No More Learning

I only listen, and the sounds of the words reach me: "It's gross
carelessness. Heedlessness! You'll get yourself into trouble! "
I tried to open my mouth for some purpose or other. I seemed
to want to ask forgiveness, but I couldn't; to run away, but I
didn't dare to make the attempt: and then- then, my dearest,
something so dreadful happened that I can hardly hold my pen
even now for the shame of it. My button-deuce take it-my
button, which was hanging by a thread, suddenly broke loose,
jumped off, skipped along (evidently I had struck it by accident),
clattered and rolled away, the cursed thing, straight to his Excel-
lency's feet, and that in the midst of universal silence. And
that was the whole of my justification, all my excuse, all my
answer, everything which I was preparing to say to his Excel-
lency!
The results were terrible! His Excellency immediately di-
rected his attention to my figure and my costume. I remembered
what I had seen in the mirror; I flew to catch the button! A
fit of madness descended upon me! I bent down and tried to
grasp the button, but it rolled and twisted, and I couldn't get
hold of it, in short, and I also distinguished myself in the matter
of dexterity. Then I felt my last strength fail me, and knew
that all, all was lost! My whole reputation was lost, the whole
man ruined! And then, without rhyme or reason, Teresa and
Faldoni began to ring in both my ears. At last I succeeded in
seizing the button, rose upright, drew myself up in proper salute,
but like a fool, and stood calmly there with my hands lined
down on the seams of my trousers! No, I didn't, though. 1
began to try to fit the button on the broken thread, just as
though it would stick fast by that means; and moreover, I began
to smile and went on smiling.
At first his Excellency turned away; then he scrutinized me
again, and I heard him say to Evstafiy Ivanovitch:-"How's this?
See what a condition he is in! What a looking man! What's
the matter with him? " Ah, my own dearest, think of that—
"What a looking man! " and "What's the matter with him!
"He has distinguished himself! " I heard Evstafiy say; "he has
no bad marks, no bad marks on any score, and his conduct
is exemplary; his salary is adequate, in accordance with the
rates. " "Well then, give him some sort of assistance," says his
>>>


## p. 4798 (#594) ###########################################

4798
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
Excellency; "make him an advance on his salary. "-"But he has
had it, he has taken it already, for ever so long in advance.
Probably circumstances have compelled him to do so; but his
conduct is good, and he has received no reprimands, he has never
been rebuked. " My dear little angel, I turned hot and burned
as though in the fires of the bad place! I was on the point of
fainting. "Well," says his Excellency in a loud voice, “the doc-
ument must be copied again as quickly as possible; come here,
Dyevushkin, make a fresh copy without errors; and listen to
me;" here his Excellency turned to the others and gave them
divers orders, and sent them all away. As soon as they were
all gone, his Excellency hastily took out his pocket-book, and
from it drew a hundred-ruble bank-note. "Here," said he, "this
is all I can afford, and I am happy to help to that extent;
reckon it as you please, take it,”—and he thrust it into my hand.
I trembled, my angel, my whole soul was in a flutter; I didn't
know what was the matter with me; I tried to catch his hand
and kiss it. But he turned very red in the face, my darling,
and—I am not deviating from the truth by so much as a hair's-
breadth - he took my unworthy hand, and shook it, indeed he
did; he took it and shook it as though it were of equal rank
with his own, as though it belonged to a General like himself.
"Go," says he; "I am glad to do what I can. Make no mis-
takes, but now do it as well as you can. "
Now, my dear, this is what I have decided: I beg you and
Feodor and if I had children I would lay my commands upon
them to pray to God for him; though they should not pray for
their own father, that they should pray daily and forever, for his
Excellency! One thing more I will say, my dearest, and I say
it solemnly, heed me well, my dear, I swear that, no matter
in what degree I may be reduced to spiritual anguish in the
cruel days of our adversity, as I look on you and your poverty,
on myself, on my humiliation and incapacity,-in spite of all
this, I swear to you that the hundred rubles are not so precious
to me as the fact that his Excellency himself deigned to press
my unworthy hand, the hand of a straw, a drunkard! Thereby
he restored my self-respect. By that deed he brought to life
again my spirit, he made my existence sweeter forevermore, and
I am firmly convinced that, however sinful I may be in the
sight of the Almighty, yet my prayer for the happiness and
prosperity of his Excellency will reach his throne!
――――――


## p. 4799 (#595) ###########################################

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
4799
My dearest, I am at present in the most terrible state of
spiritual prostration, in a horribly overwrought condition. My
heart beats as though it would burst out of my breast, and I
seem to be weak all over. I send you forty-five rubles, paper
money. I shall give twenty rubles to my landlady, and keep
thirty-five for myself; with twenty I will get proper clothes, and
the other fifteen will go for my living expenses. But just now
all the impressions of this morning have shaken my whole being
to the foundations. I am going to lie down for a bit. Never-
theless, I am calm, perfectly calm. Only, my soul aches, and
down there, in the depths, my soul is trembling and throbbing
and quivering. I shall go to see you; but just now I am simply
intoxicated with all these emotions. God sees all, my dearest,
my own darling, my precious one.
Your worthy friend,
MAKAR DYEVUSHKIN.
Translation of Isabel F. Hapgood.
THE BIBLE READING
From Crime and Punishment'
R
ASKOLNIKOFF Went straight to the water-side, where Sonia was
living. The three-storied house was an old building, painted
green.
The young man had some difficulty in finding the
ornik, and got from him vague information about the quarters
of the tailor Kapernasumoff. After having discovered in a corner
of the yard the foot of a steep and gloomy staircase, he ascended
to the second floor, and followed the gallery facing the court-yard.
Whilst groping in the dark, and asking himself how Kapernas-
umoff's lodgings could be reached, a door opened close to him;
he seized it mechanically.
"Who is there? " asked a timid female voice.
"It is I. I am coming to see you," replied Raskolnikoff, on
entering a small ante-room. There on a wretched table stood a
candle, fixed in a candlestick of twisted metal.
"Is that you? Good heavens! " feebly replied Sonia, who
seemed not to have strength enough to move from the spot.
"Where do you live? Is it here? " And Raskolnikoff passed
quickly into the room, trying not to look the girl in the face.


## p. 4800 (#596) ###########################################

4800
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
A moment afterwards Sonia rejoined him with the candle, and
remained stock still before him, a prey to an indescribable agita-
tion. This unexpected visit had upset her-nay, even frightened
her. All of a sudden her pale face colored up, and tears came
into her eyes.
She experienced extreme confusion, united with a
certain gentle feeling. Raskolnikoff turned aside with a rapid
movement and sat down on a chair, close to the table. In the
twinkling of an eye he took stock of everything in the room.
This room was large, with a very low ceiling, and was the
only one let out by the Kapernasumoffs; in the wall, on the left-
hand side, was a door giving access to theirs. On the opposite
side, in the wall on the right, there was another door, which was
always locked. That was another lodging, having another num-
ber. Sonia's room was more like an out-house, of irregular rec-
tangular shape, which gave it an uncommon character. The wall,
with its three windows facing the canal, cut it obliquely, forming
thus an extremely acute angle, in the back portion of which noth-
ing could be seen, considering the feeble light of the candle.
On the other hand, the other angle was an extremely obtuse one.
This large room contained scarcely any furniture. In the right-
hand corner was the bed; between the bed and the door, a chair;
on the same side, facing the door of the next set, stood a deal
table, covered with a blue cloth; close to the table were two rush
chairs. Against the opposite wall, near the acute angle, was
placed a small chest of drawers of unvarnished wood, which
seemed out of place in this vacant spot. This was the whole of
the furniture. The yellowish and worn paper had everywhere
assumed a darkish color, probably the effect of the damp and
coal smoke. Everything in the place denoted poverty. Even the
bed had no curtains. Sonia silently considered the visitor, who
examined her room so attentively and so unceremoniously.
"Her lot is fixed," thought he,-"a watery grave, the mad-
house, or a brutish existence! " This latter contingency was
especially repellent to him, but skeptic as he was, he could not
help believing it a possibility. "Is it possible that such is really
the case? " he asked himself. "Is it possible that this creature,
who still retains a pure mind, should end by becoming deliber-
ately mire-like ? Has she not already become familiar with it,
and if up to the present she has been able to bear with such a


## p. 4801 (#597) ###########################################

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
4801
life, has it not been so because vice has already lost its hideous-
ness in her eyes? Impossible again! " cried he, on his part, in
the same way as Sonia had cried a moment ago. "No, that
which up to the present has prevented her from throwing her-
self into the canal has been the fear of sin and its punishment.
May she not be mad after all? Who says she is not so? Is
she in full possession of all her faculties? Is it possible to
speak as she does? Do people of sound judgment reason as she
reasons? Can people anticipate future destruction with such tran-
quillity, turning a deaf ear to warnings and forebodings? Does
she expect a miracle? It must be so. And does not all this
seem like signs of mental derangement? "
To this idea he clung obstinately. Sonia mad! Such a pros-
pect displeased him less than the other ones. Once more he
examined the girl attentively.
« And you
you often pray to
God, Sonia? " he asked her.
No answer. Standing by her side, he waited for a reply.
"What could I be, what should I be without God? " cried she in
a low-toned but energetic voice, and whilst casting on Raskolni-
koff a rapid glance of her brilliant eyes, she gripped his hand.
"Come, I was not mistaken! " he muttered to himself. -"And
what does God do for you? " asked he, anxious to clear his
doubts yet more.
For a long time the girl remained silent, as if incapable of
reply. Emotion made her bosom heave. "Stay! Do not ques-
tion me! You have no such right! " exclaimed she, all of a sud-
den, with looks of anger.
"I expected as much! " was the man's thought.
"God does everything for me! " murmured the girl rapidly,
and her eyes sank.
"At last I have the explanation! " he finished mentally, whilst
eagerly looking at her.
He experienced a new, strange, almost unhealthy feeling on
watching this pale, thin, hard-featured face, these blue and soft
eyes which could yet dart such lights and give utterance to such
passion; in a word, this feeble frame, yet trembling with indig-
nation and anger, struck him as weird,-nay, almost fantastic.
"Mad! she must be mad! " he muttered once more. A book
was lying on the chest of drawers. Raskolnikoff had noticed it
more than once whilst moving about the room. He took it and
examined it. It was a Russian translation of the Gospels, a
well-thumbed leather-bound book.
VIII-301


## p. 4802 (#598) ###########################################

4802
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
"Where does that come from? " asked he of Sonia, from the
other end of the room.
The girl still held the same position, a pace or two from the
table. "It was lent me," replied Sonia, somewhat loth, without
looking at Raskolnikoff.
"Who lent it you? "
“Elizabeth —I asked her to! "
"Elizabeth. How strange! " he thought.
he thought. Everything with
Sonia assumed to his mind an increasingly extraordinary aspect.
He took the book to the light, and turned it over. "Where is
mention made of Lazarus? " asked he abruptly.
Sonia, looking hard on the ground, preserved silence, whilst
moving somewhat from the table.
"Where is mention made of the resurrection of Lazarus ?
Find me the passage, Sonia. "
The latter looked askance at her interlocutor. "That is not
the place it is the Fourth Gospel," said she dryly, without
moving from the spot.
"Find me the passage and read it out! " he repeated, and
sitting down again rested his elbow on the table, his head on
his hand, and glancing sideways with gloomy look, prepared to
listen.
――――――――
Sonia at first hesitated to draw nearer to the table. The
singular wish uttered by Raskolnikoff scarcely seemed sincere.
Nevertheless she took the book. "Have you ever read the pas-
sage? " she asked him, looking at him from out corners of
her eyes.
Her voice was getting harder and harder.
"Once upon a time. In my childhood. Read! "
"Have you never heard it in church? "
"I-I never go there. Do you go often yourself? »
"No," stammered Sonia.
Raskolnikoff smiled. "I understand, then, you won't go to-
morrow to your father's funeral service? "
"Oh, yes! I was at church last week. I was present at a
requiem mass. "
"Whose was that? >>
"Elizabeth's. She was assassinated by means of an axe. ”
Raskolnikoff's nervous system became more and more irritated.
He was getting giddy. "Were you friends with her? "
"Yes. She was straightforward. She used to come and see
She was not able. We used to read and
me but not often.
at.
She sees God. "


## p.
4803 (#599) ###########################################

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
4803
Raskolnikoff became thoughtful. "What," asked he himself,
"could be the meaning of the mysterious interviews of two such
idiots as Sonia and Elizabeth? Why, I should go mad here
myself! " thought he. "Madness seems to be in the atmosphere
of the place! -Read! " he cried all of a sudden, irritably.
Sonia kept hesitating. Her heart beat loud. She seemed
afraid to read. He considered "this poor demented creature »
with an almost sad expression. "How can that interest you,
since you do not believe? " she muttered in a choking voice.
"Read! I insist upon it! Used you not to read to Eliza-
beth? »
Sonia opened the book and looked for the passage. Her hands
trembled. The words stuck in her throat. Twice did she try to
read without being able to utter the first syllable.
"Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany,"
she read, at last, with an effort; but suddenly, at the third word,
her voice grew wheezy, and gave way like an overstretched
chord. Breath was deficient in her oppressed bosom. Raskolni-
koff partly explained to himself Sonia's hesitation to obey him;
and in proportion as he understood her better, he insisted still
more imperiously on her reading. He felt what it must cost the
girl to lay bare to him, to some extent, her heart of hearts. She
evidently could not, without difficulty, make up her mind to con-
fide to a stranger the sentiments which probably since her teens
had been her support, her viaticum-when, what with a sottish
father and a stepmother demented by misfortune, to say nothing
of starving children, she heard nothing but reproach and offens-
ive clamor. He saw all this, but he likewise saw that notwith-
standing this repugnance, she was most anxious to read,—to read
to him, and that now,-let the consequences be what they may!
The girl's look, the agitation to which she was a prey, told him
as much, and by a violent effort over herself Sonia conquered
the spasm which parched her throat, and continued to read the
eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. She thus
reached the nineteenth verse:-
"And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort
them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard
that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat still in the
house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here,
my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatsoever
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. "


## p. 4804 (#600) ###########################################

4804
FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOÉVSKY
Here she paused, to overcome the emotion which once more
caused her voice to tremble.
"Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith
unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the
last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest
thou this? She saith unto him,”.
and although she had difficulty in breathing, Sonia raised her
voice, as if in reading the words of Martha she was making her
own confession of faith:—
"Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God,
which should come into the world. ”
She stopped, raised her eyes rapidly on him, but cast them
down on her book, and continued to read. Raskolnikoff listened
without stirring, without turning toward her, his elbows resting
on the table, looking aside. Thus the reading continued till the
thirty-second verse.
"Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she
fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here,
my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping,
and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the
spirit and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They
said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the
Jews, Behold how he loved him. And some of them said, Could not
this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even
this man should not have died? "
Raskolnikoff turned towards her and looked at her with agita-
tion. His suspicion was a correct one. She was trembling in all
her limbs, a prey to fever. He had expected this. She was get-
ting to the miraculous story, and a feeling of triumph was taking
possession of her. Her voice, strengthened by joy, had a metal-
lic ring. The lines became misty to her troubled eyes, but for-
tunately she knew the passage by heart. At the last line,
"Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind-
she lowered her voice, emphasizing passionately the doubt, the
blame, the reproach of these unbelieving and blind Jews, who a
moment after fell as if struck by lightning on their knees, to
sob and to believe. "Yes," thought she, deeply affected by this
>>>


## p. 4805 (#601) ###########################################

FEODOR MIKHAILOVITCH DOSTOEVSKY
4805
joyful hope, "yes, he- he who is blind, who dares not believe-
he also will hear-will believe in an instant, immediately, now,
this very moment! »
"Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave.
It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away
the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him,
Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. "
She strongly emphasized the word four.
"Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst
believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God? Then they took away
the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted
up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always; but because of the people
which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent
me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice,
Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth,"-
(on reading these words Sonia shuddered, as if she herself had
been witness to the miracle)
"bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound
about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him
go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the
things which Jesus did, believed on him. "
She read no more,- such a thing would have been impossible
to her, closed the book, and briskly rising, said in a low-toned
and choking voice, without turning toward the man she was
talking to, "So much for the resurrection of Lazarus. " She
seemed afraid to raise her eyes on Raskolnikoff, whilst her fever-
ish trembling continued. The dying piece of candle dimly lit up
this low-ceiled room, in which an assassin and a harlot had just
read the Book of books.


## p. 4806 (#602) ###########################################

4806
EDWARD DOWDEN
(1843-)
-
W
E ARE all hunters, skillful or skilless, in literature — hunters
for our spiritual good or for our pleasure," says Edward Dow-
den; and to his earnest research and careful exposition
many readers owe a more thorough appreciation of literature. He
was educated at Queen's College, Cork (his birthplace), and then at
Trinity College, Dublin, where he received the Vice-Chancellor's
prize in both English verse and English prose, and also the first
English Moderatorship in logic and ethics. For two years he studied
divinity. Then he obtained by examination a professorship of oratory
at the University of Dublin, where he was afterwards elected pro-
fessor of English literature. The scholarship of his literary work has
won him many honors. In 1888 he was chosen president of the Eng-
lish Goethe Society, to succeed Professor Müller. The following year
he was appointed first Taylorian lecturer in the Taylor Institute,
Oxford. The Royal Irish Academy has bestowed the Cunningham
gold medal upon him, and he has also received the honorary degree
LL. D. of the University of Edinburgh, and from Princeton Uni-
versity.
Very early in life Professor Dowden began to express his feeling
for literature, and the instinct which leads him to account for a work
by study of its author's personality. For more than twenty years
English readers have known him as a frequent contributor of critical
essays to the leading reviews. These have been collected into the
delightful volumes Studies in Literature and Transcripts and
Studies. ' His has been called "an honest method, wholesome as
sweet. " He would offer more than a mere résumé of what his author
expresses. He would be one of the interpreters and transmitters of
new forms of thought to the masses of readers who lack time or
ability to discover values for themselves. Very widely read himself,
he is fitted for just comparisons and comprehensive views. As has
been pointed out, he is fond of working from a general consideration
of a period with its formative influences, to the particular care of the
author with whom he is dealing. Saintsbury tells us that Mr. Dow-
den's procedure is to ask his author a series of questions which seem
to him of vital importance, and find out how he would answer them.
Dowden's style is careful, clear, and thorough, showing his schol-
arship and incisive thought. His form of expression is strongly


## p. 4807 (#603) ###########################################

EDWARD DOWDEN
4807
picturesque. It is nowhere more so than in 'Shakespeare: a Study
of His Mind and Art. ' This, his most noteworthy work, has been
very widely read and admired. His intimate acquaintance with Ger-
man criticism upon the great Elizabethan especially fitted him to
present fresh considerations to the public.
He has also written a brilliant 'Life of Shelley' (bitterly criticized
by Mark Twain in the North American Review, 'A Defense of Har-
riet Shelley), and a 'Life of Southey' in the English Men of
Letters Series; and edited most capably Southey's Correspondence
with Caroline Bowles,' The Correspondence of Sir Henry Taylor,'
< Shakespeare's Sonnets,' 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' and a collection
of Lyrical Ballads. '
THE HUMOR OF SHAKESPEARE
From Shakespeare: a Critical Study of His Mind and Art›
A
STUDY of Shakespeare which fails to take account of Shake-
speare's humor must remain essentially incomplete. The
character and spiritual history of a man who is endowed
with a capacity for humorous appreciation of the world must dif-
fer throughout, and in every particular, from that of the man
whose moral nature has never rippled over with genial laughter.
At whatever final issue Shakespeare arrived after long spiritual
travail as to the attainment of his life, that precise issue, rather
than another, was arrived at in part by virtue of the fact of
Shakespeare's humor. In the composition of forces which deter-
mined the orbit traversed by the mind of the poet, this must be
allowed for as a force among others, in importance not the least,
and efficient at all times even when little apparent.
A man
whose visage "holds one stern intent" from day to day, and
whose joy becomes at times almost a supernatural rapture, may
descend through circles of hell to the narrowest and the lowest;
he may mount from sphere to sphere of Paradise until he stands
within the light of the Divine Majesty; but he will hardly suc-
ceed in presenting us with an adequate image of life as it is on
this earth of ours, in its oceanic amplitude and variety.
few men of genius there have been, who with vision penetrative
as lightning have gazed as it were through life, at some eter-
nal significances of which life is the symbol. Intent upon its
sacred meaning, they have had no eye to note the forms of the
A


## p. 4808 (#604) ###########################################

4808
EDWARD DOWDEN
grotesque hieroglyph of human existence. Such men are not
framed for laughter. To this little group the creator of Falstaff,
of Bottom, and of Touchstone does not belong.
Shakespeare, who saw life more widely and wisely than any
other of the seers, could laugh. That is a comfortable fact to
bear in mind; a fact which serves to rescue us from the domina-
tion of intense and narrow natures, who claim authority by vir-
tue of their grasp of one-half of the realities of our existence
and their denial of the rest. Shakespeare could laugh. But we
must go on to ask, "What did he laugh at? and what was the
manner of his laughter? " There are as many modes of laugh-
ter as there are facets of the common soul of humanity, to reflect
the humorous appearances of the world. Hogarth, in one of his
pieces of coarse yet subtile engraving, has presented a group of
occupants of the pit of a theatre, sketched during the perform-
ance of some broad comedy or farce. What proceeds upon the
stage is invisible and undiscoverable, save as we catch its reflec-
tion on the faces of the spectators, in the same way that we infer
a sunset from the evening flame upon windows that front the
west. Each laughing face in Hogarth's print exhibits a different
mode or a different stage of the risible paroxysm. There is the
habitual enjoyer of the broad comic, abandoned to his mirth,
which is open and unashamed; mirth which he is evidently a
match for, and able to sustain. By his side is a companion
female portrait- a woman with head thrown back to ease the
violence of the guffaw; all her loose redundant flesh is tickled
into an orgasm of merriment; she is fairly overcome. On the
other side sits the spectator who has passed the climax of his
laughter; he wipes the tears from his eyes, and is on the way to
regain an insecure and temporary composure.
Below appears a
girl of eighteen or twenty, whose vacancy of intellect is captured
and occupied by the innocuous folly still in progress; she gazes
on expectantly, assured that a new blossom of the wonder of
absurdity is about to display itself. Her father, a man who does
not often surrender himself to an indecent convulsion, leans
his face upon his hand, and with the other steadies himself by
grasping one of the iron spikes that inclose the orchestra. In
the right corner sits the humorist, whose eyes, around which the
wrinkles gather, are half closed, while he already goes over the
jest a second time in his imagination. At the opposite side an
elderly woman is seen, past the period when animal violences are


## p. 4809 (#605) ###########################################

EDWARD DOWDEN
4809
possible, laughing because she knows there is something to
laugh at, though she is too dull-witted to know precisely what.
One spectator, as we guess from his introverted air, is laughing
to think what somebody else would think of this. Finally, the
thin-lipped, perk-nosed person of refinement looks aside, and by
his critical indifference condemns the broad, injudicious mirth of
the company.
All these laughers of Hogarth are very commonplace, and
some are very vulgar persons; one trivial, ludicrous spectacle is
the occasion of their mirth. When from such laughter as this
we turn to the laughter of men of genius, who gaze at the total
play of the world's life; and when we listen to this, as with the
ages it goes on gathering and swelling, our sense of hearing is
enveloped and almost annihilated by the chorus of mock and
jest, of antic and buffoonery, of tender mirth and indignant
satire, of monstrous burlesque and sly absurdity, of desperate
misanthropic derision and genial affectionate caressing of human
imperfection and human folly. We hear from behind the mask
the enormous laughter of Aristophanes, ascending peal above
peal until it passes into jubilant ecstasy, or from the uproar
springs some exquisite lyric strain. We hear laughter of pas-
sionate indignation from Juvenal, the indignation of "the ancient
and free soul of the dead republics. " And there is Rabelais,
with his huge buffoonery, and the earnest eyes intent on free-
dom, which look out at us in the midst of the zany's tumblings
and indecencies. And Cervantes, with his refined Castilian air
and deep melancholy mirth, at odds with the enthusiasm which
is dearest to his soul. And Molière, with his laughter of unerring
good sense, undeluded by fashion or vanity or folly or hypocrisy,
and brightly mocking these into modesty. And Milton, with his
fierce objurgatory laughter,- Elijah-like insult against the ene-
mies of freedom and of England. And Voltaire, with his quick
intellectual scorn and eager malice of the brain. And there is
the urbane and amiable play of Addison's invention, not capable
of large achievement, but stirring the corners of the mouth with
a humane smile,- gracious gayety for the breakfast-tables of
England. And Fielding's careless mastery of the whole broad
common field of mirth. And Sterne's exquisite curiosity of odd-
ness, his subtile extravagances and humors prepense. And there
is the tragic laughter of Swift, which announces the extinction
of reason, and loss beyond recovery of human faith and charity


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EDWARD DOWDEN
and hope. How in this chorus of laughters, joyous and terrible,
is the laughter of Shakespeare distinguishable?
In the first place, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total
genius, is many-sided. He does not pledge himself as dramatist
to any one view of human life. If we open a novel by Charles
Dickens, we feel assured beforehand that we are condemned to
an exuberance of philanthropy; we know how the writer will
insist that we must all be good friends, all be men and brothers,
intoxicated with the delight of one another's presence; we expect
him to hold out the right hand of fellowship to man, woman, and
child; we are prepared for the bacchanalia of benevolence. The
lesson we have to learn from this teacher is, that with the
exception of a few inevitable and incredible monsters of cruelty,
every man naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam is of
his own nature inclined to every amiable virtue. Shakespeare
abounds in kindly mirth: he receives an exquisite pleasure from
the alert wit and bright good sense of a Rosalind; he can dandle
a fool as tenderly as any nurse qualified to take a baby from the
birth can deal with her charge. But Shakespeare is not pledged
to deep-dyed ultra-amiability. With Jacques, he can rail at the
world while remaining curiously aloof from all deep concern
about its interests, this way or that. With Timon he can turn
upon the world with a rage no less than that of Swift, and dis-
cover in man and woman a creature as abominable as the Yahoo.
In other words, the humor of Shakespeare, like his total genius,
is dramatic.
<
Then again, although Shakespeare laughs incomparably, mere
laughter wearies him. The only play of Shakespeare's, out of
nearly forty, which is farcical, The Comedy of Errors,' — was
written in the poet's earliest period of authorship, and was
formed upon the suggestion of a preceding piece. It has been
observed with truth by Gervinus that the farcical incidents of
this play have been connected by Shakespeare with a tragic back-
ground, which is probably his own invention. With beauty, or
with pathos, or with thought, Shakespeare can mingle his mirth;
and then he is happy, and knows how to deal with play of wit
or humorous characterization; but an entirely comic subject some-
what disconcerts the poet. On this ground, if no other were
forthcoming, it might be suspected that 'The Taming of the
Shrew was not altogether the work of Shakespeare's hand. The
secondary intrigues and minor incidents were of little interest to
-


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EDWARD DOWDEN
4811
the poet. But in the buoyant force of Petruchio's character, in
his subduing tempest of high spirits, and in the person of the
foiled revoltress against the law of sex, who carries into her
wifely loyalty the same energy which she had shown in her vir-
gin sauvagerie, there were elements of human character in which
the imagination of the poet took delight.
Unless it be its own excess, however, Shakespeare's laughter
seems to fear nothing. It does not, when it has once arrived at
its full development, fear enthusiasm, or passion, or tragic
intensity; nor do these fear it. The traditions of the English
drama had favored the juxtaposition of the serious and comic:
but it was reserved for Shakespeare to make each a part of the
other; to interpenetrate tragedy with comedy, and comedy with
tragic earnestness.
SHAKESPEARE'S PORTRAITURE OF WOMEN
From Transcripts and Studies ›
OⓇ
F ALL the daughters of his imagination, which did Shake-
speare love the best? Perhaps we shall not err if we say
one of the latest born of them all,-our English Imogen.
And what most clearly shows us how Shakespeare loved Imogen
is this he has given her faults, and has made them exquisite,
so that we love her better for their sake. No one has so quick
and keen a sensibility to whatever pains and to whatever glad-
dens as she. To her a word is a blow; and as she is quick in
her sensibility, so she is quick in her perceptions, piercing at
once through the Queen's false show of friendship; quick in her
contempt for what is unworthy, as for all professions of love
from the clown-prince, Cloten; quick in her resentment, as when
she discovers the unjust suspicions of Posthumus. Wronged she
is indeed by her husband, but in her haste she too grows unjust;
yet she is dearer to us for the sake of this injustice, proceeding
as it does from the sensitiveness of her love. It is she, to whom
a word is a blow, who actually receives a buffet from her hus-
band's hand; but for Imogen it is a blessed stroke, since it is the
evidence of his loyalty and zeal on her behalf. In a moment he
is forgiven, and her arms are round his neck.
Shakespeare made so many perfect women unhappy that he
owed us some amende. And he has made that amende by letting


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EDWARD DOWDEN
us see one perfect woman supremely happy. Shall our last
glance at Shakespeare's plays show us Florizel at the rustic
merry-making, receiving blossoms from the hands of Perdita? or
Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess in Prospero's cave, and
winning one a king and one a queen, while the happy fathers
gaze in from the entrance of the cave? We can see a more
delightful sight than these - Imogen with her arms around the
neck of Posthumus, while she puts an edge upon her joy by the
playful challenge and mock reproach-
"Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a rock, and now
Throw me again;"
and he responds-
"Hang there like a fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die. "
We shall find in all Shakespeare no more blissful creatures
than these two.
-
THE INTERPRETATION OF LITERATURE
From Transcripts and Studies >
HE happiest moment in a critic's hours of study is when,
by some divination, but really as result of
patient observation and thought, he lights upon the central
motive of a great work. Then, of a sudden, order begins to
form itself from the crowd and chaos of his impressions and
ideas. There is a moving hither and thither, a grouping or co-
ordinating of all his recent experiences, which goes on of its own
accord; and every instant his vision becomes clearer, and new
meanings disclose themselves in what had been lifeless and un-
illuminated. It seems as if he could even stand by the artist's
side and co-operate with him in the process of creating. With
such a sense of joy upon him, the critic will think it no hard
task to follow the artist to the sources from whence he drew his
material, it may be some dull chapter in an ancient chronicle,
or some gross tale of passion by an Italian novelist,- and he
will stand by and watch with exquisite pleasure the artist hand-
ling that crude material, and refashioning and refining it, and
breathing into it the breath of a higher life. Even the minutest


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4813
difference of text between an author's earlier and later draft, or
a first and second edition, has now become a point not for dull
commentatorship, but a point of life, at which he may touch
with his finger the pulse of the creator in his fervor of creation.
-
From each single work of a great author we advance to
his total work, and thence to the man himself,- to the heart
and brain from which all this manifold world of wisdom and wit
and passion and beauty has proceeded. Here again, before we
address ourselves to the interpretation of the author's mind, we
patiently submit ourselves to a vast series of impressions. And
in accordance with Bacon's maxim that a prudent interrogation
is the half of knowledge, it is right to provide ourselves with a
number of well-considered questions which we may address to
our author. Let us cross-examine him as students of mental and
moral science, and find replies in his written words. Are his
senses vigorous and fine? Does he see color as well as form?
Does he delight in all that appeals to the sense of hearing — the
voices of nature, and the melody and harmonies of the art of
man? Thus Wordsworth, exquisitely organized for enjoying and
interpreting all natural, and if we may so say, homeless and
primitive sounds, had but little feeling for the delights of music.
Can he enrich his poetry by gifts from the sense of smell, as
did Keats; or is his nose like Wordsworth's, an idle promontory
projecting into a desert air? Has he like Browning a vigorous
pleasure in all strenuous muscular movements; or does he like
Shelley live rapturously in the finest nervous thrills? How does
he experience and interpret the feeling of sex, and in what parts.