The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-04-20
INGERSOLL ON SHAKESPEARE.
Brilliant Bit Of Word Painting by the
Noted Lecturer.

Brilliant Bit Of Word Painting by the
Noted Lecturer.
II Shakespeare knew one fact, he
knew its kindred and its neighbors
Looking at coat of mail he instantly
imagined the society, the conditions
that produced 1t, and what 1t in turn
produced. He saw the castle, the moat
the drawbridge. the lady In the tower
and the knightly lover squirting across
the plain. He saw the bold baron and
the rude retainer, the trampled serf.
and all the glory and grief Of feudal
life. He was u man of imagination.
He lived the life Of all.
He was a citizen of Athens In the
days of Pericles He listened to the
eager eloquence of the great orators,
and sat upon the cliffs, and with the
tragic poet heard "the multitudinous
laughter of the sea-" He saw Socrates
thrust the spear of question through
the shield and heart of falsehood. He
was present when the great man drank
hemlock, and met the night of death,
tranquil as star meets morning. He
listened to the peripatetic philosophers
and was unpuzzled by the sophsts. He
watched Phidias as he chiseled shape
less stone to forms of love and awe.
Believed In Immortality.
He lived by the mysterious Nile. amid
the vast and monstrous. He knew the
very thought that wrought the form
and features of the Sphinx. He heard
great Memnon's morning song when
marble lips were smitten by the sun.
He laid him down with the embalmed
and waiting dead. and felt within their
dust the expectation of another life,
mingled with cold and suffocating
doubts--the children born Of long delay.
He walked the ways Of mighty Rome
and saw great Caesar with his legions
in the field. He stood with vast and
motley throngs and watched the
triumph given to victorious men, fol-
lowed by uncrowned kings, the cap
tured hosts. and all the spoils of ruth
less war. He heard the shout that
shook the coliseum's roofless walls,
when from the reeling gladiator's hand
the short sword fell, while from his
bosom gushed the stream Of wasted
life.
He lived the life of savage men. He
trod the forests silent depths, and in
the desperate game of life or death he
matched his thought against the in
stinct of the beast.
He knew all crimes and all regrets, all
virtues and their rewards. He was VIC
tim and victor. pursuer and pursued
outcast and king. He heard the ap-
plause and curses Of the world, and on
his heart had fallen all the nights and
Moons of failure and success
Shakespeare as a Mind.Reader.
He knew the unspoken thoughts, the
dumb desires, the wants and ways of
beasts. He felt the crouching tiger
thrill, the terror Of the ambushed prey
and with the eagles he had shared the
ecstacy of flight and poise and swoop,
and he had lain with sluggish serpents
on the barren rocks uncoiling slowly in
the heart of noon.
He sat beneath the bo-tree's contem-
plative shade, wrapped in Buddha's s
mighty thought. and dreamed all
dreams that light, the alchemist, has
wrought from dust and dew, and stored
within the slumbrous poppy's subtle
bloom.
He knelt with awe and dread at
every shrine-he offered every sacrifice
and every prayer-felt the consolation
and shuddering fear-mocked and wor-
SHIPPED all the gods--enjoyed all
heavens, and felt the pangs Of every
hell.
He lived all lives and through his
blood and brain there crept the shadow
and the chill of every death, and his
soul, like Mazeppa, was lashed naked
to the wild horse of every fear and love
and hate.
A Niagara Of Gems.
The Imagination had stage in
Shakespeare's brain, whereon were set
all scenes that lie between the morn of
laughter and the night Of tears, and
where his players bodied forth the false
and true. the joys and grlefs, the care
less shadows and the tragic deeps of
universal life.
From Shakespeare's brain there
poured a Niagara Of gems spanned by
fancy's seven-hued arch. He was as
many-sided as clouds are many formed.
To him giving was hoardingr-sowing
was harvest-and waste itself the
source of wealth. Within his marvel
GUS mind were the fruits of all
Thought past. the seeds of all to be.
AS drop of dew contains the image of
the earth and sky so all there is Of life
was mirrored forth in Shakespeare s
brain.
Shakespeare was an intellectual
ocean, whose waves touched all the
shores of thought; within which were
all the tides and waves Of destiny and
will; over which swept all the storms of
fate, ambition and revenge; upon
which fell the gloom and darkness of
despair and death, and all the sunlight
Of content and love, and. within was
the inverted sky, lit with the eternal
stars. Shakespeare was an intellectual
ocean. toward which all rivers ran, and
from which now the isles and contin-
ents Of thought receive their dew and
rain.