noticing–therefore it DID; it COULD HAVE attended cat-assizes on
the shed-roof nights, for recreation, when no one was noticing,
and have harvested a knowledge of cat court-forms and cat lawyer-
talk in that way: it COULD have done it, therefore without a
doubt it DID; it COULD HAVE gone soldiering with a war-tribe when
no one was noticing, and learned soldier-wiles and soldier-ways,
and what to do with a mouse when opportunity offers; the plain
inference, therefore, is that that is what it DID. Since all
these manifold things COULD have occurred, we have EVERY RIGHT TO
BELIEVE they did occur. These patiently and painstakingly
accumulated vast acquirements and competences needed but one
thing more–opportunity–to convert themselves into triumphal
action. The opportunity came, we have the result; BEYOND SHADOW
OF QUESTION the mouse is in the kitten.
It is proper to remark that when we of the three cults plant
a “WE THINK WE MAY ASSUME,” we expect it, under careful watering
and fertilizing and tending, to grow up into a strong and hardy
and weather-defying “THERE ISN’T A SHADOW OF A DOUBT” at last–
and it usually happens.
We know what the Baconian’s verdict would be: “THERE IS NOT
A RAG OF EVIDENCE THAT THE KITTEN HAS HAD ANY TRAINING, ANY
EDUCATION, ANY EXPERIENCE QUALIFYING IT FOR THE PRESENT OCCASION,
OR IS INDEED EQUIPPED FOR ANY ACHIEVEMENT ABOVE LIFTING SUCH
UNCLAIMED MILK AS COMES ITS WAY; BUT THERE IS ABUNDANT EVIDENCE–
UNASSAILABLE PROOF, IN FACT–THAT THE OTHER ANIMAL IS EQUIPPED,
TO THE LAST DETAIL, WITH EVERY QUALIFICATION NECESSARY FOR THE
EVENT. WITHOUT SHADOW OF DOUBT THE TOM-CAT CONTAINS THE MOUSE.”
VI
When Shakespeare died, in 1616, great literary productions
attributed to him as author had been before the London world and
in high favor for twenty-four years. Yet his death was not an
event. It made no stir, it attracted no attention. Apparently
his eminent literary contemporaries did not realize that a
celebrated poet had passed from their midst. Perhaps they knew a
play-actor of minor rank had disappeared, but did not regard him
as the author of his Works. “We are justified in assuming” this.
His death was not even an event in the little town of
Stratford. Does this mean that in Stratford he was not regarded
as a celebrity of ANY kind?
“We are privileged to assume”–no, we are indeed OBLIGED to
assume–that such was the case. He had spent the first twenty-
two or twenty-three years of his life there, and of course knew
everybody and was known by everybody of that day in the town,
including the dogs and the cats and the horses. He had spent the
last five or six years of his life there, diligently trading in
every big and little thing that had money in it; so we are
compelled to assume that many of the folk there in those said
latter days knew him personally, and the rest by sight and
hearsay. But not as a CELEBRITY? Apparently not. For everybody
soon forgot to remember any contact with him or any incident
connected with him. The dozens of townspeople, still alive, who
had known of him or known about him in the first twenty-three
years of his life were in the same unremembering condition: if
they knew of any incident connected with that period of his life
they didn’t tell about it. Would the if they had been asked? It
is most likely. Were they asked? It is pretty apparent that
they were not. Why weren’t they? It is a very plausible guess
that nobody there or elsewhere was interested to know.
For seven years after Shakespeare’s death nobody seems to have been
interested in him. Then the quarto was published, and Ben Jonson
awoke out of his long indifference and sang a song of praise and
put it in the front of the book. Then silence fell AGAIN.
For sixty years. Then inquiries into Shakespeare’s Stratford
life began to be made, of Stratfordians. Of Stratfordians
who had known Shakespeare or had seen him? No. Then of
Stratfordians who had seen people who had known or seen
people who had seen Shakespeare? No. Apparently the inquires
were only made of Stratfordians who were not Stratfordians of