He took up Shakespeare
at Macugnaga, in 1840, and he asks why the loveliest of
Shakespeare's plays should be "all mixed and encumbered with
languid and common work--to one's best hope spurious certainly, so
far as original, idle and disgraceful--and all so inextricably and
mysteriously that the writer himself is not only unknowable, but
inconceivable; and his wisdom so useless, that at this time of
being and speaking, among active and purposeful Englishmen, I know
not one who shows a trace of ever having felt a passion of
Shakespeare's, or learnt a lesson from him."
That is of course the sad cry of one who is interested in life
primarily, and in art only so far as it can minister to life. It
may be strained and exaggerated, but how far more vital a saying
than to expand in voluble and vapid enthusiasm over the insight and
nobleness of Shakespeare, if one has not really felt one's life
modified by that mysterious mind!
Of course such self-revelation as I speak of will necessarily fall
into the hands of unquiet, dissatisfied, melancholy people.
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