Our
object has been to bring forward a few passages which seem to us to
breathe the very spirit of individual passages in sacred writ, without
direct use of the words themselves; and, of course, in such a case we
can only appeal to the (no doubt) very various degrees of conviction
which they may rouse in the minds of our readers.
But there is one singular correspondence in another _almost_ literal
quotation from the Gospel, which is to us wonderfully interesting. We
are told that the words "eye of a needle," in the passage about a rich
man entering the kingdom of heaven, mean the small side entrance in a
city gate. Now, in "Richard II," act v. scene 5, _Richard_ quotes the
passage thus:--
"It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a needle's eye;"
showing that either the imagination of Shakspere suggested the real
explanation, or he had taken pains to acquaint himself with the
significance of the simile. We can hardly say that the correspondence
might be _merely_ fortuitous; because, at the least, Shakspere looked
for and found a suitable figure to associate with the words _eye of a
needle_, and so fell upon the real explanation; except, indeed, he had
no particular significance in using the word that meant a _little_ gate,
instead of a word meaning any kind of entrance, which, with him, seems
unlikely.
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