I am aware that, in these days, when realism is all the rage and true imagination at a discount, people will ask how, not being either an Æneas or a Dante, I came to be admitted to an actual sight of the Elysian Fields, and will not be fobbed off by any fanciful explanation such as used to satisfy the more unsophisticated reader of former times. I therefore hasten to satisfy their exacting curiosity by saying that I happen to have done a good turn of late to the Pagan gods--not forgetting the goddesses, whom one should always have on one's side, since they hold the keys of the position equally on earth, in the air, and underground--and they made their acknowledgments to me by letting me know that I might have my choice of an interview with any one, but only one, of the personages among those who are now disporting themselves in the other world. At first, I was rather tempted to name Eve, in order that I might get an intelligible account from the most trustworthy source of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Good and Evil. But I thought she perhaps would know as little about them as myself; so I thought I would ask for an interview, with either Helen of Troy or with Cleopatra, when it suddenly struck me that I should probably find both one and the other not very unlike women I had already come across here in this upper world. So, anxious to know whether or not there ever was a real flesh-and-blood Shakespeare, and explaining that, if there was not, I had not the smallest desire to have a talk with my Lord Verulam, I said, "Let me have a colloquy with Shakespeare, the wisest, sweetest, wittiest, largest-hearted, biggest-brained of human beings"; and, almost before I had finished the sentence, I found myself in the Elysian Fields.
At first, I forgot what I was there for at all, in my amazement at the place itself. Though I am a tolerably close observer of external Nature, I could not for the life of me surmise what season of the year I was in, and finally perceived that I was in all the four seasons at one and the same time. Primroses and bluebells were to be seen side by side with roses and irises, with meadowsweet and traveller's joy, grass ready for the scythe not far from swaying wheat and heavily-burred hop-garden; while, well within view, I could see slopes of virgin snow, and folks making ready to go tobogganing on them. It was just the same with bird-life. Stormcock, nightingale, cuckoo, corncrake, woodpecker, robin redbreast, were all singing together, yet there was no discord in the concert.
"You want to see me, I am told," I heard some one say behind me, and, turning, I at once perceived that it was Shakespeare, not from the striking resemblance to any of the portraits or busts, Droeshout, Chandos, Stratford-on-Avon, or other effigy, but by his seeming to be compounded of them all, with something superadded that I could recall in none of them. Similarly, he did not seem to be of any particular age, either of youth, early manhood, middle life, or yet elderly, but compounded of all the years, at once young and engaging, in the grand climacteric, and withal full of mellow wisdom. His eye glowed with fine frenzy, withal was tender and melting as that of a boy-lover. I could not fail to observe this extraordinary combination of ages and qualities; yet they did not strike me as in any way incongruous, any more than I had found incongruity in all the seasons being contemporaneous, and blossom and fruit subsisting together. I had expected to be rather embarrassed and somewhat overawed on first coming across this king of men; but his manner was so simple, so frank and friendly, that he put me at my ease at once, and I ventured to inquire if, in the Elysian Fields, they had any knowledge of what was going on in the world they had once inhabited.
"Ample knowledge," he replied, "though we are not troubled with newspapers, nor yet tormented by telegrams or telephones, but confine our regard to what interests us."
"Have you happened to notice," I asked, "that
A Winter's Tale has recently been produced at His Majesty's Theatre?"
"Yes, and all the more because that indefatigable manager and all-embracing actor, Mr. Tree, has not taken a part in it. He would have rendered Autolycus very suitably."
"Perhaps," I went on, since I now felt on a footing of the most friendly familiarity with one I had hitherto always thought of at a respectful distance, "perhaps you have observed some of the criticisms on the play."
"To tell the truth," he replied, "I have not. There were few such things in my time, save by the audience; and my recollection of what few there were does not dispose me to read fresh ones. But, if they have said anything instructive or amusing, I shall be most happy to hear it."
"I am afraid," I said, "they are more amusing than instructive."
"Then let me have them by all means. The only thing one is sometimes tempted to find fault with in the Elysian Fields is that its denizens are a trifle too serious for me; being just as much inclined as ever to say, when I find myself in the company of my fellow-creatures, 'With mirth and laughter let me play the fool.'"
Thus encouraged, I said that one critic had pronounced the play to be dull as drama, and inferior as poetry; Autolycus to be a bore, yet by no means the only tiresome feature in the play; the plot to be a succession of gaps and puerilities; and that another observed what a pity it was you had made Leontes a lunatic, a raving maniac, and a nuisance. As I recounted these opinions, I could see no sign of annoyance on the face of the playwright, but only a philosophic smile illumining his tranquil features.
"I seem," he said, "to have heard that some time ago some one commented on the meanness of the fable and the extravagant conduct of it, and declared that the comedy caused no mirth, and the serious portion no concernment. I daresay there is truth in the first part of the criticism, but, in regard to the second, I seem to remember that, at the Globe, there was a good deal of mirth at the lighter scenes, and no small attention at the grave ones. But perhaps audiences in my day were different from audiences in yours. I am by no means sure that I wrote the whole of the play; indeed I am pretty certain I did not. My chief share in it was the love-scene between Florizel and Perdita."
"Which I have always thought very beautiful, and the very opposite of 'inferior as poetry.'"
"Very good of you to say so; for I much enjoyed writing it. For the rest, I suspect that a change has come over audiences, and still more over those people whom you call critics. From what I have heard, they appear not to confine themselves to appraising what is offered them, but want authors to offer them something quite different, which is scarcely reasonable. Moreover, they impute to an author motives he did not entertain, and ends he did not have in view. For instance, I am supposed by them to have been a rather successful delineator of character; overlooking the fact that I over and over again cast character to the winds, in favour of the situation, to which one surrendered oneself only too willingly, because in doing so one was enabled to indulge one's humour and temperament more freely and fully."
"Am I right," I asked, "in thinking that your humour and temperament lay chiefly in a keen enjoyment of rural nature, the delineation of love between men and women, and philosophic reflections on the various passions of human beings?"
"You put it rather flatteringly," he said. "But I will not deny that what you say concerning one's disposition is true. The external world is so beautiful, loving and being loved are so delightful, and human beings are so interesting, that it is a writer's own defect if he does not make them appear beautiful, delightful, and interesting to others, no matter in what form he presents them. If he has what you call the way with him, he will make you accept as true almost any story, so long as he is telling it, no matter what you may think of it afterwards. As a famous poet and critic said long ago,
Incredulus odi. Men naturally turn away from what seems incredible. But what seems somewhat incredible when only read, appears credible enough when acted, if acted well; and Ellen Terry was so attractive and winning in her treatment of Polixenes, that the conjugal jealousy of Leontes becomes, at least, almost intelligible."
"That was exactly what I myself felt the other day, when I went to see the performance," I said. "But I observe you quote Horace, though many persons have maintained that you had little Latin, if any."
"Rather a mistake that, arising, I imagine, from their not knowing what Grammar Schools were like in my time, when we were taught something more than the rudiments of Latin, with the assistance of prompt corporal chastisement if we showed a disinclination to master them. Nowadays, I see, the birch, the ferule, and the cane, have fallen into disfavour, with the result that many English boys, at schools supposed to be very superior in the education they provide, refuse to learn anything except cricket and rowing; two excellent accomplishments, but not quite covering the whole ground of a liberal education."
"May I inquire," I said, "if you, among others, had a liberal application of the cane?"
"My fair share," he said, "but not for refusing to learn, since I enjoyed being taught, and, still more, teaching myself; and a very little learning, though some people have said it is a dangerous thing, goes a long way if you only know how to turn it to account. My thrashings, which were richly deserved, were given for being behindhand of a morning because I had loitered with some rustic sight or sound that arrested me, and suchlike irregularities of conduct. But what was taught us was taught thoroughly, and I have sometimes thought that men deemed poets may be taught and learn too much, as, for instance, my good friend Ben Jonson, who has been justly compared to a heavy galleon, though a very well trimmed and steered one, but which perhaps would sometimes have benefited by a portion of its dead weight being cast overboard. Still he was a rare poet all the same."
"Who is that, may I ask, with the pointed beard, that has just been joking with a rubicund friar whom I no longer see, and then more gravely with a seemly and tender-looking young woman, also vanished 'into air, into thin air,' while he now stoops to gather daisies from the grass? I seem to know his face."
"That is a delightful fellow, perhaps of all my companions here the most congenial; the morning star of English song, Geoffrey Chaucer.
He could, and did, delineate character consistently if you like. I think it is his cheerful, kindly sense of humour that recommends him so strongly to me. But a nearer contemporary of mine in the other world whom you see there, wearing an aspect of stately distinction, essentially what English folk call a perfect gentleman, likewise enters much into the study of my imagination. See! Now he turns his face towards you."
"Surely it is Edmund Spenser, is it not?"
"Yes, the Poet's poet. His verse is at once so natural and so noble, as to be irresistible. I often repeat to myself two exquisitely musical and briefly descriptive lines of his:
A little lowly Hermitage it was,
Down in a dale, hard by a forest side.
No amount of elaboration and detail would enable one to see the Hermitage better, or indeed, as well; and the lyrical freedom of the ostensibly iambic verse gives to it an irresistible charm."
"And, over and over again, if I may say so, gives to the blank verse of your dramas the same magical quality that a more stately treatment of it can never confer. But where is Milton?"
"One sees him but seldom," he replied; "and when Chaucer and I do catch sight of him, we behave rather like truant schoolboys, and put on a grave face, especially if he finds us in one of our lighter moods. We are all rather in awe of him, for he never stoops to playfulness; and Chaucer, who is rather irreverent sometimes, says he is so uniformly sublime as now and then to be ridiculous. But, in our hearts, we greatly revere him. To tell the truth, I think he prefers Wordsworth's company to ours; and we find more congenial society from time to time in--look! that handsome youth, who carries his head with unconscious pride, and even here seems half-discontented. The best is never good enough for him, and he cannot be deluded even by his own illusions, poor fellow!"
"It's Byron," I said, "is it not?"
"Yes, there is no mistaking him; part man, part god, part devil. I believe there was some doubt about admitting him here, lest he should rouse even the Elysian Fields to mutiny, and a question whether he should not have an enclosure all to himself. But he is a man of the world, and knows how to behave himself when he chooses; and, when one of his misanthropic moods comes over him, he wanders about scowling and muttering like a gathering thunderstorm. I am told he breaks bounds sometimes to go in search of Sappho. There would be a pair of them, would there not? What an explosive power there was in him! for in the mind, as in your melanite, force packs small."
"And Shelley? Where is Shelley?"
"Where the bee sucks, I suspect; for he is the very Ariel of our company; ever, even here, in search of the unattainable! But he is a great favourite with all of us, he is so lovable."
"And the poet who has delighted my own generation," I inquired. "Surely he is among you."
"Not yet," he replied; "though I have not the least doubt he will be, in due course. No one is admitted here until he has been dead for fifty years; Time, the door-keeper and guardian of Eternity, being more deliberate than the janitors of Westminster Abbey, who, you must allow, make some rather ludicrous blunders in admitting, on the very morrow of their decease, at the importunity of friends and associates, persons for whom, half a century later, no one will dream of claiming any special posthumous distinction."
"I fear that is so," I confessed. "We have been rather fussy and feverish of late, and attribute to notoriety an enduring power it does not possess."
"Just so. Notoriety is one thing, Fame quite another. Will not the result be that men who may without presumption entertain a humble hope that, as our lofty friend Milton puts it, Posterity will not willingly let die all that they may have done or written, will feel a distaste for these precipitate distinctions, and even take precautions against them. We notice that something of the same kind is taking place among you in regard to what you call titular honours, since they have become so common, and are lavished on such undistinguished persons, as to be no longer valued by the truly distinguished."
"That is so," I said; "but it is inevitable in these days, and probably useful to the State, satisfying a number of small ambitions."
"I understand," he replied; and I thought to myself, of course he does, he who understood everything. "In these days it is more important to satisfy the many," he went on, "than to content the few, and persons of real distinction must always be few; and, after all, if these are wise as well as distinguished, they must be content with anything that ministers to the welfare of the community at large."
It was so interesting to me to hear this great dramatist and supreme poet talking wisdom in this familiar manner, like any ordinary being, that I made the most of my opportunity, and asked him if he thought what he had just said served to explain the magnificent manner in which his plays are presented to modern audiences, and if he approved of such presentation.
"I should approve," he replied, "if there were no danger of the mounting of the piece diverting the attention of the audience from the play itself, and if it did not appear necessary to modern stage-managers to cut out whatever does not easily lend itself to spectacular devices. I quite understand their motive; for, having been in my time not only an actor, but part proprietor, and part stage-manager of theatres, I do not forget that they must take into consideration the material results of their enterprise. But my colleagues and I contrived to make a fair livelihood out of our theatres without any large outlay on the scenery or the dresses. Apparently, your modern audiences would yawn at, and not understand, speeches that not only the courtiers of Elizabeth, but the citizens of Blackfriars and the Chepe, listened to with rapt and straining ears. We observe that you pique yourselves upon what you call the progress you have made during the last three hundred years, and some of us are rather amused at the self-complacent claim; and, though you travel much faster, live much more luxuriously, and blow each other to pieces more successfully than we did, it may be doubted if men's minds have made much advance, or if their intellectual qualities are not, notwithstanding the increase of what you deem education, poorer and more stinted than when the bulk of the nation read less, but reflected more."
"In one respect," I ventured to say, "you can hardly withhold your sympathy from the claim of our having made progress. We no longer regard actors as vagabonds."
"I am not quite so sure of that," he said, with a significant smile. "Myself an actor as well as an author, my utterances in the second capacity respecting the former are not particularly flattering; and the fuss you have of late made over actors and actresses, as over millionaires and transatlantic heiresses, is perhaps evidence less of admiration than of self-interest, and an appetite for diversion."
"But," I observed, "an actor was recently buried, with the customary honours, in Westminster Abbey."
"But did everybody approve of it? Milton took care to inform me that many did not; but my withers remained unwrung, and I playfully replied that I was rather disposed to think that special form of posthumous acknowledgment might not unsuitably be reserved for actors and politicians--the author of
Paradise Lost was, every now and then, an active politician, was he not?--since the two have much in common, both appealing to their audiences by voice, intonation, gesticulation, and pursuit of popularity, and enjoying a wide but ephemeral notoriety."
I remembered the passage in
Henry the Sixth where he says that he hates "the loud applause and
aves vehement" of the many, and of his little esteem for those who "affect" such, and I followed up that silent recollection by saying:
"And, after all, Milton, Pope, Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, lie far away from that edifice; also, I might add, one greater than any of them--yourself."
"Dear old Stratford-on-Avon!" he said, as though he were musing rather than addressing himself to me. "I am well content to be sepulchred there. How I loved it! How I love it still! And how much I owed to it! My works, such as they are, have in your ingenious age been attributed to one much more nobly born, more highly educated, more deeply read, more erudite, than I. They who started, and those who have accepted, that theory, little understand that no such man could have written them. Whatever may be their merit or demerit, their author could only be one who, born in a modest condition, began by having the closest touch with frank unaffected human nature, and for whom life and society expanded by degrees, until, though still preferring the life removed, he could tell sad stories of the death of kings, find books in the running brooks, and good in everything."
As he slowly uttered these familiar majestic words, he faded from my sight; and all that was left was an enduring recollection of that privileged interview.
[The end]
Alfred Austin's essay: Conversation With Shakespeare In The Elysian Fields