Page:Studies of a Biographer 4.djvu/46

 .' 'Obscure' and 'profane' are perhaps rather harsh epithets; but they suggest the problem: Is there any real incompatibility between Shakespeare's conduct and the theory of life implied by his writings?

I leave a full answer to the accomplished critic whom I desiderate but do not try to anticipate. Yet, keeping to the region of tolerably safe commonplaces, I fancy that this supposed antithesis really admits of, or rather suggests, a natural mode of conciliation. Emerson laments, what we all admit, that Shakespeare was not a preacher with a mission. He had no definite ethical system to inculcate; and, moreover, so far as we can define his morality, it was not such as would satisfy the ideal saint. If he clearly did not agree with John Knox, we may doubt whether he would have appreciated St. Francis. Martyrs and ascetics would have been out of place in his world. The exalted idealist despises fact: he is impressive precisely because his doctrine is impracticable: the ideal may stimulate what is best in us, but it is too refined and exalted to be accepted by the mass. But Shakespeare does not idealise in the sense of neglecting the actual. He is intensely interested in the world as it is, moved