how feeble-cold--aye,
and sulky-sinister! The greatest praiser the world will ever
know!--and all he can find in his heart to sing of Christmas is a
stringing-together of old women's superstitions! Again and again he
has painted Winter for us as it never has been painted since--never
by Goethe even, though Goethe in more than one of the _Winter-Lieder_
touched the hem of his garment. There was every external reason why
he should sing, as only he could have sung, of Christmas. The Queen
set great store by it. She and her courtiers celebrated it year by
year with lusty-pious unction. And thus the ineradicable snob in
Shakespeare had the most potent of all inducements to honour the feast
with the full power that was in him. But he did not, because he would
not. What is the key to the enigma?

For many years I hunted it vainly. The second time that I met Carlyle
I tried to enlist his sympathy and aid. He sat pensive for a while and
then said that it seemed to him "a goose-quest." I replied, "You have
always a phrase for everything, Tom, but always the wrong one." He
covered his face, and presently, peering at me through his gnarled
fingers, said "Mon, ye're recht." I discussed the problem with Renan,
with Emerson, with Disraeli, also with Cetewayo--poor Cetewayo, best
and bravest of men, but intellectually a Professor, like the rest of
them. It was borne in on me that if I were to win to the heart of the
mystery I must win alone.

The solution, when suddenly it dawned on me, was so simple-stark that
I was ashamed of the ingenious-clever ways I had been following. (I
learned then--and perhaps it is the one lesson worth the learning of
any man--that truth may be approached only through the logic of the
heart. For the heart is eye and ear, and all excellent understanding
abides there.) On Christmas Day, assuredly, Anne Hathaway was born.

In what year she was born I do not know nor care. I take it she
was not less than thirty-eight when she married Shakespeare. This,
however, is sheer conjecture, and in no way important-apt to our
inquiry. It is not the year, but the day of the year, that matters.
All we need bear in mind is that on Christmas Day that woman was born
into the world.

If there be any doubting Thomas among my readers, let him not
be afraid to utter himself. I am (with the possible exception of
Shakespeare) the gentlest man that ever breathed, and I do but bid him
study the Plays in the light I have given hi