done, and proved successful, many underrate its value, thinking that
they also would have done precisely the same thing. The world is more
just. It refuses to men unassailed by the difficulties of a situation
the glory they have not earned. 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. The deed has been
done, the work written, the picture painted; it is before the world,
and the world is ringing with applause. There is no doubt whatever that
the man whose name is in every mouth did the work; but because our
personal impressions of him do not correspond with our conceptions of a
powerful man, we abate or withdraw our admiration, and attribute his
success to lucky accident. This blear-eyed, taciturn, timid man, whose
knowledge of many things is manifestly imperfect, whose inaptitude for
many things is apparent, can HE be the creator of such glorious works?