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 of their circle, and not being gifted with the
penetration which discerns a latent energy, but only with the vision
which discerns apparent results, they are taken by surprise. Nay, so
biased are we by superficial judgments, that we frequently ignore the
palpable fact of achieved excellence simply because we cannot reconcile
it with our judgment of the man who achieved it.
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