s religion and uses it, but between it
and the depths of his own mind remains forever an inviolable film of
sceptical "white light." This "qualified assent" is precisely what
excites the fury of such individualistic thinkers as Tolstoi and
Bernard Shaw. It were amusing to note the difference between the
"humour" of this latter and the "humour" of Shakespeare. Shaw's
humour consists in emphasizing the absurdity of human Custom,
compared with the good sense of the philosopher. Shakespeare's
humour consists in emphasizing the absurdity of philosophers,
compared with the good sense of Custom. The one is the humour of
the Puritan, directed against the ordinary man, on behalf of the
Universe. The other is the humour of the Artist, directed against the
Universe, on behalf of the ordinary man.

Shakespeare is, at bottom, the most extreme of Pessimists. He has
no faith in "progress," no belief in "eternal values," no
transcendental "intuitions," no zeal for reform. The universe to him,
for all its loveliness, remains an outrageous jest. The cosmic is the
comic. Anything may be expected of this "pendant world," except
what we expect; and when it is a question of "falling back," we can
only fall back on human-made custom. We live by Illusions, and
when the last Illusion fails us, we die. After reading Shakespeare,
the final impression left upon the mind is that the world can only be
justified as an aesthetic spectacle. To appreciate a Show at once so
sublime and so ridiculous, one needs to be very brave, very tender,
and very humorous. Nothing else is needed. "Man must abide his
going hence, even as his coming hither. Ripeness is all." When
Courage fails us, it is--"as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport." When tenderness fails us, it
is--"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace
from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time." When humour
fails us, it is--"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, seem to me
all the uses of this world!"

So much for Life! And when we come to Death, how true it is, as
Charles Lamb says, that none has spoken of Death like Shakespeare!
And he has spoken of it so--with such an absolute grasp of our
mortal feeling about it--because his mood in regard to it is the mood
of the natural man; of the natural man, unsophisticated by false
hopes, undated by vain assurance. His attitude towards death neither
sweetens "the unpalatable draught of mo