Shakespeare and the Modern Stage Part 12

Then call them not the authors of their ill, No more than wax shall be accounted evil, Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.

(_Lucrece_, 1240-6.)

How easy it is for the proper-false In _women's waxen hearts_, to set their forms!

Alas! our frailty is the cause, not we; For, such as we are made of, such we be.

(_Twelfth Night_, II., ii., 31.)]

This is reactionary doctrine, and one of the few points in Shakespeare's "natural" philosophy which invites dissent. But he makes generous amends by ascribing to women a plentiful supply of humour. No writer has proclaimed more effectively his faith in woman's brilliance of wit nor in her quickness of apprehension.

VII

Despite the solemnity which attaches to Shakespeare's philosophic reflections, he is at heart an optimist and a humorist. He combines with his serious thought a thorough joy in life, an irremovable preference for the bright over the dismal side of things. The creator of Falstaff and Mercutio, of Beatrice and the Princess in _Love's Labour's Lost_, could hardly fail to set store by that gaiety of spirit which is the antidote to unreasoning discontent, and keeps society in good savour.

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, There shall be no more cakes and ale?

is the voice of Shakespeare as well as of Sir Toby Belch. The dramatist was at one with Rosalind, his offspring, when she told Jaques:--

I had rather have a fool to make me merry, Than experience to make me sad.

The same sanguine optimistic temper constantly strikes a more impressive note.

There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out,

is a comprehensive maxim, which sounds as if it came straight from Shakespeare's lips. This battle-cry of invincible optimism is uttered in the play by Shakespeare's favourite hero, Henry V. It is hard to quarrel with the inference that these words convey the ultimate verdict of the dramatist on human affairs.

VIII

SHAKESPEARE AND PATRIOTISM[32]

[Footnote 32: This paper was first printed in the _Cornhill Magazine_, May 1901.]

His n.o.ble negligences teach What others' toils despair to reach.

I

Patriotism is a natural instinct closely allied to the domestic affections. Its normal activity is as essential as theirs to the health of society. But, in a greater degree than other instincts, the patriotic impulse works with perilous irregularity unless it be controlled by the moral sense and the intellect.

Every student of history and politics is aware how readily the patriotic instinct, if uncontrolled by morality and reason, comes into conflict with both. Freed of moral restraint it is p.r.o.ne to engender a peculiarly noxious brand of spurious sentiment--the patriotism of false pretence. Bombastic masquerade of the genuine impulse is not uncommon among place-hunters in Parliament and popularity-hunters in const.i.tuencies, and the honest instinct is thereby brought into disrepute. Dr Johnson was thinking solely of the frauds and moral degradation which have been sheltered by self-seekers under the name of patriotism when he none too pleasantly remarked: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

The Doctor's epigram hardly deserves its fame. It embodies a very meagre fraction of the truth. While it ignores the beneficent effects of the patriotic instinct, it does not exhaust its evil propensities. It is not only the moral obliquity of place-hunters or popularity-hunters that can fix on patriotism the stigma of offence.

Its healthy development depends on intellectual as well as on moral guidance. When the patriotic instinct, however honestly it be cherished, is freed of intellectual restraint, it works even more mischief than when it is deliberately counterfeited. Among the empty-headed it very easily degenerates into an over-a.s.sertive, a swollen selfishness, which ignores or defies the just rights and feelings of those who do not chance to be their fellow-countrymen. No one needs to be reminded how much wrong-doing and cruelty have been encouraged by perfectly honest patriots who lack "intellectual armour." Dr Johnson knew that the blockhead seeks the shelter of patriotism with almost worse result to the body politic than the scoundrel.

On the other hand, morality and reason alike resent the defect of patriotism as stoutly as its immoral or unintellectual extravagance. A total lack of the instinct implies an abnormal development of moral sentiment or intellect which must be left to the tender mercies of the mental pathologist. The man who is the friend of every country but his own can only be accounted for scientifically as the victim of an aberration of mind or heart. Ostentatious disclaimers of the patriotic sentiment deserve as little sympathy as the false pretenders to an exaggerated share of it. A great statesman is responsible for an apophthegm on that aspect of the topic which always deserves to be quoted in the same breath as Dr Johnson's familiar half-truth. When Sir Francis Burdett, the Radical leader in the early days of the last century, avowed scorn for the normal instinct of patriotism, Lord John Russell, the leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, sagely retorted: "The honourable member talks of the _cant_ of patriotism; but there is something worse than the _cant_ of patriotism, and that is the _recant_ of patriotism."[33] Mr Gladstone declared Lord John's repartee to be the best that he ever heard.

[Footnote 33: The pun on "cant" and "recant" was not original, though Lord John's application of it was. Its inventor seems to have been Lady Townshend, the brilliant mother of Charles Townshend, the elder Pitt's Chancellor of the Exchequer. When she was asked if George Whitefield, the evangelical preacher, had yet recanted, she replied: "No, he has only been canting."]

It may be profitable to consider how patriotism, which is singularly liable to distortion and perversion, presented itself to the mind of Shakespeare, the clearest-headed student of human thought and sentiment.

II

In Shakespeare's universal survey of human nature it was impossible that he should leave patriotism and the patriotic instinct out of account. It was inevitable that prevalent phases of both should frequently occupy his attention. In his role of dramatist he naturally dealt with the topic incidentally or disconnectedly rather than in the way of definite exposition; but in the result, his treatment will probably be found to be more exhaustive than that of any other English writer. The Shakespearean drama is peculiarly fertile in ill.u.s.tration of the virtuous or beneficent working of the patriotic instinct; but it does not neglect the malevolent or morbid symptoms incident either to its exorbitant or to its defective growth; nor is it wanting in suggestions as to how its healthy development may be best ensured. Part of Shakespeare's message on the subject is so well known that readers may need an apology for reference to it; but Shakespeare's declarations have not, as far as I know, been co-ordinated.[34]

[Footnote 34: In pa.s.sing cursorily over the whole field I must ask pardon for dwelling occasionally on ground that is in detached detail sufficiently well trodden, as well as for neglecting some points which require more thorough exploration than is practicable within my present limits.]

Broadly speaking, the Shakespearean drama enforces the principle that an active instinct of patriotism promotes righteous conduct. This principle lies at the root of Shakespeare's treatment of history and political action, both English and Roman. Normal manifestations of the instinct in Shakespeare's world shed a gracious light on life. But it is seen to work in many ways. The patriotic instinct gives birth to various moods. It operates with some appearance of inconsistency. Now it acts as a spiritual sedative, now as a spiritual stimulant.

Of all Shakespeare's characters, it is Bolingbroke in _Richard II._ who betrays most effectively the tranquillising influence of patriotism. In him the patriotic instinct inclines to ident.i.ty with the simple spirit of domesticity. It is a magnified love for his own hearthstone--a glorified home-sickness. The very soil of England, England's ground, excites in Bolingbroke an overmastering sentiment of devotion. His main happiness in life resides in the thought that England is his mother and his nurse. The patriotic instinct thus exerts on a character which is naturally cold and unsympathetic a softening, soothing, and purifying sway. Despite his forbidding self-absorption and personal ambition he touches hearts, and rarely fails to draw tears when he sighs forth the bald lines:--

Where'er I wander, boast of this I can, Though banished, yet a true-born Englishman.

In such a shape the patriotic instinct may tend in natures weaker than Bolingbroke's to mawkishness or sentimentality. But it is incapable of active offence. It makes for the peace and goodwill not merely of nations among themselves, but of the const.i.tuent elements of each nation within itself. It unifies human aspiration and breeds social harmony.

Very different is the phase of the patriotic instinct which is portrayed in the more joyous, more frank, and more impulsive characters of Faulconbridge the b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the play of _King John_, and of the King in _Henry V._ It is in them an inexhaustible stimulus to action. It is never quiescent, but its operations are regulated by morality and reason, and it finally induces a serene exaltation of temper. It was a pardonable foible of Elizabethan writers distinctly to identify with the English character this healthily energetic sort of patriotism--the sort of patriotism to which an atmosphere of knavery or folly proves fatal.

Faulconbridge is an admirable embodiment of the patriotic sentiment in its most attractive guise. He is a manly soldier, blunt in speech, contemning subterfuge, chafing against the dictates of political expediency, and believing that quarrels between nations which cannot be accommodated without loss of self-respect on the one side or the other, had better be fought out in resolute and honourable war. He is the sworn foe of the bully or the braggart. Cruelty is hateful to him.

The patriotic instinct nurtures in him a warm and generous humanity.

His faith in the future of his nation depends on the confident hope that she will be true to herself, to her traditions, to her responsibilities, to the great virtues; that she will be at once courageous and magnanimous:--

Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.

Faulconbridge's patriotism is a vivacious spur to good endeavour in every relation of life.

Henry V. is drawn by Shakespeare at fuller length than Faulconbridge.

His character is cast in a larger mould. But his patriotism is of the same spirited, wholesome type. Though Henry is a born soldier, he discourages insolent aggression or reckless displays of prowess in fight. With greater emphasis than his archbishops and bishops he insists that his country's sword should not be unsheathed except at the bidding of right and conscience. At the same time, he is terrible in resolution when the time comes for striking blows. War, when it is once invoked, must be pursued with all possible force and fury:--

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility.

But when the blast of war blows in his ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger.[35]

[Footnote 35: On this point the Shakespearean oracle always speaks with a decisive and practical note:--

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.

(_Hamlet_, I., iii., 65-7.)]

But although Henry's patriotic instinct can drive him into battle, it keeps him faithful there to the paths of humanity. Always alive to the horrors of war, he sternly forbids looting or even the use of insulting language to the enemy. It is only when a defeated enemy declines to acknowledge the obvious ruin of his fortunes that a sane and practical patriotism defends resort on the part of the conqueror to the grimmest measure of severity. The healthy instinct stiffens the grip on the justly won fruits of victory. As soon as Henry V. sees that the French wilfully deny the plain fact of their overthrow, he is moved, quite consistently, to exclaim:--

What is it then to me if impious war, Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends, Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats, Enlinked to waste and desolation?

The context makes it clear that there is no confusion here between the patriotic instinct and mere bellicose ecstasy.

The confusion of patriotism with militant aggressiveness is as familiar to the Shakespearean drama as to the external world; but it is always exhibited by Shakespeare in its proper colours. The Shakespearean "mob," unwashed in mind and body, habitually yields to it, and justifies itself by a speciousness of argument, against which a clean vision rebels. The so-called patriotism which seeks expression in war for its own sake is alone intelligible to Shakespeare's pavement orators. "Let me have war, say I," exclaims the professedly patriotic spokesman of the ill-conditioned proletariat in _Coriola.n.u.s_; "it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible.... Ay, and it makes men hate one another." For this distressing result of peace, the reason is given that in times of peace men have less need of one another than in seasons of war, and the crude argument closes with the cry: "The wars for my money." There is irony in this suggestion of the mercantile value of war on the lips of a spokesman of paupers. It is solely the impulsive mindless patriot who strains after mere military glory.