“I haven’t any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his pedestal this side of the year 2209. Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly […] it is a very slow process. It took several thousand years to convince our fine race – including every splendid intellect in it – that there is no such person as Satan; it has taken several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant Church’s program of postmortem entertainments; it has taken a weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can; and it looks as if their Scotch brethren will still be burning babies in the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes down from his perch.’
Mark Twain, Is Shakespeare Dead? From My Autobiography (1909)
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