, 1890-11-16

WtEST emphatic, be-
cause localized,
than actual women, and are, from their
idealizatlon, more real. more individual
than those. They have a wide range,
great variety; are indeed Of every
grade-from queens to rustic wenches,
from dominant minds to sentimental
vacuities, from embodiments of de-
votion to creatures of gossamer fancy.
But they are all women in every fiber Of
their being, in every pulsation OF their
hearts. In their worst and best passions;
In their cruelties, injustices, vagaries,
strengths, frivolities and weaknesses, the
thread of sex, however twisted or tan
gled, is never lost. Shakespeare knew
as no other poet or philosopher has
Known that every inconsistency and con-
tradiction may be found in woman, and
that her variation is limitless.
How could he have sounded the
depths and possibilities of so many femi-
nine souls7 SO far as we can judge he
could nave been intimate with but few
women; with none of the more striking
kin that he has created. We are sure
only of Anne Hathaway, who appears
wholly unworthy TO have been his wife;
TO whom he may have been drawn by the
law Of opposites, but more probably by
the mere circumstance of sex. He dis
covered the outlines Of most of his WON
en- in print, and filed them by his match
less genius with such substance and col
oring as eau never perish. The out
lines were to him little more than the
rough clay to the gifted sculptor, who
makes his model therefrom, and repro
duces it in faultless, enduring marble.
The women Of Shakespeare are. for good
or i'll, delights Of the mind, marvels of
the globe.
How he transmutes, develops, glori-
fies ever his historic ~charactersi What
dry bones they are in the Rnnalsl But
when he puts them on his page he
clothes them with quivering flesh and
fluent forms, and endows them with
nimble tongues that keep the beat of
passion and echo with the strangest,
rarest music. Constance, Elizabeth
(King Edwards widow, the Duchess of
York, Lady Anne. Queen Katharine APP
pear in the chronicles in sober English
prose. But when the wand Of the ma
gician touches them they are ut once
transformed, lifted out of their simple
selves into the loftiest realm of poetry.
When was woman. in high or low sta
ton, made such an incarnation of rage
and grief, Of tempestuous weakness and
instability, of deep contrition and heart
broken woe as hapless Lady Anne? Her
fiery, fearful, mournfuh~rarases stick in
the memory and haunt us like the
ghosts of inappeasable sorrows. What
grandeur and beauty has the drama
fist lent to the sallow, bigoted,
severe, strong daughter Of Ferdinand
of Spainl He has haloed her with
pathos and martyrdom, and in accord
ance with the rampant theology of his
day, leagued her with the angelic host.
To get at Katharine of Arragon. as she
was-much mistreated lady Of a tyrant
lord-one must tear her from the rosy
clouds in which the poet has cmbosomed
her, and view her in her earthly sur
roundings, with her human foibles and
bilious pride. She was greatly to be
pitied; but Shakespeare raised her, by
the force of his sublime art, to the di-
vine.
Portia is known to us, Through author
itative records, as Cato's daughter, dis
tinguished for prudence, fortitude, mag
nRnimityi but she gains extraordinary
and memorable luster as Marcus Brutus'
wife in Julius Cesar" a most noble
and beautiful example of Roman ma
irons. She is delineated briefly; but the
poets few mastery touches throw her
n captivating and permanent relief.
Plutarch and Dion Cassius have de-
scribed Cleopatra; but the play of "An-
tony and Cleopatra" has stamped her
forever with thrilling vitality. In its
ringing and Respondent lines she rises
reanimate from her death sleep Of eight
cen centuries, and once more enslaves
the i~maginations of men. What a trans
cendent creature she appears therei No
woman could be more subtle, more tickle,
more voluptuous, more fascinating; she
mounts the acme of charming possibil-
ity; she is grandly certain of her seduc-
tive, irresistible self. Every poet has
toilsomely measured himself against the
powers of Egypt's queen, but Shakespeare
has easily reached her highest level, and
made her all his own. He has placed
her OF a pinnacle of renown, where gen
erations in the misty future will pro-
claim her the sorceress of time. He
alone has enabled us to see, as we could
not see with physical eye, the enchant-
ress who made Caesar forget ambition,
and the sounding trrmpets of his fame,
in her embracing arms. There was para
disc; all his mighty achievements were
the far off, feeble murmur of a relin-
pushed sphere. Without Shakespeare,
the Cleopatra of our dreams, the embodi-
ment Of whatever is bewitching in wom-
an, would never, could never, have bean.
The actual woman, of Hellenic blood
and Alexandrian birth, might AVE slip
ped into comparative oblivion, would
not surely have answered to the idea OF
her own vanity, but for the mental ma
gician who came upon earth twelve hun
dred years after she had withdrawn the
fatal asp from her lovely bosom.
Independent Of history proper, the
characters, wrought from the warp and
wool of his genius, that always linger in
he mind are Miranda. Isabella. Titania,