Is Shakespeare Dead? from my autobiography by Mark Twain
page 67 of 80 (83%)
page 67 of 80 (83%)
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He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it portable. His eloquence would alone have entitled him to a high rank in literature. It is evident that he had each and every one of the mental gifts and each and every one of the acquirements that are so prodigally displayed in the Plays and Poems, and in much higher and richer degree than any other man of his time or of any previous time. He was a genius without a mate, a prodigy not matable. There was only one of him; the planet could not produce two of him at one birth, nor in one age. He could have written anything that is in the Plays and Poems. He could have written this: The cloud-cap'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Also, he could have written this, but he refrained: |
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