When and were was born Queen Constance, the scold? And
Bianca? And Doll Tearsheet, and "Greasy Jane" in the song, and all
the rest of them? It is of the last importance that we should know.
Yet never a hint is vouchsafed us in the text. It is clear that
Shakespeare cannot bring himself to write about Anne Hathaway's
birthday--will not stain his imagination by thinking of it. That is
entirely human-natural. But why should he loathe Christmas Day itself
with precisely the same loathing? There is but one answer--and that
inevitable-final. The two days were one.
Some soul-secrets are so terrible that the most hardened realist of us
may well shrink from laying them bare. Such a soul-secret was this of
Shakespeare's. Think of it! The gentlest spirit that ever breathed,
raging and fuming endlessly in impotent-bitter spleen against the
prettiest of festivals! Here is a spectacle so tragic-piteous that,
try as we will, we shall not put it from us. And it is well that we
should not, for in our plenary compassion we shall but learn to love
the man the more.
[Mr. Fr*nk H*rr*s is very much a man of genius, and I should
be sorry if this adumbration of his manner made any one
suppose that I do not rate his writings about Shakespeare
higher than those of all "the Professors" together.
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