The Man. A Story of To-day

“For three years Shakespeare ostensibly lived with this woman, who was whimsical, ignorant, fault-finding, jealous – ever upbraiding and too fond of giving advice, and a most uncleanly and slovenly housekeeper beside. When he married her Shakespeare accepted her for better for worse, it proved to be worse, but he was determined to endure and live it out; but after three years of purgatory he brushed away the starting tears, took a few small necessary things, tied them in a handkerchief, and without saying ‘good-bye’ even to the dear mother whom he loved (although she did not understand him), started on foot for London, anxious to lose himself in the great throng. He arrived penniless, ragged and footsore, and sought vainly for employment; but what could the poor country boy do? No trade, no education, no experience with practical things! If he had been used to the manners of polite people he could have hired out as a servant; but, alas! he was only a country boor, unused to city ways, and driven almost to the verge of starvation, he hung about the entrance to the theatre, and offered to hold the horses of visitors who went within. At this he picked up enough to pay for his scanty food and lodging. Besides holding horses he carried a lantern, and increased his little income by attending people home after the play, going before carrying lantern and staff. London streets, you know, were not lighted in those days, and robbers were also plentiful under cover of the night, so strong young men able to give protection were needed. Occasionally he was called into the theatre to act as a soldier or supernumerary.

“One night he was engaged to attend a lady and her daughter from their home to the play, and back again after the performance. This woman was the widow of an Italian nobleman, Bowenni by name, who was driven from his home for political reasons. He died in London leaving the widow and daughter with an income which by prudent management was amply sufficient for their needs. The daughter was twenty-four years old at the time I have mentioned, a girl of most rare education and refinement. Like all Italians she was a born linguist, and spoke French, German, Greek and Latin with fluency. Her father was a scholar, and for years he was the tutor and the only playmate of this daughter. Together they studied Homer and Plato (the wonders of Greece were just then for the first time being opened up in England), and the beauties of the French Moralists they dissected day by day with ever increasing delight; for the girl had that fine glad recipiency for the trinity of truth, beauty and goodness, each of which comprehends the other. Her father took good care that only the best of mental nourishment should be hers. In their exile they had traveled through Egypt, spent months in Denmark, Spain and Portugal, knew Rome, Venice and the Mediterranean by heart, and wherever they went, the father secured the best books of the place – for you must remember that in those days the books of an author very seldom went out of his own country, certainly were never offered for sale in other countries, and the works of French dramatists were almost unknown in England.

“After our youth had left the mother and daughter at the door of their dwelling, and they had entered, the daughter asked: ‘My mother, didst thou notice the respectful attitude of the young man whom we engaged to attend us? – how alert he was to see that no accident did befall us? Yet he spoke no word, nor forced on us attention, but only seemed intent on his duty doing.’

“‘Yes,’ said the mother, ‘a youth of goodly parts and fair to view withal; not large in stature, but strong. He does not bear himself pompously, and bend back as other servants do; but the manly chest – it leads, and methinks the crown is in its proper place. We will him engage again, for honest work well done shall ever bring its own reward.’

“But I must hasten on, and not spend time with mere detail. Suffice it to say, that the young man was hired to attend the noble lady and the daughter to the theatre each Thursday night, and that after four weeks the daughter suggested that as the young man was so gentlemanly in his bearing, so modest, and of such comely features, that there would be no harm for him to attend them as their friend and escort. ‘No one need know,’ she naïvely said, and after much misgiving on the mother’s part the plan was suggested to the young man, who only bowed with uncovered head and said, ‘Madame, I am your hired servant, and therefore at your service to do all that you may command, which cannot be but right.’

“So suitable raiment was purchased, and when the youth appeared the women were much surprised to see a perfect gentleman, grave, and ‘to the manor born.’ No longer now did he hold horses at the entrance, but occasionally appeared on the stage in a non-speaking part, at which times the young Italian lady saw but one figure on the stage. The mother and the young man often when walking homeward discussed the play, and the young man seemed to remember each part, and would repeat entire stanzas when asked to do so, word for word; and then with no show of egotism but frankly, say ‘It should have been thus expressed – or thus.’ To all of which the mother and daughter made no answer, but looked at each other in amazement to think that one who had not traveled, and knew not the ways of courts, nor had scarcely learned to read, could make amends to Marlowe.

“One night before the play the manager appeared and offered five and twenty pounds as reward for the best play – all given by the Earl of Southampton. After the play as they walked home, flushed were the daughter’s cheeks, and fast beat her heart. Her blood ran high, as in mad riot. She scarcely seemed to touch the earth as fast she walked and held fast and fast and tighter still to the young man’s arm. At last he turned his face – his eyes met hers – her voice came with a bound —

“‘The play – the play’s the thing! We’ll write it – you and I! The plot? It’s mine already, all in a big French book, musty and hid away. Yes, the plot we’ll borrow and give it back again if France demand. Ha – you, William, come to-morrow night, and you shall write it out in your own matchless words while I translate. The play’s the thing – the play is the thing!’

“Thus spoke the impetuous Italian girl, and the mother was much surprised at the wild outburst of her artless child, but gave assent, and gently the mother mused in accent low as echo answers voice – ‘The play’s the thing!’ And the young man to himself, as homeward he did stroll, did softly say, ‘The play’s the thing! The play’s the thing!’”

CHAPTER XV.

SHAKESPEARIANA – “TRUTH, LORD.”

After dinner in the cabin we moved our chairs out under the trees, and The Man said:

“Yes, I know you wish to hear more about Shakespeare, but before I tell you more of his personal history, let us consider two or three facts in reference to him. First, you know he was not technically a scholar. Between him and the great ancient hearts he was to read there intervened no frosty twilight of antiquarian lore. He had not to clip and measure and adjust amid moth-eaten cerements and rusty armor that he might be able to fashion forth the exterior and shell of times long since gone by, but only to cast asunder the gates of the human heart, that those deathless notes might be heard which are the undertone of human emotion in all times.

“Well it was that he who was to give to our tongue that tune which it was never to lose, whose language, exhaustless in range, in delicacy, force and extent, taking every hue of thought or feeling, of good and base alike, as the sky takes shade or shadow, or as the forest takes storm or calm, was to remain forever the emblem of the multitudinous life, as contrasted with that affected gravity and ossified scholasticism which we so often see – was tempted by no familiarity with ancient writing to any formal rotundity or college-professor mannerism of diction. His audience is the world, and the numbers increase as civilization grows – he moves to-day a broader stratum of human sympathy than any other man who ever lived save one – and this could not have been had he passed into that narrow chamber called a school. And yet no four walls of a college could have held him, for he of all men would have been least apt to prefer the poor glitter of learned paint to God’s sunlight of living smiles. When one thinks how much learning has done to veil genius and impede progress, it is impossible to suppress a sense of satisfaction at the thought that the greatest author of all mankind was not learned! His only teacher was nature, his only need was freedom. Who gave him this? – a woman!

“Now do not suppose that I have no sympathy with colleges, for no man knows their worth better than I; but it is better to build for eternity than for a Regents’ examination. Another thing you must remember is that Shakespeare was surrounded by no circle of admirers. Healthy, whole-hearted, it never occurred to him to ask what precise position he might occupy in the world of letters. He did his work for the approbation of one alone, and she being pleased he was content.

“No jealousy, strife or contention, do you see on that smooth brow; no hate or fear of unjust rivalry. He was monarch of one loving, truthful, trusting heart, so what cared he for popular applause? A prophet has said, ‘Oh, thou foul Circean draught of popular applause, thy end is madness and the grave!’ This most subtle and deadly of all poisons was never mingled in the cup of Shakespeare, and never can be in that of anyone if they work only for the applause of honest love, that can dissemble not. To work for popular applause is to court death; to succeed in winning it, is to be carried to the pinnacle of the temple and cast upon the stones beneath.

“If a man toil for the good-will of the multitude, there will come as sure as fate, the time when the egotism of acquirement will render callous day by day all of his finer perceptions, kill his delicate sensibilities, destroy his manhood. No longer will he hold the mirror up to nature; no longer will the ray of light shine through the prism, reflecting the beauty of the rainbow – he is opaque, dead; and the only sound he gives is ego, Ego, EGO.

“Need I give illustrations? Look about you on every hand. Where in all the realm of books is the author free from this taint! But yes, there are some. This century has seen a few, but you can count them on the fingers of one hand. Hero worship is twice cursed. It bewilders the hero into fantastic error and extravagance, and the fools who worship accept for a time anything the man whom they have damned sets before them and proclaim it truth. They extol his eccentricities into models, his follies into virtues. Thus does hero worship work double harm.

“What is the cure? Is oblivion the only good? Is to do, to die? If I achieve must my life go out like that of certain insects who die in the act of generation? Wise men ask these questions over and over again. I give you the answer. It is this – Together man and woman were put out of Eden. Only together hand in hand can they return.

“Woman’s love saved Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s love saved the woman, although the world knows her not as yet. He never realized his power, and if it had been told him that his name would go thundering down the ages, the greatest literary name of all times, he would have been staggered with incredulity; for if a man ever realizes or imagines he is at the top, at once his head grows dizzy. But never fear, the heart of woman can hold him firm. Duality exists throughout all nature. A man alone is only half a man – a woman alone is only half a woman. The man and woman make the perfect man. There is the male man and the female man. Only where these two half spirits work together can they reach perfection. For every woman there is somewhere on the earth, or in the spirit realm a mate, for every man there is his other half; and some time in this life or in another they will meet, and no priest or justice of the peace can join what God has not ordained. But when the right man meets the right woman and they live rightly, there is an atmosphere formed where no poisonous draught can enter. These two will say, ‘Between us there must be honesty and truth for evermore.’ Then each will work for the approbation of the other; there will be no flattery, for there is honesty; there will be commendation always when deserved, but no fulsome praise. Neither will excel the other. Each may be able to do certain things better than the other, so there will ever be a friendly rivalry for good. The tendency to grow egotistical is ever corrected, the poison is constantly neutralized, for how can you be egotistical when you only work for the approbation of one who has contributed to your work as much as you? There is ever a sharing of every joy, of every exalted thought, of every acquisition; so the good gained is fused. There is a perfect commingling. It is not ‘mine,’ nor ‘thine,’ but ‘ours.’ No selfish satisfaction can you take in your own attainment when by your side stands another as great as yourself. You are gentle, modest, and you two working together cannot but recognize a higher power, a greater than you, a Source you look up to, and ever do you say, ‘Not unto us, not unto us.’ Thus is growth attained and thus only can perfection be reached.

“Of course I know that some men are not as able as some women; and that some men have wives who are only echoes; and that there are men who in their blindness desire nothing else – but a woman who can only applaud her husband is fixing him in untruth, and they are each dragging the other down. For we only need the applause of those who are our equals, otherwise they will not discern but will applaud simply because we say it. Then once having tasted blood we resort to sophistry, trickery and device, knowing we can deceive, to win this deadly thing our morbid souls do crave.

“Well do I know that as the highest joys of sense and soul come from love, and sadly do I say it, love misplaced, diverted, thwarted, causes more misery, heartaches, sickness, death, than all other causes combined. The throes of childbirth were sent as punishment for love wrongly used, and this awful curse can yet be cured; not in this life perhaps, but it will come, for God did not design that life should be sacrificed in order that others still might also have life.”

CHAPTER XVI.

SIXTH SUNDAY – THE MAN CONTINUES THE TRUE STORY OF SHAKESPEARE

“The evening following what I have already told, the young man presented himself at the little red house where dwelt the Lady Bowenni, and was met at the door by Harriette, the daughter. Servant and stranger he no longer was, but friend. The young woman’s cheeks glowed, her eyes flashed with all the eagerness of restless purpose.

“Spread out on the table were sundry curiously-bound books and pamphlets, some written and some in print; for the nobleman had been a great collector, and had secured the best wherever literary treasures were to be found. The young man was cool, composed, and had not the slightest idea of what the work would be or where it should begin.

“‘Draw up your chair to yonder table, William, while I sit on the other side. Now look straight at me (‘I can’t do otherwise,’ he gravely said), and listen close while I the story tell which I have got from three old books – two of them from Spain were brought, one from France. I have dropped and left out this and that, and put in more, here interpolated, there proclaimed a truth I once did hear you say. Now let us get the plot all firmly fixed in our two hearts, and then you it is shall write; for you do toy with words – they are your playthings. You strive not, nor reach out, nor falter, search or look around, but straightway you do get the thought, words, gentle words come trooping to you like a thousand fairies, each in its own order, leading its mate full gently by the hand. For learned men may work and strive and sweat and never do they reach the smoothness you do bring even without a second thought. Careless, William, you are in manner. You know no rule, yet I might study a thousand years and could not thus express the feeling that within me burns; but hinted once by me to you, straightway you weave the beauteous thought into a chaplet gay, and then upon my brow you place it, and seriously you proclaim it mine, when ’tis not mine, nor thine, but ours.’

“Thus did speak this winsome girl after the story she had told, and thoughtful sat the man and not a word he seemed to hear as still she chatted on. When suddenly he aroused and said:

“‘The pens, my lady! An eagle’s pinion, and this story you have told shall we give wing! But note you! three stories have you taken and woven into two instead of one. So shall it stand. Two stories shall we tell, the one within the other held.’[2 - It is a fact known to all students that Shakespeare was the first dramatist who wrote the double play – that is, the first plot of high characters with a second story worked out by the lower or comedy characters. This peculiarity is now made use of by all writers of plays. Note, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, etc.]

“And straightway were pens and paper brought and he did write – steadily and seemingly without thought of form or rounded sentences, but surely without stop – and as the pen went gliding o’er the parchment, and page on page were turned aside, the fair young girl did seize and greedily did read, with pen in hand to make an alteration, although but slight, and her cheeks did burn and now and then she sighed and raised her hands. But the young man, he looked not up, but with calm face and steady hand the work went on; and as he held the pen in his right hand, his left hand moved, as though unknown to him, across the narrow table, and gently did she hold it fast – and still the work went on. A few more nights – the play was done and to the judges sent. They read aloud. Some wondered, others sniffed the air, one said: ‘What rubbish is this sent to us? What folly! and written by a big peasant boor! – use it to light the fire. Here, servant, you, bring on the next so to quickly get this horrid taste out of our mouths.’

“The young man heard the sentence, smiled softly, and to himself did say, ‘Oh man, proud man, clothed in a little brief authority, doth cut such fantastic tricks before high heaven as does make angels weep! Now for myself I do not care, but the lady forsooth, whose play it is, or was before ’twas burned – shame on them! – how can I tell her?’ And so he wandered forth and met but who? Why, Harriette, who sought the youth full far and wide, for she had heard the news and grieved she was and sick, fearing the blow might prove too much for him whose play it was. ‘I care not for myself,’ she said; ‘but how – how can I tell him?’ They met – each read full in the other’s eyes what each would say. Both smiled and walked away.”

CHAPTER XVII.

THOSE TWO

“The disappointment caused by the harsh rejection of this first play of William Shakespeare and Harriette Bowenni was not great. Each had had a more than speaking acquaintanceship with sorrow, and trouble is only comparative anyway; so they looked upon the matter rather as a thing to be expected, an amusing circumstance. They knew the play was better than the one accepted, and that was enough. ‘Is not William Shakespeare just as great as though his name was on the bill board?’ the lady said. Another reason that made them look on the matter lightly was that each read their fate in the other’s face, and as long as no separation is threatened love not only laughs at locksmiths but at all disaster. No awkward love-making scene had ever come between them, no formal declaration. As he wrote that first night, the young man unconsciously reached out his hand toward the girl. She took it, and held it lovingly between her own. When they parted he stooped and their lips met.

“When next they walked along the street, among other things he said, ‘I love you, dear.’ The young woman made no sign of surprise, but when she wrote to him the following day (strange how lovers find excuse to write so often!), there were terms of endearment, all inserted without apology. No wooing – no effort at winning – no affected coyness. They loved, and true love need not be ashamed, for ’tis God’s own gift, and given only to the worthy.

“Each day she wrote a letter to her lover – each day he wrote to her. These messages were often in verse, and part of them are preserved in the sonnets of Shakespeare, one hundred and fifty-four in number. These sonnets, it will be noticed, have no special relation one to the other. Part, it can be seen, are written by a woman to her lover. Mixed in with these are others written by a man. You will notice that in those written by the woman she entreats the young man to marry, and expresses much regret and surprise that though he loves her well he will not wed.

“These sonnets were first published in 1609, and were dedicated —

“‘To Mr. W. H. Their onlie begetter.’

“The W stands for William, the H for Harriette. The prefix of ‘Mr.’ is a mere whimsicality, (a thing all lovers are guilty of, yet which we are ever ready to forgive), simply to mystify the world. The first twenty-six of these sonnets were written by Harriette during the years 1585 and 1586, before she knew that Shakespeare was already married; and the perplexity in her ignorance of the real facts of his life can be imagined.

“Long years after these letters were written, Shakespeare turned those which were not already in rhyme into verse for his and her amusement, and now that they had come to know each other perfectly and the oneness was complete, many was the laugh they had over their youthful trials. Anyone who will read the Sonnets, Venus and Adonis and the Passionate Pilgrim, and read them carefully in the light of what I now tell, will get a clear idea of the first few years’ relations of Shakespeare and this beautiful and accomplished young woman. I do not attempt to defend the style or wording of these poems. They are written in all the hot restless desire of youth where flesh is not ruled by soul – where the earthy is not yet transmuted into the spiritual.

“Said ‘rare Ben Jonson’ – ‘I loved the man, and do reverence his memory on this side of idolatry as much as any! He was honest and of an open and free nature, had an excellent fancy, brave notions and excellent expressions, wherein he flowed with such facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power – would the rule of it had been so too! but he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was in him ever more to be praised than pardoned. The players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare that in his writing whatsoe’er he penned he never blotted out a line. My answer has been, Would he had blotted out a thousand.’

“So with Ben Jonson I say, Oh would that these two had left unwritten a thousand lines! – but who shall dictate to genius?

“When Shakespeare left Stratford he attempted to leave the last year’s dwelling for the new – to steal the shining archway through – close up the idle door. The past was to him dead. He did not hug it to his heart, mourn over it, and attempt to kiss it back to life. He said, ‘The past we cannot recall, the future we cannot reach, the present only is ours.’ So with no attempt at concealment, yet with no disclosure of his history, he said to Harriette Bowenni:

“‘That I do love you, you do know; that I do desire to wed you, you may guess; and that I cannot is but fact. Now why should speak I more? You put your arms about my neck and swear your faith in pretty verse, and next you contradict this faith by still demanding Why? No! If I say it is not best, is not that Why enough?’

“In sonnet number twenty the appearance of Shakespeare is described at this time. A writer says, ‘He has a lady’s face and scarce a beard.’

“Harriette urged the youth to leave his shabby lodgings, marry her, and take up his abode with her and her mother; and in Venus and Adonis we hear of the number of noble lovers that had sought her hand, and yet she almost on her knees besought William to wed her. In a spirit of jolly ridicule of this wooing on the part of Harriette, he wrote the poem of Venus and Adonis and presented it to her. In this poem you will notice he represents himself as cold and unfeeling, when the real truth is he was just as full of desire to marry as she; but the divorce laws of England at that time were very strict, so much so that only the rich or influential could secure a divorce at all.

“Shakespeare should have been frank with this girl and told her his history at once, but he did not do so until over a year after their first acquaintance. You can well imagine the surprise of mother and daughter when he one night said, ‘Come, my history you would know. Well, I’ll run it through, even from my boyish days, to the very moment that you bade me tell it,’ and so he told from childhood to the time he took one last look at the little village and set his face toward London. The story being done she gave him for his pains a world of sighs. She swore in faith ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange, ’twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful! she wished she had not heard it. Yet she wished that heaven had made her such a man. She thanked him, and bade him if he had a friend that lov’d her, he should teach him how to tell the story, and that would woo her. On this hint he spake:

“‘Now you do know full well why I, according to England’s law, do not you wed – yet heaven hath decreed it so. You are my rightful mate; and here and now, in the sacred presence of her who brought you forth, I do declare you shall be from now henceforth my true and only wife.’

“Madame Bowenni was generous, gentle and good, a woman of most rare and discriminating mind, great and loving. Years had not soured nor turned to dross the great and tender heart. She knew for her daughter to accept William Shakespeare for her husband without the consent of England’s law, would not be the one thousandth part the sin as to see her wed a man she did not love, although good and noble the man might be. So Shakespeare took up his abode with this fair lady, and was a faithful and true husband to her, and she a loving and true wife till death called her hence.

“Harriette Bowenni died in the year 1614, leaving one child, Shakespeare’s only son. Anne Hathaway had died some years before, and be it said to his credit Shakespeare sent her ample funds from time to time, and that she shared in his prosperity. It is greatly to be regretted that Harriette died before her lover, otherwise she would have acted as his literary executor and collected his writings in proper form. As it is this work was done by those entirely unfitted for it, and his papers were brought together from many sources seven years after his death; and to-day not a single scrap of his manuscript exists, excepting the letters I possess and the diary of Harriette Bowenni, in which are various entries made by Shakespeare. All these letters and the diary you shall see.