Such is the wit of our gentleman poet; and what is the comment of our Louisiana scholar? He tells us: “This savors of modern times.... The demagogue has the ignorance of his audience on his side. He has in behalf of his appeals that sullen jealousy of the masses who are conscious of classes, that is, of a caste above them and more accomplished.” To be sure, the Louisiana professor admits that Shakespeare is here handling a great historic scene “flippantly”; but then, you see, the poet had such a good excuse! He was “sorely in need of comedy for the tragic drama of ‘Henry VI’”! But I ask: why could he not have made up some comedy dealing with noble lords and gentlemen? The answer is: It is a tradition of the leisure-class literature of England that the sufferings of the rich and powerful are dignified tragedy, while the sufferings of the poor are “comic relief.” The only way a poor person of any sort can get Shakespeare to take him seriously is by being a devoted servant of some wealthy and powerful person; for example, Old Adam in “As You Like It,” a part which, according to tradition, was played by Shakespeare himself. But when the common people try to do something for themselves, they are clowns and fools, yokels and tavern roysterers. Take the comedy scenes in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” when working people actually attempt to give a play. Shakespeare thinks that no idea could be more absurd. But nowadays working people give many plays in England; there are radical theater groups producing a new dramatic literature, in which it does not always happen that poor people are boobs, while ladies and gentlemen are refined and gracious. More significant yet, the descendants of those Jack Cade rebels, whom Shakespeare represents as objecting to grammar schools, have by a century-long struggle forced the establishment of free schools for the children of the people in every corner of England. They have some three thousand branches of the Workers’ Education Association, in which the people learn about nouns and verbs at their own expense. Was ever a national poet more sternly rebuked by the people of his own nation? Says Mrs. Ogi: “It is time for Jack Cade to make it felony to read Shakespeare.” “No,” says Ogi; “we have to follow the example of the Catholic Church, whose priests are allowed to read prohibited books for purposes of controversy. But certainly it is time for us to get clear in our minds that Shakespeare is a poet and propagandist of the enemy; for the present, at any rate, a burden upon the race mind. He is the crown and glory of the system of class supremacy, and a magic word used by every snob and every time-server in the place of straight thinking and the reality of life.” CHAPTER XXXVII PRAISE FOR PURITANS Says Mrs. Ogi: “From the title of this chapter I judge that we here begin our long-anticipated debate with H. L. Mencken!”