Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1898 — Shakspeare’s Knowledge. [ARTICLE]

Shakspeare’s Knowledge.

It is not for a moment to be denied that Shakspeare’s plays show an extraordinary wealth of varied knowledge. The writer was one of the keenest observers that ever lived. In the woodland or on the farm, in the printing shop or the ale house, or up and down the street, not the smallest detail escaped him. Microscopic accuracy, curious interest in all things, unlimited power of assimilating knowledge, are everywhere shown in the plays. These ai - e some of the marks of what we call genius, something that we are far from comprehending, but which experience has shown that books and universities cannot impart. All the colleges on earth could not by combined effort make the kind of a man we call a genius, but such a man may at any moment be born into the world, and it is as likely to be in a peasant’s cottage as anywhere. There is nothing in which men differ more widely than in the capacity for imbibing and assimilating knowledge. The capacity is often exercised unconsciously. When my eldest son, at the age of 6, was in the course of a few weeks of daily Instruction taught to read, it was suddenly discovered thai his 4-year-old brother also could read. Nobody could tell bow it happened. Of course the younger boy must have taken keen notice of what the elder odc was doing, but the process went on without attracting attention until the result appeared.—Atlantic.