文档介绍：IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
IS SHAKESPEARE
DEAD?
1
IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
CHAPTER I
Scattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript
which constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain
chapters will in some distant future be found which deal with "Claimants"-
-claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the Golden Calf,
Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis XVII.,
Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant; Mary
Baker G. Eddy, Claimant--and the rest of them. Eminent Claimants,
essful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb Claimants,
showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants, despised
Claimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder through the mists of
history and legend and tradition--and oh, all the darling tribe are clothed in
mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep interest and
discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment,
according to which side we hitch ourselves to. It has always been so
with the human race. There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a
hearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no matter
how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be. Arthur
Orton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne e to life again
was as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy's that she wrote Science and Health from the
direct dictation of the Deity; yet in England near forty years ago Orton had
a huge army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many of whom
remained stubbornly unconvinced after their fat god had been proven an
impostor and jailed as a perjurer, and to-day Mrs. Eddy's following is not
only immense, but is daily augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm.
Orton had many fine and educated minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy
has had the like among hers from the beginning. Her church is as well
equipped in those particulars as is any other church. Claimants can
always c