The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-04-23
THE BARD OF AVON.
gUNIUS HENRI BROWNE WRITES OF
THE REAL SHAKESPEARE.
Above Everything Re Was Practical.
His Actual Life Almost Unknown-Re
Did Not Keep the Comm andm ents-His
special Correspondence.l


New YORK, March 31.-The wonde
Of Shakespeares genius increases witt
, the passing years. Three poets onl,
: have been compared with him-Homer
Dante, Goethe. But what are they, sin
gle or combined, to him? Shakespeare
. stands, and, it should seem, must Away
stand, alone, unapproached and unap
proachable. The language in which ht
wrote-our rich, sinewy, nervous Eng
lish-must be immortal, were there nt
other reasons, from the mere fact Of hi
writing in it. If all the English classics
were irretrievably lost, except Shake
speare's dramas, these alone would prov,
English to have been the master tongue
He appears to have comprehended human
nature completely, and he has expressed
his comprehension in words so vivid
picturesque and beautiful that they ca;
never die. His works are an inspired
infringement of the history-mental
moral and spiritual-of mankind. He
has set the weaknesses. the virtues and
the passions of the human family to i'm.
/ perishable music, which will echo, to
the last, through the galleries Of time.
Nomarvel that it has been maintained
that his writings are the product of many
minds. How could one mind create an
/ intellectual world and endow it with
/ typical inhabitants? 1t is almost impos-
sible to answer the question, but to pre-
suppose anything else approaches the alb
surd. Throughout the plays now cred
| tied to Shakespeare, with perhaps one
or two exceptions, run the same match
less expression and quality of thought.
| There Is every reason for believing that
they must have come from single mas
ter brain. Two brains that could have
SO sounded the depths of the soul, so
interpreted its passions, are not 10 be
discovered, even in the EliZabethan era.
The conviction Of the unity of those
mighty dramas is overwhelming and
irresistible. Unless we accept Shake
speare as their sole author, we are landed
in chaos; driven to desperation j any
number of opposite theories.
More learned and ingenious nonsense
has been written by the critics of and
commentators on the poet than would
make good sized library. And it is
still written, and will be forfuture ages,
IN every civilized land. Who would
understand him should go direct to his
pages.
Essentially Gothic, original, indi-
vidual, rule defying as his genius is, it
compels sympathy and admiration from
every large, penetrating mind. Being
northern and Teutonic, it does not ap-
peal to the Latin or Slav races generally,
but their intellectual giants are drawn
to him instinctively. The French, with
their nicely of art, their verbal exact
ness, their spick and span phrases, can
not as a people appreciate him. Voltaire,
prodigiously gifted and versatile as he
was. called him barbarian. He is the
contrary of Corneille and Racine, and
all the grander for SO being. But lat
terly the leading thinkers and scholars
of France have grown to his height,
while repealed by his lack of form.
Tame speaks Of his extraordinary char
acter of mind, all powerful, excessive,
equally master of the sublime and the
base; the most creative that has ever en-
gagged in the exact copy of the details of
actual existence: a nature POI i'm
moral, inspired, superior to reaso4 he
sudden revelations of his seers m IS.
Commentators yet continue to dis,
whether the poet was learned or I'M
learned; whether he had more magma
ton or more observation; whether he
was pure genius or a patient laborer.
As man he must ever remain mys-
terry. For all that is known of him
personally, he might have lived thou
sands OF years ago. His individuality
is well nigh as obscure as that of Homer,
who preceded the historic period. There
Is no authentic record of his birth, but
it is probable that both birth and death
occurred April %, in 1864 and 1916. His
parents names have been preserved,
and the name of his wife, whom he
welded from urgency. He left STRAIT
ford-on-Avon, his native place; went to
London; was an Indifferent actor; wrote
his dramas for the theater with profit:
returned to Warwickshire in prosperous
and in few years died
there, as supposed, at the age of fifty
two. Beyond these leading facts and a
few others, the rest is chiefly conjec-
ture. Not a line of his manuscript is
preserved, except three or four of his
His sole monument is his
plays; but they are eternal.
The poet, with data so limited, with a
so overshadowing. has natu-
rally been idealized, not mentallv-that
would be nperfiuoUs-but personally,
characterally, morally. His so named
portraits are innumerable and familiar
TO everyboay, but there is no good reason
for believing any one of them authentic. |
We like to think of him as the author of !
Hamlet" Macbeth" and "Othello" |
should look. and so we have him TO a
degree in the ChandoS portrait, which is
no portrait at all. Could we see him in /
the flesh today, he would not answer to |
our imagining; hence we should incline (
to pronounce him an imposter. Nature /
seldom incaseS transcendent genius in
very attractive body-she is not bounte- /
Gus enough for that. He may have been (
Ike so many geniuses-very plain, IN
welcome as the postulate is.
OF his character we can form no con-
cepton really. albeit we infer il to have /
been gentle, generous. lofty and wholly .
practical, despite his grand idealism. /
his ldeaiism, as often happens. was in |
his writing, not in his daily round. He .