PETRARCH AND LAURA
"A literary reputation once attained can never be lost," says Balzac. This for the reason that we find it much easier to admit a man's greatness than to refute it. The safest and most solid reputations are those of writers nobody reads. As long as a man is read he is being weighed, and the verdict is uncertain, which remark, of course, does not apply to the books we read with our eyes shut.
Shakespeare's proud position today is possible only through the fact that he is not read.
We get our Shakespeare from "Bartlett's Quotations": and the statement made by the good old lady that Shakespeare used more quotations than any other man who ever lived is true, although she should have added that he used blessed few quotation-marks.
In all my life I never knew anybody, save one woman and a little girl, who read Shakespeare in the original. I know a deal of Shakespeare, although I never read one of his plays, and never could witness a Shakespearean performance without having the fidgets. All the Shakespeare I have, I caught from being exposed to people who have the microbe.
I never yet met any one who read Petrarch. But every so-called educated person is compelled to admit the genius of Petrarch.
We know the gentleman by sight; that is, we know the back of his books.
And then we know that he loved Laura—Petrarch and Laura!