The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-11-20

gets flis deserts, the good being saved
and the wicked COMPOUNDED, is directly
and fundamentally opposed to the ira
gic idea. The satisfaction men feel in
the punishment of the wrongdoer leaves
no place for compassion. unless per-
chance, as often happens in these lat
ter days we shift our point of view and
think of him as an irresponsible victim
of hereditary or acquired tendencies. No
doubt this shifting of view has intro
duced much confusion into the critical
judgments of our time; but we should
not lose sight of the principle that we
pity only when we recognize real or
fancied injustice. al.
In tragedy, then. we are brought face
to face with the most profound mys-
terry of our mortal state the prevalence
of unnerited suffering. Men seek and
have sought in vain to pry into this
mystery. A whole system of theology
has been built up on the assumption
that we suffer for the sins of first
parent; but whatever explanation may
be attempted, the awful fact remains
that men everywhere suffer for what
they are not individually to blame. Re
ligion has its home in this mystery.
This mystery becomes tombstone by
which men are separated into two great
classes. One man. with sublime faith.
submits himself to the divine order
Let come on me what Will
Though he slay me. yet will l trust in
him." while another stands in open re-
bellion or Sullen silence. In this differ
ence. a mystery in itself. lies the whole
secret of the religious attitude OF men.
We somehow think of the attitude of
Job as the nobler of the two. Compass
sion for the sorrows of men and sub
mission to the divine will are the high
est reaches of the human spirit, and it
is precisely there effects that Aristotle
saw in the masterpieces of Greek trag-
edy In Sophocles and Aeschylus we
find the noblest conceptions of the
Greek religion.
Fail not in aught that is right.
Seeing great and terrible deaths.
Many and strange forms of woe,
And nothing where Zeus is not.
But Shakespeare needed no Greek to
reveal to him these primal laws of our
being More than once the stricken
deer had crossed his path. Full oft in
the jostling life of the capital had he
seen
Captive good attending captive i'll.
He had himself borne his full share of
the whips and scorns of time" but he
had not lost a sense of the beauty of
innocence and courage and personal de-
yotion. And so out of his full heart
he shows us all these with a realism at
times overwhelming; and we weep over
the sorrows of men and stand awe
stricken in the presence of the calami-
ties that overtake and destroy persons
of noble strain. Our hearts are bowed,
our pride repressed. As we see Hamlet
with fainting heart MS las
encounter with iniquity and treachery
and wrong we hear him cry: IF il be
now, tits not to come: if it be not to
come. il will be now: if it be not now.
yet ii will come: the readiness is all"
And in this cry we seem to hear the
very voice of the mighty poet himself
the readiness is ALL"
Owing to the absence of authentic de-
tails as to Shakespeare'S life and char
acter. the question has been much
mooted rs TO how far his plays furnish
materials for history of his moods
and of his convictions. On this point
there can never be entire agreement
And yet, admitting as we do the danger
and the folly of dogmatizing on these
matters. careful examination OF the
plays in the order of their production
ian order now well established for the
most part) makes 1t difficult to resist
the conclusion that between the ages of
So and 40 Shakespeare passed through
a. period of deep spiritual anguish. To
this period belong the great tragedies.
from Julius Caesar" to "Coriolanus,
and the biting satirical comedies. A
of these with the latest
group. written probably after his re-
turn to Stratford. reveals to US man
who fought his way through the val
ley of Despond TO the serene atmos-
phere of the heights beyond.