And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of good and evil—and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that hurries by a ruined mill.
From every side the characters crowd upon us—the men and women born of Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really lived with us.
Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase—has ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine perfume.
In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold—passions became virtues—weeds became exotics, from some diviner land—and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian Gods. In his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite—that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and mathematical—dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems.
Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner.
XII.
Shakespeare was the greatest of philosophers.
He knew the conditions of success—of happiness—the relations that men, sustain to each other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and currents of the heart—the cliffs and caverns of the brain. He knew the weakness of the will, the sophistry of desire—and "That pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision."
He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world—that flesh is but a mask, and that "There is no art to find the mind's construction In the face."