Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-09-25
BETWEEN OURSELVES.

We have opinions advanced about
Shakespeare of every imaginable kind,
fand dealing with every possible nantes
tation of his intellect and character For
instance, have just been reading that
the reason he was so far ahead of all con.
temporary dramatists was because he had
the good sense to make money, and was
| therefore able to command the market,
and write his later works without undue
pressure. Shakspeare's mind was at ease
| by the consciousness of his comfortable
investments at Stratford, and Hamlet
was written because Shakespeare was
solvent. Good work, adds the writer, as
a rule, is only done by people who have
paid their bills.
The first condition of power and
achievement is personal independence,
and independence means money and free
dom from creditors clutches. Now, isn't
| this sordid explanation of successful
genius enough to despoil the romantic
imag iningsEof the sanguine and the in
spring traditions of literary glory amid
poverty and struggle.
Many of the books we love the most
have been produced in privation and
wretchedness, and somehow we get the
impression that the circumstances were
largely instrumental in whetting effort
into the most enduring and even delight
full shape.
A memory arises of the greatest OF
Spaniards, Cervantes, who was too hon
est to steal, and so got into jail, and
grew every year poorer and wittier and
better, says John Hay. He was public
amanuensis, business agent, a sub-tax-
gatherer-anything to keep his lean lar
der garnished with scant ammunition
against the wolf hunger-and yet he
walks into Immortality with his one vol
ume, born in the most unmeriful poverty,
on the the same day, the 23d of April,
1916, with the other greatest soul of the
age, whose comfortable investments at
Stratford- on Avon had contributed so
immensely to his success, and made pos
sible the exalted dramatic excellence of
all time,-as our English essayist would
have us believe.
While we are interested in sitting all
ingenious theories which bring his work
down to human level, since his mar
vellous genious dwarfs all our standards,
nevertheless, there is a recoil from the
idea that pecuniary ease made his super
iority exceptional. We would rather be-
lieve it true of his interpreters on the
stage-that they have coined money and
gained artistic renown by a felicitous I'M
derstanding of his text, and an assimila-
tive power in embodying his multitude
nous creations, than that he, the mighty
master, evolved them from his prosperous
brain, because he had money in his purse.
Hamlet written because Shakespeare
was solvent! That's curious accounting
for the melancholy Dane. We are very
sure that he has been the occasion of
much profit to the lucky player, who has
the crotchet or the role, and could we
compare the books we should be sure to
prove that Edwin Booth in his memora-
BILE hundred nights of Hamlet made more
cash than Shakespeare ever dreamed Of
for himself.
The worlds belief is that the surest i'm
mortality of fame is fostered by poverty
and struggle. 1t is the inspiration of song
and story, of historical example, and the
playwright's heroics. Once shake that
belief and subject such fame as Shaks-
peare's to q moneyed cause, and what
have you left in these times against this
universal cash basis for soul, and mind
and body?
Per contra there has been plenty of
pecuniary ease among dra1natists since
his time, but Shakespeare alone it seems
turned it to such extraordinary account.
His solvency could beget Hamlet, but
Boucicault's sybaritlc luxury is only
productive of the Shaughraun, and kin
bred work.
Now, this is too much, the grouping OF
the two names. The merit Of Shak-
speare's work can be turned over to his
neighbors, and he can even be charged
with deer stealing, but mentioned with
Boucicault! However, this is what the
money theory does in accounting for the
perfect development of great mind in
the dramatic direction, and it is about as
bad as proverbial misery in giving us
strange parallels and offensive precau-
tions.
No matter what arguments, theories,
and conjectures are advanced as to
pecuniary ease being the best aid to ex-
cellent literary work-the universal belief
in the absolute efficiency of poverty and
suffering in bringing forth the finest man
ifestations Of genius will always remain
mistaken.
Who'd forego that scene where Dr.
Johnson is reading the Vicar of Wake
field in manuscript while our precious
Goldsmith waits for his verdict, per-
turbed and miserable in the clutches of
creditors, while his pitiless landlady in
the background looks with stern visage
on what she thinks the confidence game
of two literary deadbeats to cheat her of
her lawful dues