Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1907-04-25
Shakespeare's Own Self.

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Theodore T. Munger in the Atlantic
IMontnly.-As we found Shakespeare
lin Warwickshire, SO we leave him
there; indeed, he is never far away
from the field Of his keenest delight
and deepest impressions. His retire
lment to Stratford, when regarded in
its various lights, is the most reveal
ling praises of his life. Indifferent as
he was TO his plays in one way, he
laid clear emphasis upon them in
others. He rounded his work as a
playwright with personal significance.
The Tempest is not only farewell
to the stage,-filled with the very
spirit of it, airy, unreal, fascinating
1t is charged with his weightiest con-
victions and also with his anticipations
and purposes. The play breathes
throughout forgiveness toward his
enemies in lofty and yearning tenn
per, struck through with the mercy
and pity of a father. Over and over
again is the same gracious quality
seen in his plays, but in The Tempest
it wears the pathos of farewell. 1t
sheds a flood of light upon his ethical
convictions Even a dull reader may
mote that he often forgets the best III
terests of the pay as to effectiveness.
and INDUCES in meditation over the
rights and wrong of what is involved,
the playwright forgetting himself in
the moralist.
In the most quoted of all his words:
| We are such stuff as dreams are
made on we are not to understand
that he gives definition of human
life, nor even as intimation of its des-
tiny, for Shakespeare never serious.v
transcended the bounds of this world.
Prospero is still in the field of this
life, and would only say that so long
as he has duties in this world of
dream-like phantasy. he will meet them
though his Grain is troubled" And
Shakespeare has another field in mind.
When in Stratford. though life may he
short, it is real, and its duties will be
met as realities. We find liz him still
the freedom and exhilaration of his
period, intensified by the full tides of
JOY and vitality that flowed through
| his own veins; but along with them
and deeper than any, were ethical con-
victions whose so'idity and depth out
weighed all else within him Of his
conduct little is known, but of his ma
ture much may be inferred. It was
bedded in the ethics of human life.
and especially of conduct in the fund
amental relations of men to one an
other. Three things he invariably de-
manded and set on high,-justice
mercy, and love as the soul of each.
| All these are set forth in Prospero
as consciously his own. When he alb.
jures his magic, breaks his staff, and
! drowns his book, and so frees himself
from the unreality of the stage and
betakes himself to house and home, he
carries with him these high qualities
! of laE' and conduct, else the picture of
himself which he has so long fore
Swallowed is. out of keeping with truth
/, fulness with which he had mirrored
, all human conduct. In the develop
ment of society nearly all the great
men of the past are now accord. d
larger measures of goodness than here
tofore. The humor, the insight and
breadth Of vision, the imagination
the charm of Shakespeare will remain
as ever, but his ethical sense is more
patent and rises to meet the new
standard of the unfolding world.
There can be no better textbook in
our universities for the study of high
and spiritual ethics than the plays of
Shakespeare,-under the one condition
that the teacher shall be adequate III
perception and temper of mind and
soul to unfold the inwoven lessons
/ After all. there is more of nature in
Shakespeare than can be found in
! Warwickshire or in England; more OF
humanity than can be seen in any one
generation. He is as ancient as Job,
as modern as Emerson. He did more
than fill a place made ready by the
political and religious erfranchisement
of the English people; more than
mount and ride the topmost wave of
the nations genius Place and age
and opportunity worked in accord for
his production. but they did not pro-
duce him. We must relegate the
problem of his university, his tran
lscendence, his prophetic outlook. his
fathomless insight-all as easy aud
natural as breathing-to that region
and power where all problems must 1T
last be left, namely, creative endow-
,ment, the only explanation of great
lmen. The truest measure of him is
his Inconsistencies OF himself: he
was too vast to be comprehended oy
This OVID thought; he so far surpassed
lall kno wn standards that he had none
for esf.mating himself; and so. appar-
lently. he made no estimate beyond
what might be set down in Ponds
lsterling. He seems in his unconscious
greatness almost to lose the qualities
lof man. and to be simply voice of
universal nature,
And yet he speaks Of no world hut
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