Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 20, June, 1859 | Page 2

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 the suggestions that come to him are more apt and congruous; and his faculties of selection, his perceptions of fitness, beauty, and appropriateness