We
should deem ourselves fortunate if we had the journal alone. It would
hardly matter which six years of Shakespeare's life the journal
covered. As a boy, as a young actor, as an industrious reviser of
other men's plays, as the humorous creator of Falstaff, Benedick, and
Mercutio, as the profound "natural" philosopher of the great
tragedies, he could never have been quite an ordinary diarist. Great
men have been known to keep diaries in which the level of interest
does not rise above a visit to the barber or the dentist. The common
routine of life interested Shakespeare, but something beyond it must
have found place in his journal. Reference to his glorious achievement
must have gained entry there.
Some notice, we may be sure, figured in Shakespeare's diary of the
first performances of his great plays on the stage. However eminent a
man is through native genius or from place of power, he can never,
whatever his casual professions to the contrary, be indifferent to the
reception accorded by his fellow-men to the work of his hand and head.
I picture Shakespeare as the soul of modesty and gentleness in the
social relations of life, avoiding unbecoming self-advertisement, and
rating at its just value empty flattery, the mere adulation of the
lips.
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