The book is one of the world's monuments, and it has been
placed there to remind all people that dwell on earth of their own
innate meanness; it has been placed before us as a lesson against
cruelty, treachery, ingratitude. Have we gone very far in the
direction since Job raged and mourned? Those who look around them may
answer the question in their own way.
The world had not progressed much in Shakspere's time, at any rate.
Like all of us, Shakspere was able to look on the work of beautiful
and kind souls--no one has ever spoken more nobly of the benefactions
conferred on their brethren by the righteous; but that calm immortal
soul had in it depths of awful scorn and anger, which bubbled up only
a very few times. Few people read "Timon of Athens"; and I do not
blame the neglect, for it is a spirit-crushing play, and a man must be
bold if he cares to look at it twice. But in it it is plain to me that
Shakspere lets us see a gleam from the boiling flood of scorn that
raged far under his serene exterior. The words bite; the abandonment
of the satirist is complete. He puts into the mouth of the man who is
down a whole acrid and scurrilous philosophy of success and failure;
and there is not a passage in Swift which can equal for venom and
emphasis the ferocious words of the Athenian misanthrope.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91