“You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wave their high tops, and to make no noise
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven.”
And again:—
“But when from under this terrestrial bank
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines.”
He knew little then of the mountains by experience; but had he known them more, though they might have added some sternness to his genius, some awe to his thoughts about life, they might perhaps have narrowed his range and made his view of men less universal and serene. So Mr. Ruskin thinks. And yet perhaps it is hardly safe so to speculate about Shakespeare. For could not the mind which took in and harmonized so many things, have made room for this other influence, without deranging its proportions and marring its universality?
Though Shakespeare sometimes describes, in a general way, countries he had never seen, as in that exquisite description of Sicily in the “Winter’s Tale,”—
“The climate’s delicate, the air most sweet,