Horace Howard Furness

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Again, in Othello, we have the time marked even to the days of the week;—the drama opens at night, and Othello and Desdemona start for Cyprus, and land there on Saturday; that night, in the revelry, Iago plies Cassio with wine and Cassio is disgraced. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Griffith remarked that Shakespeare “seems to think that a woman could not be rendered completely wicked without some degree of intoxication.” Subsequent commentators have in general acquiesced in the effect of wine indicated by Mrs. Griffith, or avoided reference to the passage; this interpretation remains therefore the only one, as far as I know, and is not only so gross, but implies such a violation of all art in representing a heroine as intoxicated, that I will not listen to it. ”

“ Is that zeal commendable that prompts the publication of letters that were never meant to be shown abroad, much less printed, where the petty foibles of the daily round, and the trivial weaknesses, and worse, of domestic life, are laid bare to those who please to listen? ”

“ Veterinary Medicine, Farriery, Music, Military Science, Seamanship, Botany, Horticulture, Archery, Hawking, Fishing, Fencing, Astronomy, Astrology, Ornithology, Hunting, Printing; he was a strolling actor in Germany, traveled in Italy, read every translation of French and of classic authors, and every original then printed, and finished up with reading the whole of English literature from Chaucer to his own time, and as he read he took voluminous notes of every word and phrase so as to pass them off afterward as his own! ”

“ Archaeological notes explain allusions to manners, customs, and sports, now obsolete, and to the thousand and one things which go to make up a nation’s life, public and private, in town and country, high-born and low-born. ”

“ This is, however, far, very far from fulfilling the purpose of the Greek Chorus; and, as I have said, in Lear there seems to be a genuine need of it. Mark Shakespeare’s device, as I think, for supplying this need. Recall that Cordelia is banished in the first Act and must not reappear before the close of the tragedy; yet not only must she not be forgotten by us, but we must be made constantly aware of her unseen presence and of Lear’s folly in banishing her. ”

“ The Queen goes out, and Polonius bustles up, saying to his daughter, “Ophelia, walk you here.” Then, turning to the King and courteously waving him to the door, with “Gracious, so please you,” adds, as an Aside for the King’s ear alone, “We will bestow ourselves.” Then, as he approaches the door, he turns back and addresses Ophelia with “Read in this book, That show of such an exercise may colour your loneliness.” Then he rambles on, moralizing on “sugaring o’er the devil himself with devotion’s visage,” etc., but no further word to Ophelia. They hear Hamlet coming and at once withdraw. ”

“ But eleven days after Marlowe appeared before the Star Chamber, he was killed at Deptford in a tavern brawl. The dagger of an ignoble servant saved England from the indelible and ineffable disgrace of burning alive one of her greatest writers of tragedy. [3]
I have said that all the facts thus far discovered about Shakespeare’s life were harmless, “except one,” and this belongs to the very class which I have all along dreaded, and feared might be detected. ’T is a long story and if I told it at all, it would be assuredly in the words of Shakespeare’s latest biographer, Mr. ”

“ And so oblivious was he of the limitations of his stage that the knowledge that boys were destined to impersonate women never caused him to forget for an instant das Ewig-Weibliche, or diminish one dowle in the plume that renders Juliet and Miranda, Perdita and Rosalind, Beatrice and Portia, so flawless, so feminine, and so true. Herein, let me add in parenthesis, lies a notable difference between Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists; it is incomprehensible that Shakespeare’s women were to be acted by boys ”

“ But had I mentioned them all by name, with their notes, it would not have affected the point of my contention, which is that in the passage under discussion there is, in reality, no allusion whatsoever to wine as the cause of Lady Macbeth’s boldness. ↑ This fact about Marlowe, as well as that Kyd, implicated in Marlowe’s atheism, had been actually put to the torture, has been lately proved by Professor Boas, in his excellent edition of Kyd’s Works. ↑ See Arber’s Transcript of the Stationers’ Registers, vol. ii, p. 22. ”