66 SYLVAN SECRETS. 



can Guli, far out of any so-called Shakespear 

 ian scholar's reach. Beside me lies a volume 

 of Alden's Ideal Edition of the works of Wil- 

 liam Shakespeare, the cheapest and clearest- 

 typed edition I have yet seen. You may 

 read it as you walk; I have read it as I 

 walked, communing with the Two Gentlemen 

 of Verona under the moaning pines and 

 mossy live-oaks, while the lazy wash of the 

 Gulf waves and the lazy touch of the Gulf 

 breeze "filled in the symphonies between." 

 Forgive me, but once in a while a mocking- 

 bird makes me forget that there ever was 

 a Shakespeare. Just a while ago I flung 

 down the Ideal to run and peep at a shy 

 songster flitting about in a cedar thicket. I 

 like living things, and in spite of all that I 

 can do a live titmouse is more to my taste 

 than a dead poet. There are some wonderful 

 fossils, but even a mammoth's jaw is not so 

 interesting as a warm, buzzing, flaming hum- 

 ming bird bobbing at a flower. 



A vast quantity of good breath has been 

 wasted telling over and over and over the 

 threadbare romance of how incomparable are 

 the works of the old art-masters, a lie which 

 has to be kept warm by the constant friction 

 of telling. The romance of Shakespeare is 

 of the same sort ; but the truth about him is 

 wonderful enough the truth that makes him 

 a great man, like Napoleon, Newton, Phidias, 

 Homer, Dante and Hugo greater in some 

 ways than any of these and not half as great 

 in other ways; a man whose glaring faults 

 stand out in his works, and whose rare gifts 

 those works do not half disclose the truth 

 in short, that he was. like any other genius, 

 a curious bundle of greatness and common- 

 ness. 



