From the terror of such a _truth_ Shakspere's love for men
preserved him. He did not think about himself so much as he thought
about them. Had he been a self-student alone, or chiefly, could he ever
have written those dramas? We close with the repetition of this truth:
that the love of our kind is the one key to the knowledge of humanity
and of ourselves. And have we not sacred authority for concluding that
he who loves his brother is the more able and the more likely to love
Him who made him and his brother also, and then told them that love is
the fulfilling of the law?
THE ART OF SHAKSPERE, AS REVEALED BY HIMSELF. [Footnote: 1863.]
Who taught you this?
I learn'd it out of women's faces.
_Winter's Tale_, Act ii. scene 1.
One occasionally hears the remark, that the commentators upon Shakspere
find far more in Shakspere than Shakspere ever intended to express.
Taking this assertion as it stands, it may be freely granted, not only
of Shakspere, but of every writer of genius. But if it be intended by
it, that nothing can _exist_ in any work of art beyond what the writer
was conscious of while in the act of producing it, so much of its scope
is false.
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