Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1895-03-14
INGERsoLL ON SHAKESPEARE.

1NGERSOLL ON SFEAhE
If Shakespeare knew one fact, h
knew its kindred and its neighbors
Looking at coat Of mail he instantly
imagined the society. the conditions
that produced it, and what it in turn
produced. He saw the castle, the moat
the drawbridge. the lady in the tower
and the knightly lover spurring aero!
the plain. He saw the bold baron ant
the rude retainer, the trampled serf
and all the glory and grief of feuda
life. He was man of imagination.
He lived the life of all.
He was a citizen of Athens in tn,
days of Pericles. He listened to tht
eager eloquence of the great orators
and sat upon the cliffs, and with the
tragic poet heard "the multitudinou:
laughter of the sea-" He saw Socrate.
thrust the spear of question through
the heart of falsehood. He. was pres
ent when the great man drank hem
lock, and met the night of death, tran
quill as star meets morning. He list
ened to the peripatetic philosophers
and was unpuzzed by the sophists. He
watched Phidias as he chiseled shape
less stone to forms Of love and awe.
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 legioDs
ir the field. He stood with vast and
motley throngs and watched the tri-
jumps given to victorious men, followed
by uncrowned kings, the captured
hosts, and all the spoils of ruthless war
He heard the shout that shook the
Coliseum's roofess walls, when from
the reelipg gladiator's hand the short
sword fell, while from his bosom gush-
ed the stream of wasted life.
He lived the life of savage men. He
trod the farest's 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
victim 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.
He knew the unspoken thoughts, the
dumb desires, the wants and ways OF
beasts. He felt the crouching tigers
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
mighty thought, and dreamed all
dreams that light, the alchemist, has
wrought from dust and dew, and stored
within the slumbrous poppy's subtle
blood.
He knelt with awe and dreada at every
shrine-he offered every sacrifice and
every prayer-felt the consolation and
the shuddering fear-mocked and wor.
SHIPPED all the gods-enioyed 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.
The imagination had stage in Shake
speare's brain, whereon sat all scenes
that lie between the morn of laughtel
and the night of tears, and where hi:
players bodied forth the false and true
the joys and griefs, the careless shall
lows and the tragic deeps of universe
life.
From Shakespeare's brain there pour
ed q Niagara of gems spanned By
fancy's seyen-hued arch. He was a.
many-sided as clouds are many-form
ed. To him giving was hoarding-sow
ing was harvest-and waste itself tht
source of wealth. Within his marvel
| JUS MCiO lAO lAuiCS VI bl
thought past, the seeds of all to be
AS drop of dew contains the image
of the earth and sky so all there is o
| fe was mirrored forth in Shakespeare'
brain.
| Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean
whose waves touched all the shores o
thought; within which were all th
tides and waves of destiny and will
over which swept all the storms OF fate
ambition and revenge; upon which tel
the gloom and darkness of despair ant
death, and all the sunlight of conten
and love, and within was the inverte'
sky, lit with the eternal stars. Shake
speare was an intellectual ocean, towar.
which all rivers ran, and from whlcl
now the isles and continents of though
receive their dew and rain.
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