Atlantic Monthly | Page 2

the variety of characters,
and all their doings; as he goes on reflecting upon them, his
imagination warms, and excites his fancy; he sees and identifies
himself with his characters, lives a secondary life in his work, as one
may in a dream which he directs and yet believes in; his whole soul
becomes more active under this fervor of the imagination, the fancy,
and all the powers of suggestion,--yet, still, the presiding judgment
remains calm above all, guiding the whole; and above or behind that,

the will which elects to do all this, perchance for a very simple
purpose,--namely, for filthy lucre, the purchase-money of an estate in
Stratford.
To say that he "followed Nature" is to mean that he permits his
thoughts to flow out in the order in which thoughts naturally
come,--that he makes his characters think as we all fancy we should
think under the circumstances in which he places them,--that it is the
truth of his thoughts which first impresses us. It is in this respect that he
is so universal; and it is by his universality that his naturalness is
confirmed. Not all his finer strokes of genius, but the general scope and
progress of his mind, are within the path all other minds travel; his
mind answers to all other men's minds, and hence is like the voice of
Nature, which, apart from particular association, addresses all alike.
The cataracts, the mountains, the sea, the landscapes, the changes of
season and weather have each the same general meaning to all mankind.
So it is with Shakspeare, both in the conception and development of his
characters, and in the play of his reflections and fancies. All the world
recognizes his sanity, and the health and beauty of his genius.
Not all the world, either. Nature's poet fares no better than Nature
herself. Half the world is out of the pale of knowledge; a good part of
the rest are stunted by cant in its Protean shapes, or by inherited
narrowness and prejudice, and innumerable soul-cankers. They neither
know nor think of Nature or Poetry. Just as there are hundreds in all
great cities who never leave their accustomed streets winter or summer,
until finally they lose all curiosity, and cease to feel the yearnings of
that love which all are born with for the sight of the land and sea,--the
dear face of our common mother. Or the creatures who compose the
numerical majority of the world are rather like the children of some
noble lady stolen away by gypsies, and taught to steal and cheat and
beg, and practised in low arts, till they utterly forget the lawns whereon
they once played; and if their mother ever discovers them, their natures
are so subdued that they neither recognize her nor wish to go with her.
Without fearing that Shakspeare can ever lose his empire while the
language lasts, it is humiliating to be obliged to acknowledge one great

cause that is operating to keep him from thousands of our young
countrymen and women, namely, the wide-spread mediocrity that is
created and sustained by the universal diffusion of our so-called cheap
literature;--dear enough it will prove by and by!--But this is needlessly
digressing.
The very act of writing implies an art not born with the poet. This
process of forming letters and words with a pen is not natural, nor will
the poetic frenzy inspire us with the art to go through it. In conceiving
the language of passion, the natural impulse is to imitate the passion in
gesture; there is something artificial in sitting quietly at a table and
hollaing, "Mortimer!" through a quill. If Hotspur's language is in the
highest degree natural, it is because the poet felt the character, and
words suggested themselves to him which he chose and wrote down.
The act of choice might have been almost spontaneous with the feeling
of the character and the situation, yet it was there,--the conscious
judgment was present; and if the poet wrote the first words that came,
(as no doubt he usually did,) it was because he was satisfied with them
at the time; there was no paroxysm of poetic inspiration,--the workings
of his mind were sane. His fertility was such that he was not obliged to
pause and compare every expression with all others he could think of as
appropriate;--judgment may decide swiftly and without comparison,
especially when it is supervising the suggestions of a vivid fancy, and
still be judgment, or taste, if we choose to call it by that name. We
know by the result whether it was present. The poet rapt into
unconsciousness would soon betray himself. Under the power of the
imagination, all his faculties waken to a higher life; his fancies are
more vivid and clear; all