he
perfect reception this wit and immense knowledge of life and liquid
eloquence find in us all." This aggrandisement of our common stature
rests on questionable ground. If our capacity of being moved by
Shakspeare discloses a community, our incapacity of producing HAMLET no
less discloses our inferiority. It is certain that could we meet
Shakspeare we should find him strikingly like ourselves---with the same
faculties, the same sensibilities, though not in the same degree. The
secret of his power over us lies, of course, in our having the capacity
to appreciate him. Yet we seeing him in the unimpassioned moods of
daily life, it is more than probable that we should see nothing in him
but what was ordinary; nay, in some qualities he would seem inferior.
Heroes require a perspective. They are men who look superhuman only
when elevated on the pedestals of their achievements. In ordinary life
they look like ordinary men; not that they are of the common mould, but
seem so because their uncommon qualities are not then called forth.
Superiority requires an occasion. The common man is helpless in an
emergency: assailed by contradictory suggestions, or confused by his
incapacity, he cannot see his way. The hour of emergency finds a hero
calm and strong, and strong because calm and clear-sighted; he sees
what can be done, and does it. This is often a thing of great
simplicity, so that we marvel others did not see it. Now it has been
done, and proved successful, many underrate its value, thinking that
they also would have done precisely the same thing. The world is more
just. It refuses to men unassailed by the difficulties of a situation
the glory they have not earned. The world knows how easy most things
appear when they have once been done. We can all make the egg stand on
end after Columbus.

Shakspeare, then, would probably not impress us with a sense of our
inferiority if we were to meet him tomorrow. Most likely we should be
bitterly disappointed; because, having formed our conception of him as
the man who wrote HAMLET and OTHELLO we forget that these were not the
preducts of his ordinary moods, but the manifestations of his power at
white heat. In ordinary moods he must be very much as ordinary men, and
it is in these we meet him. How notorious is the astonishment of
friends and associates when any man's achievements suddenly emerge into
renown. "They could never have believed it." Why should they? Knowing
him only as one