What Is Man? and Other Essays eBook

I haven’t any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his pedestal this side of the year 2209.  Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly, disbelief in a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby has never been known to disintegrate swiftly; it is a very slow process.  It took several thousand years to convince our fine race—­including every splendid intellect in it—­that there is no such thing as a witch; it has taken several thousand years to convince the same fine race—­including every splendid intellect in it—­that there is no such person as Satan; it has taken several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant Church’s program of post-mortem entertainments; it has taken a weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can; and it looks as if their Scotch brethren will still be burning babies in the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes down from his perch.

We are The Reasoning Race.  We can’t prove it by the above examples, and we can’t prove it by the miraculous “histories” built by those Stratfordolaters out of a hatful of rags and a barrel of sawdust, but there is a plenty of other things we can prove it by, if I could think of them.  We are The Reasoning Race, and when we find a vague file of chipmunk-tracks stringing through the dust of Stratford village, we know by our reasoning bowers that Hercules has been along there.  I feel that our fetish is safe for three centuries yet.  The bust, too—­there in the Stratford Church.  The precious bust, the priceless bust, the calm bust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy mustache, and the putty face, unseamed of care—­that face which has looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years and will still look down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of a bladder.

XII

Irreverence

One of the most trying defects which I find in these—­these—­what shall I call them? for I will not apply injurious epithets to them, the way they do to us, such violations of courtesy being repugnant to my nature and my dignity.  The farthest I can go in that direction is to call them by names of limited reverence—­names merely descriptive, never unkind, never offensive, never tainted by harsh feeling.  If they would do like this, they would feel better in their hearts.  Very well, then—­to proceed.  One of the most trying defects which I find in these Stratfordolaters, these Shakesperiods, these thugs, these bangalores, these troglodytes, these herumfrodites, these blatherskites, these buccaneers, these bandoleers, is their spirit of irreverence.  It is detectable in every utterance of theirs when they are talking about us.  I am thankful that in me there is nothing of that spirit.  When a thing is sacred to me it is impossible for me to be irreverent toward it.  I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except towards the things which were sacred to other people.  Am I in the right?  I think so.  But I ask no one to take my unsupported word; no, look at the dictionary; let the dictionary decide.  Here is the definition: