He tells you the whole story in his sonnets and in his plays of this period, as I have shown in my book on him.
And this knowledge is of supreme importance for any complete realization of Shakespeare, but Schopenhauer did not understand the creative intellect.
Whenever he talks about novels he is not so sure a guide as when he is talking of philosophies. "Good novelists," he says, "take the general outline of a character from some real person of their acquaintance, and then idealize and complete it to suit their purpose." This is not true of the novelists or dramatists: the creative artist goes differently to work, I believe.
It is perfectly clear, for instance, that Cervantes painted himself in Don Quixote, idealized, if you like, a little, but rather by omission of faults than by heightening of idealistic touches. Nor do I imagine that Sancho Panza was taken from any real person of Cervantes' acquaintances; it is to me a generalized portrait of ordinary Spanish characteristics.
And if we go to an even greater imagination, to Shakespeare's, we shall find that he wrote in much the same way. His Hamlet is a portrait of himself, with the omission of his worst fault, which was an overpowering sensuality. His Falstaff, as I have shown elsewhere, is indeed a portrait taken from life, probably from Chettle, the fat man, half-poet, half-wit, a friend of his early days in London. I have proved this, I think, by showing that when the Queen ordered him to picture Falstaff over again and show "the fat Knight" in love, he was unable to find a single new characteristic of his hero; he had to copy his previous work almost word for word. If he had invented the new character, he would have been able to add some new traits at will.
But then I may be asked about the multitude of his other characters, and in order to answer it properly, I should have to take them seriatim. But the main truth can be put shortly. Nearly all of the fine lovable characters are partial portraits of himself, and his villains, such as Iago, are really his view of life, as it acts on inferior intelligences. "Put money in your purse… Drown cats and blind puppies"-all Iago's chief sayings might have been put in the mouth of Sancho Panza. They are from the heart of the common Englishman, who is very like the common Spaniard. Shakespeare's expressions are more pregnant, for he was a greater master of language than even Cervantes: but the wicked and hateful purpose of Iago was not sufficiently and so he does not live for us as effectively as Sancho.
It was my love of Shakespeare and my study of him that gave me most of what I know, for my study of him taught me to read all other great men, taught me how they grow and how their peculiarities often dwarf them. From this passionate study of Shakespeare I came to see how the high lights of noble feeling and high endeavor were continually shadowed by little snobbisms and pitiful shortcomings.
A better lesson, still, I learnt from Shakespeare. As I have told in my book on him, the greatest disappointment in his life came when his beloved Mary Fitton married and left London for good in 1608; and when, in the same year, he got the news of his mother's death. He went back to Stratford and there got to know his daughter Judith. The dramas he wrote afterwards show an astounding growth in beauty of character. He not only forgives his lost love, Mary Fitton, but acknowledges with perfect comprehension all she had taught him, and meant to him. The modesty of his daughter, Judith, too, adds a new tinge of Puritan morality to his judgments of life. It was Shakespeare's sovereign fairness of mind and nobility of soul first taught me that I ought to modify my native selfishness and pugnacity. Through studying him I came to see gradually that the greater natures and wiser minds owe a certain duty to themselves: we must forgive, he taught me, for little people cannot; and so I came to that modification of the prayer of Jesus, which has been condemned as blasphemous. "Give us this day our daily bread," he says, "and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us."
"Give and forgive," I said, "is the true gospel"; and from this time on, with many lapses, due for the most part to selfishness or temper, I tried, in my own life, to realize this striving.
This was my "conversion" to a better life, and it occurred about my fortieth year as a result partly of complete success in material strivings; but more, I am fain to believe, as a natural incident of growth. I came to see that if I would be with the great ones in the future, I too must lead a life of generosity and kindness. It was and is my most profound conviction that all progress in this life comes from gifted individuals, and if we desire the bettering of things or think of this earthly pilgrimage as a slow journeying upward to perfection, we must do our little best to help all the abler men of our time to selfrealization and achievement.
Like chooses like in this world, and the natural affinity of the noble is a stronger tie than can easily be imagined. Now, for the first time, I began to live the higher life, as I understood it. And soon new lessons from it began to drift in upon me. I found almost immediately, that certain persons, whom I felt to be among the best, now began to seek me out and show me affection. Lord Grimthorpe became a close friend, and charming people in every walk of life began to show me kindness.
"He came to His own, and His own received Him not," is one of the few sayings in the New Testament which must be construed in a narrow way: in this world, our own, in the large sense of those like us or on our level, always receive us and treat us with loving-kindness beyond our deserts. If "the way of the transgressor is hard," the way of the heavenly pilgrim becomes the primrose path to the divine life.
It must not be understood that I became a saint, or that ideal strivings dominated me; far from it, alas! Now and then I was hatefully selfish and once, at least, to a woman detestable: she is still living and I cannot confess my meanness without exposing her, but my treatment of her still brings a hot flush of shame to my cheeks. Even wounded vanity, though it may explain, cannot excuse my paltry, detestable conduct. I was as self-centered as ever, and as confirmed an epicurean: a Hellene always, as Heine would have said, and not a Jew, and still less a Saxon; for the Saxons love to accept promissory notes of ecstatic happiness in eternity, whereas the Hellenes are intent on making the best of this present life, and enjoying themselves here below as much as possible.
My worst fault, I think, has always been my impatience: it often gave the impression of bad temper, or cynicism, or worse, for it was backed by an excellent tongue that translated most feelings into words of some piquancy.
Consequently, this man spoke of me as truculent and the other as callous and the third as domineering, when in reality I wished to be kind, but was unable to suffer fools gladly. This impatience has grown on me with the years, and as soon as I gave up conducting journals, I limited my intercourse to friends who were always men of brains, and so managed to avoid a myriad occasions of giving offense unnecessarily.
This sharp-tongued impatience was allied to a genuine reverence for greatness of mind or character; but again this reverence brought with it an illimitable disdain for the second-rate or merely popular. I was more than amiable to Huxley or Wallace, to Davidson or Dowson, and correspondingly contemptuous of the numerous mediocrities who are the heroes of the popular press. So I got a reputation for extraordinary conceit and abrupt bad manners.
All the early part of this period I was in love and therefore did not run after new experiences in what the French call le pays du tendre. I had an excellent home and troops of friends: I had brought living to a science; I rode every morning in the park, ate and drank in moderation, watched my weight, and by hard exercise kept myself in good condition.
About 1895 I began, little by little, to alter my purpose in life, trying, as far as vanity would let me, to live to the best in me; and when I took control of the Saturday Review in that year, I modified the general method of criticism, as I shall tell; I found it better to praise than to condemn.