Shakespeare did not
sit down and cry for the water of Helicon to turn the wheels of his
little private mill at the Bankside. He appears to have gone more
quietly about his business than any other playwright in London, to have
drawn off what water-power he needed from the great prosy current of
affairs that flows alike for all and in spite of all, to have ground for
the public what grist they wanted, coarse or fine, and it seems a mere
piece of luck that the smooth stream of his activity reflected with such
ravishing clearness every changing mood of heaven and earth, every stick
and stone, every dog and clown and courtier that stood upon its brink.
It is a curious illustration of the friendly manner in which Shakespeare
received everything that came along,--of what a _present_ man he
was,--that in the very same year that the mulberry-tree was brought into
England, he got one and planted it in his garden at Stratford.
It is perfectly true that this is a materialistic age, and for that very
reason we want our poets all the more. We find that every generation
contrives to catch its singing larks without the sky's falling. When the
poet comes, he always turns out to be the man who discovers that the
passing moment is the inspired one, and that the secret of poetry is not
to have lived in Homer's day, or Dante's, but to be alive now.
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