Depiction of William Shakespeare by George Henry Hall (1825-1913). Courtesy of the Royal Shakespeare Company Collection.

This month, marking the four hundredth anniversary of the great William Shakespeare’s death (April also being the 452nd anniversary of his birth), we honor the “Bard of Avon” with this remembrance from Calvin Coolidge, the last classically educated President we had:

Reflecting on the impact of his immersion in the great literary Masters, Coolidge understood the civilizing and ennobling power of good literature on the character. It accomplishes what no other creative art can. The love of truth, beauty, and goodness all find their soul-nourishing expression in the poetry, prose, and creative thoughts of great English composition (first and foremost in the English Bible of Wycliffe), followed by Shakespeare and those who (like Philip Sidney, the Bard’s contemporary, explained it) were better at articulating eternal truths and more prescient than most philosophers at inspiring those who read them to love what is noble, seek what is good, disdain what is debased and reject what is evil.

Coolidge summarized this way his life-long appreciation for the ongoing conversation captured by Shakespeare and perpetuated by those both new and old to the dialogue of great ideas who, in turn, derived their inspiration from the authors of antiquity:

“My evenings I gave to some of the masters of English composition. I read the speeches of Lord Erskine, of Webster, and Choate. The essays of Macaulay interested me much, and the writings of Carlyle and John Fiske I found very stimulating. Some of the orations of Cicero I translated, being especially attached to the defense of his friend the poet Archias, because in it he dwelt on the value and consolation of good literature. I read much in Milton and Shakespeare and found delight in the shorter poems of Kipling, Field and Riley“ (The Autobiography p.73)

As Lysander replies to Theseus in Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream, “It is not enough to speak, but to speak true.” The greatness of literature is not in its deconstruction or eradication as politically incorrect and embarrassing monuments to the supposed existence of white male oppression. It presents us the world as it is, in truer form than postmodernism can permit and from which would seek to escape through absurd theories that deny the very essence of creativity, the discrimination of values, and the capacity of all human beings to judge and discern truth, goodness, and beauty. Rather, the power and importance of great literature come from the truths universal to the nature of human beings and the colorful tapestry of reality. By tapping into that reflection of our natures we are taught principles that inspire and improve, declare words have precise meanings, feed our souls and train our minds, equip and correct with an insight that all can share, appreciate, and proudly claim as one’s own. Moreover, we can engage in this joyous ownership wherever and whenever we were born, brought to each of us by the great discourse of ideas found within the English Canon.

Here is a young Calvin Coolidge launching out on the beginning of his life in public service, starting here with a thorough training in the classics.

While Jimmy Kimmel may not be informed about much, he does offer some excellent closing advice here. Check this out, Coolidge friends! Never forget.

President Coolidge receiving a hat and rain stick as an honorary member of the Hopi association, October 22, 1924. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Contributing to the series published in Good Housekeeping two years after Calvin Coolidge’s death, the legendary humorist and entertainer Will Rogers had this to say about his late friend and former President,

“Mr. Coolidge has more subtle humor than almost any public man I ever met. I have often said I would like to have been hidden in his desk somewhere and just heard the little sly ‘digs’ that he pulled on various people that never even got ’em at all.

I bet he wasted more humor on folks than almost anybody. You see most fellows notify you that they are about to pull one, or it’s done with a story–‘Did I ever tell you the one about the farmer at the election?’ Mr. Coolidge never did that, his were pulled with not even a change of inflection, you got it, or you dident, and it dident make difference to him.

He never did it publically, because he told me one time that it was fatal to show humor in public office, it reacted against you. How he was able to withhold it publically is more than I know, for he was a man that very quickly could detect the sham and insincerity and ‘hooey,’ but he just had to sit there and keep a straight face and think it to himself.

One of the best and ‘fastest’ ones he pulled on me (and he pulled many). I was to lecture in Washington on one of my periodical tours (before reforming). I dropped in and wanted him to come to my little show that night, I explained to him that there was nothing to it, only me talking for two or three hours, but that I had a very fine quartet that sang. Quick as a flash without a trace of a smile, he says, ‘Yes, I like singing.’

Now it would have been a shame if I had muffed that one. Now just imagine how many he must have pulled on old boring politicians that went right over their heads, for they are so used to having somebody give ’em warning when one is coming. He has that real old New England humor, the ‘no effort’ and ‘no demonstration’ kind.

He was a great fellow. I thought much of Mr. Coolidge, told a thousand little jokes and anecdotes about him, but they were all ones that brought out some little humaness in his make-up. They were all jokes on qualities which the people admired in a man. I like all public men, but I especially liked Mr. Coolidge, and Mrs. Coolidge was just about my ‘Public Female Favorite No. 1.’ ” (Part of “The Real Calvin Coolidge” series, Good Housekeeping, 1935)