SHAKESPEARE. 67 



When I was a boy they made me wash my 

 face, comb my hair and put on a broad white 

 collar before they would let me go to the 

 book-shelves and take down the old leather- 

 backed, heavy -ribbed book they called by the 

 sacred name of Shakespeare. In those days 

 I devoutly believed all they said about that 

 man's perfectness and universality of genius. 

 Indeed it was with a sense of profound guilt 

 that one day I discovered a doubt. I had 

 been reading Tennyson and my head and my 

 heart were full of new and glorious sounds, 

 colors, longings, and dreams. I know to the 

 last pang how a Christian must feel who sud- 

 denly lapses into infidelity, for did I not fall 

 from the grace of Shakespeare- worship ? It 

 was a final fall, too, for I never have got 

 wholly back and never shall. 



Still Shakespeare stands alone (so does 

 Shelley) and he stands alone in the highest 

 realm of art. Quantity as well as quality 

 (when the quality is always high) goes to 

 prove great genius. Many men have done 

 one act of perfect creation, falling back to 

 mere mediocrity afterward ; but it is only the 

 few who can keep up the ecstasy of the 

 maker for many years together. We may 

 count these on our fingers: Homer, Milton, 

 Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Scott, and 

 Hugo — the list would be short, but such a list! 

 I am not quite sure that Emerson ought to be 

 left out, for he was one of the calm and lofty 

 ones who build for all time, and yet he sug- 

 gested rather than created the best of his ef- 

 fects. All these great men impress us with 

 the peculiar sereneness of their bearing under 

 the infinite white heat of poetic ecstasy. 

 Carlyle fell short here and hence cannot be 

 called great. 



