Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1889-10-24
sRAKnsp5ARs AND monInRr.
COGueItn's yIcyy OF the Two Great
Writers.

Gty We NhS WV HhCat
Writers.
Constant Ooqueiin of the Comedie
FTanceise writes on Molieye and SHAKE
epesre in the Oct0bse Century. He says:
''aoliera and Shakespeare had an entirely
dh rent conception OF lito. Shakespeare
nav il moving, troubled, changed, unuir-
cumscrihad in its development, BY human
will, Buejsot TO the winds and the rain,
sud all the broezgs that blow de saws
in ons OF those passages of the Two No.
bic kinsmen' which were evidently writ
ton by him:
.'rhis world $ n city full of straylnG streets,
Aud deaths tho nnrket-place where each ono
meets.
':ll Is in these strayin1 Streets that
Shakespeare moves, tn. obsuute lGbyrinth
where man goes biniiy meeting here an
anbnsh, there preclpiGe, and where he
changes fortune from q chance meeting.
| There is nothing certain, not one Of his
characters who couid swear TO what he
will do m hour later. They do not be-
long TO themselves. They are so much
the pleything Of higher force that they
do not even feel sure of their conscience.
Il believe myself passably yirtuous,' says
Hamlet
"Bus who shall explain Hamlet p
Hamlet is an enigma How far was he
mad When 10 no completely mad? But
/ no one 10 these plays is quite sane. Lear
IS ont OF bis senses long before he is de-
mented; Macbeth has Authorizations;
'OtholIo' soes blood at tho first word;
| 'Brutus' talks to "A ghost; that terrible
scep.ic, Richard ILL., sees visions
! Events themselves sometimes seem half
crazy. WHAT l have said Of Macbeth
might be said of Romeo and Juliet,
whore in five daya Juliet sees, loves,
meiries, dies, ami resusoitates, and dies
once moro. All is falsshood, deceit, be-
wildermeut. This cavalier, it is Rosa.
lind;' thia page, 'Imogep;' this judge,
'PortiR;' this stAtue, 'Hermoine.' One
scene in KING Lear makes Lear (who
goes mad from sorrow) and an exils (who
prstends to madnesb) and fool (who is
mad by proies9iup) all talk together amid
tina thunder and lightning. We ask our
selves, Where are ws2 Who are we
'Pr9spero' tells us:
"As dreams are made on: and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
"5hakespearc saw life as in dream,
aud thus he baB shown it. Muliere Baw
things in their reality. He went down
to the immutabie. As for life, in his
plays he sees it simple. Only those
events happen which happen to us all.
We love, we marry, We have children, we
consult the doctor, we die. The other
incidents that may occur spring from tbs
shock OF character they can be deducted
logically one from the other, and would
remain in the control Of man il he would
but listen to reason.
''And this is the great moral that car
be drawn from Moliere. keep your head
and ali will go well. His work is as clesl
as day; hatred OF vice shows itself, and
the love of truth--no platonio love, but
an active love, armed and lighting to tht
last hour. For Moliare is in the thick oil
the crowd; Shakespeare dweils in the
Temple Of Serenity; hs observes, sombFt
Ct first, peacefully later on; and he gives
to our meditation and reflection the i'm
mense and painful spectacle of the world
but draws from II no rule, for what rul,
can be found used in a dream Perhaps
TO finish, il might be said tina
Shakespeare teaches us to think, but tina
MOlisre teaches u9 to live"