William Wilson

“ We are tempted to peep into the temple, the outer doors of which are open, for something says there is a truth, away far back, within, At the same time we are uncomfortably conscious that, by so doing, we subject ourselves to the ridicule of the multitude outside, of our friends, and possibly even of ourselves, if we should emerge from this novel condition of seeing as we never saw before. ”

“ Astronomers are kept busy preparing Ephemerides of the Planets’ Places from year to year; there are well established publications of the kind; public library authorities see fit, not only to inlay their vestibules with the Zodiacal Signs, but also to include a considerable amount of the literature on the subject in their lists; teachers, more or less qualified, there are in plenty; serious students abound: in short, it would seem that Astrology is now ready for that vigorous opposition and misrepresentation which is always at hand when a great question is ripening for consideration. ”

“ Miss Ellen Terry will therefore (if Astrology’s prediction about itself be true) not require to be informed that Shakespeare saw his Viola with blonde or light brown hair, she being a Sagittarian, not only in her relations to others, but in her own career throughout the play. No one who has interested himself in this phase of the subject can fail to be impressed with the grasp of it possessed by Shakespeare. There is scarcely an utterance in the play that is not significant. ”

“ SHAKESPEARE AND ASTROLOGY. [1]
If the prognostications of the Science of Planetary Influence as to its own future are to he considered worthy of attention, we may regard ourselves as living on the eve of an interesting era at the present time, Whether Astrology and its presages be or be not adapted to the use of intelligent people is a question on which even they agree to differ; we all have what Artemus Ward used to call our idiot syncrasies; in any there are who hold that the question never attained the dignity of being one ”

“ Viola, it will be remembered, has also an experience of the kind. It is difficult to imagine that anyone possessed of the most rudimentary acquaintance with the subject could fail to enjoy here the attractive combination of art and science. To suppose it the result of chance would surely involve an effort out of proportion to the necessities of the case. Happy-go-luckyism may be a genial guide at times, but sooner or later it sends its victim sprawling. It is easier to suppose that Shakespeare accepted the theory of Zodiacal Influence, and set himself to portray the various types accordingly ”

“ Shakespeare, never didactic, gives to Edmund the following pregnant answer:—
“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and stars; as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on ”

“ The main objection to the enquiry may be at once conceded; it increases the already large amount of irresponsible talk about him; but the evil ceases there; the disintegrating influence of the planets, if it be a factor on earth at all, is as powerful on books and pamphlets as it is on human beings, everything must sooner or later succumb to it; as for the right or wrong of spending time in such a way, there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. ”

“ Hermione complains, in the third scene of the second act, that “some ill planet reigns”, and, in the third act speaks of her infant, ”starred unluckily” and from her ”breast haled out to murder;” as for the Oracle business in Act 3, it is known, if not always respected, by every student of Astrology; though here again the artist hand is strong; the Oracle is not loquacious, he is carefully non-committal, he does not interrupt the action by provoking wonder as to how he got his mysterious information. ”

“ To the casual reader such quotations, shorn of the context and clubbed together in one collection, may appear of little moment; but, even as they are, the deduction is unavoidable that devotion to a science is necessary before it can be handled with such genial freedom and at the same time never failing relevance and accuracy,
Dryden well said that Shakespeare is often flat and even insipid, that his comic wit is frequently of the poorest, and his serious swelling degenerates sometimes into bombast; but, he finely added “he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him ”

“ We may know as little of the matter as the philanthropist does of the working classes and yet admit that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy. Shakespeare was a poet, and poetry makes its impress by reason of an occult something that lies behind it ”

“ Interesting it is to note throughout this play, as well as that of the “Tempest”, how well the poet knew when to have done with Zodiacs and Right Ascensions, how he subdues his Science, so prominent at other times, and allows the stars to play their part as an attractive background to his picture. Apostrophes such as those of Oberon to the planet Venus are common; the witchery of night is ever present; when the stars are in view they fulfil all that is needed of them; anything that would divert attention from their beauty is carefully withheld, Only once it the “Tempest”, in Act 1, Sc. ”

“ I will smile, I will do everything that thou wilt have me;” wherein is expressed the delight of the oppressed Saturnian at finding himself in the Benefic’s favour after all; he will even forego the one privilege that was afforded him at birth, his rueful countenance; there is to be no holding back ”

“ With the exception of the significant foreboding at the end of Act 1, Sc. d there is no word of it in “Romeo and Juliet” until the tragic crescendo commences and the lover hears the news of Juliet’s death. There the unerring dramatist strikes a chord:—
“Is it even so?” says Romeo ”