{"id":"01KG6GMNZXQDJRMGVG4CCVX2ED","cid":"bafkreibxfjnnqnh3shlhzyoyvvddoheuw5n7yrnmty5i3hw2yryrykxq5q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3997,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.879Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":3937,"text":"if I magnify Shakespeare, it is not so much for what he did do as for\r\nwhat he did not do, or refrained from doing. For in this world of lies,\r\nTruth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and\r\nonly by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and\r\nother masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth,--even though it be\r\ncovertly and by snatches.\r\n\r\nBut if this view of the all-popular Shakespeare be seldom taken by his\r\nreaders, and if very few who extol him have ever read him deeply, or\r\nperhaps, only have seen him on the tricky stage (which alone made, and\r\nis still making him, his mere mob renown)--if few men have time, or\r\npatience, or palate, for the spiritual truth as it is in that great\r\ngenius--it is then no matter of surprise, that in a contemporaneous age,\r\nNathaniel Hawthorne is a man as yet almost utterly mistaken among men.\r\nHere and there, in some quiet armchair in the noisy town, or some deep\r\nnook among the noiseless mountains, he may be appreciated for something\r\nof what he is. But unlike Shakespeare, who was forced to the contrary\r\ncourse by circumstances, Hawthorne (either from simple disinclination,\r\nor else from inaptitude) refrains from all the popularising noise and\r\nshow of broad farce and blood-besmeared tragedy; content with the still,\r\nrich utterance of a great intellect in repose, and which sends few\r\nthoughts into circulation, except they be arterialised at his large warm\r\nlungs, and expanded in his honest heart.\r\n\r\nNor need you fix upon that blackness in him, if it suit you not. Nor,\r\nindeed, will all readers discern it; for it is, mostly, insinuated to\r\nthose who may best understand it, and account for it; it is not obtruded\r\nupon every one alike.\r\n\r\nSome may start to read of Shakespeare and Hawthorne on the same page.\r\nThey may say, that if an illustration were needed, a lesser light might\r\nhave sufficed to elucidate this Hawthorne, this small man of yesterday.\r\nBut I am not willingly one of those who, as touching Shakespeare at\r\nleast, exemplify the maxim of Rochefoucauld, that ‘we exalt the\r\nreputation of some, in order to depress that of others’;--who, to teach\r\nall noble-souled aspirants that there is no hope for them, pronounce\r\nShakespeare absolutely unapproachable. But Shakespeare has been\r\napproached. There are minds that have gone as far as Shakespeare into\r\nthe universe. And hardly a mortal man, who, at some time or other, has\r\nnot felt as great thoughts in him as any you will find in Hamlet. We\r\nmust not inferentially malign mankind for the sake of any one man,\r\nwhoever he may be. This is too cheap a purchase of contentment for\r\nconscious mediocrity to make. Besides, this absolute and unconditional\r\nadoration of Shakespeare has grown to be a part of our Anglo-Saxon\r\nsuperstitions. The Thirty-Nine Articles are now forty. Intolerance has\r\ncome to exist in this matter. You must believe in Shakespeare’s\r\nunapproachability, or quit the country. But what sort of a belief is\r\nthis for an American, a man who is bound to carry republican\r\nprogressiveness into Literature as well as into Life? Believe me, my\r\nfriends, that men not very much inferior to Shakespeare are this day\r\nbeing born on the banks of the Ohio. And the day will come when you\r\nshall say, Who reads a book by an Englishman that is a modern? The great\r\nmistake seems to be, that even with those Americans who look forward to\r\nthe coming of a great literary genius among us, they somehow fancy he\r\nwill come in the costume of Queen Elizabeth’s day; be a writer of dramas\r\nfounded upon old English history or the tales of Boccaccio. Whereas,\r\ngreat geniuses are parts of the times, they themselves are the times,\r\nand possess a corresponding colouring. It is of a piece with the Jews,\r\nwho, while their Shiloh was meekly walking in their streets, were still\r\npraying for his magnificent coming; looking for him in a chariot, who\r\nwas already among them on an ass. Nor must we forget that, in his own\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GKYHSPTY1FRSQBD1DWF45","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMNZVSA30RNQ4TBTS34RV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMPGV4R6E8E654ENAP47Z","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:07.645Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:15.987Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}