_ XI
Am I trying to convince anybody that Shakespeare did not
write Shakespeare's Works? Ah, now, what do you take me for?
Would I be so soft as that, after having known the human race
familiarly for nearly seventy-four years? It would grieve me to
know that any one could think so injuriously of me, so
uncomplimentarily, so unadmiringly of me. No, no, I am aware
that when even the brightest mind in our world has been trained
up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be
possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely,
dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any
circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity
of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself. We
always get at second hand our notions about systems of
government; and high tariff and low tariff; and prohibition and
anti-prohibition; and the holiness of peace and the glories of
war; and codes of honor and codes of morals; and approval of the
duel and disapproval of it; and our beliefs concerning the nature
of cats; and our ideas as to whether the murder of helpless wild
animals is base or is heroic; and our preferences in the matter
of religious and political parties; and our acceptance or
rejection of the Shakespeares and the Author Ortons and the Mrs.
Eddys. We get them all at second hand, we reason none of them
out for ourselves. It is the way we are made. It is the way we
are all made, and we can't help it, we can't change it. And
whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have been taught to
believe in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain from
examining it, there is no evidence, howsoever clear and strong,
that can persuade us to withdraw from it our loyalty and our
devotion. In morals, conduct, and beliefs we take the color of
our environment and associations, and it is a color that can
safely be warranted to wash. Whenever we have been furnished
with a tar baby ostensibly stuffed with jewels, and warned that
it will be dishonorable and irreverent to disembowel it and test
the jewels, we keep our sacrilegious hands off it. We submit,
not reluctantly, but rather gladly, for we are privately afraid
we should find, upon examination that the jewels are of the sort
that are manufactured at North Adams, Mass.
I haven't any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his
pedestal this side of the year 2209. Disbelief in him cannot
come swiftly, disbelief in a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby
has never been known to disintegrate swiftly; it is a very slow
process. It took several thousand years to convince our fine
race--including every splendid intellect in it--that there is no
such thing as a witch; it has taken several thousand years to
convince the same fine race--including every splendid intellect
in it--that there is no such person as Satan; it has taken
several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant
Church's program of post-mortem entertainments; it has taken a
weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up
infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can; and it
looks as if their Scotch brethren will still be burning babies in
the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes down from his perch.
We are The Reasoning Race. We can't prove it by the above
examples, and we can't prove it by the miraculous "histories"
built by those Stratfordolaters out of a hatful of rags and a
barrel of sawdust, but there is a plenty of other things we can
prove it by, if I could think of them. We are The Reasoning
Race, and when we find a vague file of chipmunk-tracks stringing
through the dust of Stratford village, we know by our reasoning
bowers that Hercules has been along there. I feel that our
fetish is safe for three centuries yet. The bust, too--there in
the Stratford Church. The precious bust, the priceless bust, the
calm bust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy
mustache, and the putty face, unseamed of care--that face which
has looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred
and fifty years and will still look down upon the awed pilgrim
three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle,
subtle expression of a bladder. _