sparkling with wit and wisdom, and, while untwisting all the chains that tie the hidden soul of harmony, in youthful frolic he dashes nectar full in our faces. ”