Question. Mr. Donnelly says that you said: "Where there is genius, education seems almost unnecessary," and he denounces your doctrine as the most abominable doctrine ever taught. What have you to say to that?
Answer. In the first place, I never made the remark. In the next place, it may be well enough to ask what education is. Much is taught in colleges that is of no earthly use; much is taught that is hurtful. There are thousands of educated men who never graduated from any college or university. Every observant, thoughtful man is educating himself as long as he lives. Men are better then books. Observation is a great teacher. A man of talent learns slowly. He does not readily see the necessary relation that one fact bears to another. A man of genius, learning one fact, instantly sees hundreds of others. It is not necessary for such a man to attend college. The world is his university. Every man he meets is a book—every woman a volume every fact a torch—and so without the aid of the so-called schools he rises to the very top. Shakespeare was such a man.
Question. Mr. Donnelly says that: "The biggest myth ever on earth was Shakespeare, and that if Francis Bacon had said to the people, I, Francis Bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking in secret my share of the coppers and shillings taken at the door of those low playhouses, he would have been ruined. If he had put the plays forth simply as poetry it would have ruined his legal reputation." What do you think of this?
Answer. I hardly think that Shakespeare was a myth. He was certainly born, married, lived in London, belonged to a company of actors; went back to Stratford, where he had a family, and died. All these things do not as a rule happen to myths. In addition to this, those who knew him believed him to be the author of the plays. Bacon's friends never suspected him. I do not think it would have hurt Bacon to have admitted that he wrote "Lear" and "Othello," and that he was getting "coppers and shillings" to which he was justly entitled. Certainly not as much as for him to have written this, which if fact, though not in exact form, he did write: "I, Francis Bacon, a gentleman of gentlemen, have been taking coppers and shillings to which I was not entitled—but which I received as bribes while sitting as a judge." He has been excused for two reasons. First, because his salary was small, and, second, because it was the custom for judges to receive presents.
Bacon was a lawyer. He was charged with corruption—with having taken bribes, with having sold his decisions. He knew what the custom was and knew how small his salary was. But he did not plead the custom in his defense. He did not mention the smallness of the salary. He confessed that he was guilty—as charged. His confession was deemed too general and he was called upon by the Lords to make a specific confession. This he did. He specified the cases in which he had received the money and told how much, and begged for mercy. He did not make his confession, as Mr. Donnelly is reported to have said, to get his fine remitted. The confession was made before the fine was imposed.
Neither do I think that the theatre in which the plays of Shakespeare were represented could or should be called a "low play house." The fact that "Othello," "Lear," "Hamlet," "Julius Cæsar," and the other great dramas were first played in that playhouse made it the greatest building in the world. The gods themselves should have occupied seats in that theatre, where for the first time the greatest productions of the human mind were put upon the stage.
—The Tribune, Minneapolis, Minn., May 31, 1891.