Naturally the Shakespeare theme was uppermost during the remaining days that we were together. He had engaged another stenographer, and was now dictating, forenoons, his own views on the subject—views coordinated with those of Mr. Greenwood, whom he liberally quoted, but embellished and decorated in his own gay manner. These were chapters for his autobiography, he said, and I think he had then no intention of making a book of them. I could not quite see why he should take all this argumentary trouble if he had, as he said, positive evidence that Bacon, and not Shakespeare, had written the plays. I thought the whole matter very curious.
The Shakespeare interest had diverging by-paths. One evening, when we were alone at dinner, he said:
“There is only one other illustrious man in history about whom there is so little known,” and he added, “Jesus Christ.”
He reviewed the statements of the Gospels concerning Christ, though he declared them to be mainly traditional and of no value. I agreed that they contained confusing statements, and inflicted more or less with justice and reason; but I said I thought there was truth in them, too.
“Why do you think so?” he asked.
“Because they contain matters that are self-evident—things eternally and essentially just.”
“Then you make your own Bible?”
“Yes, from those materials combined with human reason.”
“Then it does not matter where the truth, as you call it, comes from?”
I admitted that the source did not matter; that truth from Shakespeare, Epictetus, or Aristotle was quite as valuable as from the Scriptures. We were on common ground now. He mentioned Marcus Aurelius, the Stoics, and their blameless lives. I, still pursuing the thought of Jesus, asked: