XII
Irreverence
Is Shakespeare Dead? From my autobiography. | ||
XII
Irreverence
ONE of the most trying defects which I find in these—these—what shall 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 furthest 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
What does the Hindu say? He says it is correct. He says irreverence is lack
The dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it could restrict irreverence to lack of reverence for our Deity and our sacred things, but that ingenious and rather sly idea miscarried: for by the simple process of spelling his deities with capitals the Hindu confiscates the definition and restricts it to his own sects, thus making it clearly compulsory upon us to revere his gods and his sacred things, and nobody's else. We can't say a word, for he has our own dictionary at his back, and its decision is final.
This law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 1. Whatever is sacred to the
Now then, what aggravates me is, that these troglodytes and muscovites and bandoleers and buccaneers are also trying to crowd in and share the benefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their Shakespeare and hold him sacred. We can't have that: there's enough of us already. If you go on widening and spreading and inflating the privilege, it will presently come to be conceded that each man's sacred things are the only ones, and the rest of the human race will have to be humbly reverent toward them or suffer for it. That can surely happen, and when it happens, the word
We cannot afford to let that calamity come upon us. We must save the word from this destruction. There is but one way to do it, and that is, to stop the spread of the privilege, and strictly confine it to its present limits: that is, to all the Christian sects, to all the Hindu sects, and me. We do not need any more, the stock is watered enough, just as it is.
It would be better if the privilege were limited to me alone. I think so because I am the only sect that knows how to
It will surely be much better all around if the privilege of regulating the irreverent and keeping them in order shall eventually be withdrawn from all the sects but me. Then there will be no more quarrelling, no more bandying of disrespectful epithets, no more heart burnings.
There will then be nothing sacred involved in this Bacon-Shakespeare controversy except what is sacred to me. That will simplify the whole matter, and trouble will cease. There will be irreverence no longer, because I will not allow it. The first time those criminals charge me with irreverence for calling their Stratford myth an Arthur-Orton-Mary-Baker-Thompson-Eddy-Louis-the-Seventeenth-Veiled-Prophet-of-Khorassan will be the last. Taught by the methods found effective in extinguishing earlier offenders by the Inquisition, of holy memory, I shall know how to quiet them.
XII
Irreverence
Is Shakespeare Dead? From my autobiography. | ||