Is Shakespeare Dead? – Mark Twain – Platanus Publishing

“He certainly was a good reader, and splendid­ly thrilling and stormy and tragic, but it was a da­mage to me, because I have never since been able to read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way. I cannot rid it of his explosive interlardings, they break in ever­ywhere with their irrelevant “What in hell are you up to now! pull her down! more! more! there now, steady as you go,” and the other disorganizing inter­ruptions that were always leaping from his mouth. When I read Shakespeare now, I can hear them as plainly as I did in that long-departed time fifty-o­ne years ago. I never regarded Ealer’s readings as educational. Indeed they were a detriment to me.”