The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-03-20
SHATTERED IDOLS.

There is nothing so cruel in the
world as the shattering of an idol.
Most often it makes blank in the life
that is more than liable TO become
a place for bitterness but always for
sorrow. After an idol is shattered the
world becomes to those whose it was
an entirely different place from what
1t was before the shattering took place;
the shattering process teaches as moth
ing else can that all is vanity. 1t is
true that people should not build up
idols, but people rarely do in this
world what they should. A case of
idol shattering is told in the Literary
Recollections'' of Max Muller This is
a recollection of the poet Tennyson:
Another though less frequent visitor
to Oxford was Tennyson. His first
visit to our house was rather alarming.
We lived in a small house in High
street, nearly opposite Magdalen col
lege, and our esta bliShment was not
calculated to receive sudden guests,
particularly a poet laureate. He step
ped in one day during the long vaca-
ton, when Oxford was almost empty.
Wishing to show the great man all
civility, we asked him to dinner that
night and breakfast the next morning.
At that time almost all the shops were
in the market, which closed at one
o'clock. My wife, a young housekeeper,
did her best for our unexpected guest.
He was known to be a gourmand, and
at dinner he was evidently put out by
finding the sauce with the salmon was
not the one he preferred. He was
pleased, however, with the wing of a
obi n nrlU d
vantage he got from being poet lau-
reate, that he generally received the
liver wing of a chicken. The next
morning at breakfast we had rather
plumed ourselves on having been able
to get q dish of outlets, and were not
a little surprised, when our guest ar
rived, to see him whip off the cover
of the dish. and to hear the exclama-
ton, Mutton chopsl the staple of
every bad inn in England" However,
these were but minor matters, though
not without Importance in the eyes of
a, young wife to whom Tennyson had
been like one of the immortals.
The young wife simply had an idol
shattered in that visit from the great
poet, and no doubt ever after all the
music of his magical verse was i'm
potent to remove the memory of that
short visit. The episode sank into her
heart, for she had seen the human side
of the divine singer; that was all.
But a few meagre details are known
Of the life of Shakespeare, yet nun
dreds of books have been written about
him, mostly filled with conjectures and
wild imaginings. What need is there
to know of an authors life save that
he lived, that he wrote, that he died?
All the world knows of the traditions
about Will Shakespeare stealing deer
from Sir Thomas Lucy's park and the
episode of himself and Dick Burbage, |
and how he told the actor that William
he Conqueror came before Richard. 1t
S also known that he was an actor and |
1 good business man. Here are details |
ample around which each may weave |
he romance of Shakespeare's life as !
he chooses. A full and complete life |
If him, such as the standard of mod
,rn biography demands, would leave
nothing to conjecture, while it would |
De almost certain to reveal many |
bings that ell would rather not know. |
Rarely is the beautiful life the life of |
me who has occupied a prominent po- !
ition in the world, whether it be that |
# statesman or poet
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