Page:Studies of a Biographer 4.djvu/36

 of lives; whereas Rogers was the most respectable of poets and a striking contrast to Moore in conduct. The fact, if it be a fact, may warn us against hasty conclusions. A man may have very good reasons for keeping some of his feelings out of his books; or may, out of mere levity, affect vices which he does not put in practice. We can be sure that he has certain propensities; but, of course, we cannot tell how far circumstance and other propensities may not hold them in check. Much smaller men than Shakespeare are still very complex organisms. We may judge from this and that symptom that they react, as a chemist may say, in certain ways to a given stimulus; but to put all the indications together, to say which are the dominant instincts and how different impulses will modify each other in active life; to decide whether a feeling which shapes the ideal world will have a corresponding force when it comes into contact with realities, is a delicate investigation. When an adequate biography is obtainable the answer is virtually given. The facts of Shakespeare's life are as far as possible from adequate; but we may ask how far what is known can check or confirm inferences from the works.

This brings us to the biographical problem.