THE BATTALION, College Station, Texas.
life and who do not attempt to write but simply catch their
best thoughts as they flow spontaneously when they them
selves are at their best. Such as this is of course good, but
we too often lose sight of the great underlying truths and be
come absorbed in the story only. Too often also we receive
false impressions, and, our natures becoming morbid, we
either overlook or pass by as too commonplace the grand trag
edies and comedies th being enacted around us daily.
These being the works God brought about by destiny, are
necessarilv superior to fiction which is the work of man and
but an imitation. As our minds become used to high color
ing we seek more and more that class of literature and seek
to entertain ourselves by cheap fiction when the most won
derful romances are going on about us. The villain that we
bate, the lovers that we feel so interested in, the unhappy
or es w ho are always left out, are all right around us among
our friends, but we do not notice it because wo are incapable
of observing and have to have these things pointed out to us
by some one else, or perhaps we entirely overlook them, not
expecting to find them among commonplace people.
If we would only notice, persons and events come every
day under our own untrained and unlimited observation that
would favorably compare within those the most interesting
novels. In writing this I am forcibly reminded of some char
acters that I met in a small town during the last summer.
Although the town w’as small it was still old enough to have
afforded a lodging place to some queer characters. There
was one man from the “old states” w'ho, on account of some
domestic trouble, had left his family and friends and came to
Texas to live out the remainder of his life alone. Another
was an old Scotchman who had traveled a great deal and
served a term in the British army, but being disappointed in
a love affair and sore at heart over the oppression of his coun
try had conv.e to America and settled down in this spot to pass
away the remainder of his life in peace and quiet surround
ings.
There was also a young Englishman, who being possessed
of a roving disposition, had roamed over Europe, the West
Indies, the Canary Islands, andseveial other countries inclu
ding some of the Southern states, but had finally lodged
there. One case that interested me was an old bachelor, a
highly educated and very cultivated man, who had been un
successful in business and had retired to that spot to live out
his life in seclusion,“Far from the maddening crowd’s ignoble,
strife. It is useless though to multiply examples although
it could easily be done. There w 7 as the coquette with sever
al men deeply in love with her, the cynic, the atheist, the
flirt who had jilted one man to marry another, and all that
assemblage from which the poets and the novelists draw so
much of their character delineation. It cannot be said that
these examples are from an assorted collection, for they are
taken from a very small lot, selected at random. Almost
anyone could give plenty of such like instances if he would
only think a minute. The trouble is that we are apt to look
down on our own experiences as too commonplace for notice.
We are blind to the romance of every-day life and fail to
notice that grand or genial of the greatest works ever written
—human life. If w T e would but open our eyes we would be
able to enjoy nature more, to understand each other better,
and to develop that higher part of our nature which is so
sadly neglected. We become absorbed in the . ares of every
day life and forget that there is such a thing as beauty in it.
Life is given to us to develop character and we should attempt
to do that, if we ca.e nothing for the pleasure. No man
can be truly happy until he is able to understand others, and
therefore we shock! try to develop ourselves until we can
stand on a plane above the cares and troubles of life so that we
can understand human nature and enjoy the poetry of nature
fluid the romance of daily life. * * Nemo.
Shakespeare's uobn.
The King John of history was a detestable wretch. But
we must not forget that he has been made even more infam
ous in our sight than he really was, by our inevitable habit
of transporting into the medioeval period the ideas of the
modern ivorld.
To us he was not only in his actual life the blackhearted
murdered and the licentious profligate, rebel to his father and
traitor to his brother, but the ideal tyrant, truel and crush
ing in all his relations to his people. We remember the cap
tives whom he starved in prison. We remember tbe old
men whom he crushed to death under copes of lead. We re
member his many illegal exactions, his seizure of castles, his
armies of hired freebooters, his ferocious hanging of whole
garrisons of captured fortresses, his assaults on the honor of
the wives and daughters of his barons. W 7 e never lose sight
of the fact that to his unbearable tyranny we owe the first
great charter of English liberties, the triumph of the rights of
Englishmen, whether baron, abbot, or simple freeman,
in fine, the union of lords and prelates against the crown in
behalf of the threatened person and property of every class,
not excluding even the rights of the villain.
It is not on these things that Shakespeare lays stress.
There is no Runnymede in his King John. Had Milton
written a play on this part of English history, we may be
sure that the march of “the army of God” and the signing of
the great charter would have constituted the heart of it. To
Shakespeare’s mind the constitutional history o' England was
not even faintly present. All important to him was the at-
litule of the “tight little isle” toward Rome and the conti
nental powers. To him and the great body ot Englishmen
of his time, the same atoning grace redeemed John’s mem
ory from utter loathing that caused them to overlook the ty
ranny and the cruelty and the half-dozen wives of Henry
VIII. It was much to them, it was everything to them, that
both of these kings had defied the power of Rome and had
done what they could to free the nation from foreign spirit
ual demination. John, it seems to me, actually wears in
Shakespeare’s picture of the past somewhat the aspect of
martyr to the cause—not of religion, it is true, but—of na
tional independence in the religious sphere. Be sure, that
it was with a thrill of warm sympathy that the audiences of
Shakespeare’s time heard those spirited words of John to
Pandulph:
“What earthly name to interrogatories
Can task the free breath of a sacred king?
Thou canst not, cardinal, devise a name
So slight, unworthy and ridiculous,
To charge me to an answer, as the pope.
Tell him this tale; I from the mouth of England
Add thus much more, that no Italian priest
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;
But as we, under heaven, are supreme head,
So under him that great supremacy,
Where we do reign, w r e will alone uphold,
Without the assistance of a mortal hand :
So tell the pope, all reverence set apart
To him and his usurp’d authority.”
—and then, in reply to King Philip’s remonstrance:
‘ Though you and all the kings of Christendom
Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,
Dreading the curse that money may buy out;
And by the merit of vi.e gold, dross, dust,
Purchase corrupted pardon of a man
Who in that sale sells pardon from himself,
Though you and all the rest so grossly led
This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish,