Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Is Shakespeare Dead? From my autobiography By: Mark Twain (1835-1911) |
---|
![]()
FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY MARK TWAIN HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
M C M I X
CHAPTER I
Scattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript
which constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain
chapters will in some distant future be found which deal with
"Claimants" claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the
Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis
XVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant;
Mary Baker G. Eddy, Claimant and the rest of them. Eminent Claimants,
successful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb
Claimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants, despised
Claimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder through the mists
of history and legend and tradition and oh, all the darling tribe are
clothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep interest
and discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment,
according to which side we hitch ourselves to. It has always been so
with the human race. There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a
hearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no
matter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be. Arthur
Orton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life again
was as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy's that she wrote Science and Health from the
direct dictation of the Deity; yet in England near forty years ago Orton
had a huge army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many of whom
remained stubbornly unconvinced after their fat god had been proven an
impostor and jailed as a perjurer, and to day Mrs. Eddy's following is
not only immense, but is daily augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm.
Orton had many fine and educated minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has
had the like among hers from the beginning. Her church is as well
equipped in those particulars as is any other church. Claimants can
always count upon a following, it doesn't matter who they are, nor what
they claim, nor whether they come with documents or without. It was
always so. Down out of the long vanished past, across the abyss of the
ages, if you listen you can still hear the believing multitudes shouting
for Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel. A friend has sent me a new book, from England The Shakespeare Problem
Restated well restated and closely reasoned; and my fifty years'
interest in that matter asleep for the last three years is excited once
more. It is an interest which was born of Delia Bacon's book away back
in that ancient day 1857, or maybe 1856. About a year later my
pilot master, Bixby, transferred me from his own steamboat to the
Pennsylvania , and placed me under the orders and instructions of George
Ealer dead now, these many, many years. I steered for him a good many
months as was the humble duty of the pilot apprentice: stood a daylight
watch and spun the wheel under the severe superintendence and correction
of the master. He was a prime chess player and an idolater of
Shakespeare. He would play chess with anybody; even with me, and it cost
his official dignity something to do that. Also quite uninvited he
would read Shakespeare to me; not just casually, but by the hour, when it
was his watch, and I was steering. He read well, but not profitably for
me, because he constantly injected commands into the text. That broke it
all up, mixed it all up, tangled it all up to that degree, in fact, that
if we were in a risky and difficult piece of river an ignorant person
couldn't have told, sometimes, which observations were Shakespeare's and
which were Ealer's. For instance: What man dare, I dare! Approach thou what are you laying in the leads for? what a hell of
an idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off! rugged
Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the there she goes! meet her,
meet her! didn't you know she'd smell the reef if you crowded it
like that? Hyrcan tiger; take any shape but that and my firm nerves
she'll be in the woods the first you know! stop the starboard! come
ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! ... Continue reading book >>
|
This book is in genre |
---|
Literature |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – Mark Twain |
Wikipedia – Is Shakespeare Dead? From my autobiography |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|