What Is Man? and Other Essays eBook

Yet he made me put away my pen; he would not let me write the history of Satan.  Why?  Because, as he said, he had suspicions—­suspicions that my attitude in the matter was not reverent, and that a person must be reverent when writing about the sacred characters.  He said any one who spoke flippantly of Satan would be frowned upon by the religious world and also be brought to account.

I assured him, in earnest and sincere words, that he had wholly misconceived my attitude; that I had the highest respect for Satan, and that my reverence for him equaled, and possibly even exceeded, that of any member of the church.  I said it wounded me deeply to perceive by his words that he thought I would make fun of Satan, and deride him, laugh at him, scoff at him; whereas in truth I had never thought of such a thing, but had only a warm desire to make fun of those others and laugh at them.  “What others?” “Why, the Supposers, the Perhapsers, the Might-Have-Beeners, the Could-Have-Beeners, the Must-Have-Beeners, the Without-a-Shadow-of-Doubters, the We-Are-Warranted-in-Believingers, and all that funny crop of solemn architects who have taken a good solid foundation of five indisputable and unimportant facts and built upon it a Conjectural Satan thirty miles high.”

What did Mr. Barclay do then?  Was he disarmed?  Was he silenced?  No.  He was shocked.  He was so shocked that he visibly shuddered.  He said the Satanic Traditioners and Perhapsers and Conjecturers were themselves sacred!  As sacred as their work.  So sacred that whoso ventured to mock them or make fun of their work, could not afterward enter any respectable house, even by the back door.

How true were his words, and how wise!  How fortunate it would have been for me if I had heeded them.  But I was young, I was but seven years of age, and vain, foolish, and anxious to attract attention.  I wrote the biography, and have never been in a respectable house since.

III

How curious and interesting is the parallel—­as far as poverty of biographical details is concerned—­between Satan and Shakespeare.  It is wonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing resembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing approaching it even in tradition.  How sublime is their position, and how over-topping, how sky-reaching, how supreme—­the two Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjecturabilities!  They are the best-known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet.

For the instruction of the ignorant I will make a list, now, of those details of Shakespeare’s history which are facts—­verified facts, established facts, undisputed facts.

Facts

He was born on the 23d of April, 1564.

Of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names.