give of it,--is the best measure you could get of what intellect is in the
man. Which circumstance is vital and shall stand prominent; which

unessential, fit to be suppressed; where is the true _beginning_, the true
sequence and ending? To find out this, you task the whole force of insight

that is in the man. He must _understand_ the thing; according to the depth
of his understanding, will the fitness of his answer be. You will try him

so. Does like join itself to like; does the spirit of method stir in that
confusion, so that its embroilment becomes order? Can the man say, _Fiat

lux_, Let there be light; and out of chaos make a world? Precisely as
there is light in himself, will he accomplish this.

Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting,
delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is great.

All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled,
I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thing he looks

at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart, and generic
secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns

the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poeticcreation, what is
this too but _seeing_ the thing sufficiently? The _word_ that will

describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of the
thing. And is not Shakspeare's _morality_, his valor, candor, tolerance,

truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can
triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world. No

_twisted_, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting all objects with its own
convexities and concavities; a perfectly _level_ mirror;--that is to say

withal, if we will understand it, a man justlyrelated" target="_blank" title="a.叙述的；有联系的">related to all things and
men, a good man. It is truly a lordlyspectacle how this great soul takes

in all kinds of men and objects, a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a
Coriolanus; sets them all forth to us in their round completeness; loving,

just, the equal brother of all. _Novum Organum_, and all the intellect you
will find in Bacon, is of a quite secondary order; earthy, material, poor

in comparison with this. Among modern men, one finds, in strictness,
almost nothing of the same rank. Goethe alone, since the days of

Shakspeare, reminds me of it. Of him too you say that he _saw_ the object;
you may say what he himself says of Shakspeare: "His characters are like

watches with dial-plates of transparentcrystal; they show you the hour
like others, and the inwardmechanism also is all visible."

The seeing eye! It is this that discloses the inner harmony of things;
what Nature meant, what musical idea Nature has wrapped up in these often

rough embodiments. Something she did mean. To the seeing eye that
something were discernible. Are they base, miserable things? You can

laugh over them, you can weep over them; you can in some way or other
genially relate yourself to them;--you can, at lowest, hold your peace

about them, turn away your own and others' face from them, till the hour
come for practically exterminating and extinguishing them! At bottom, it

is the Poet's first gift, as it is all men's, that he have intellect
enough. He will be a Poet if he have: a Poet in word; or failing that,

perhaps still better, a Poet in act. Whether he write at all; and if so,
whether in prose or in verse, will depend on accidents: who knows on what

extremely trivial accidents,--perhaps on his having had a singing-master,
on his being taught to sing in his boyhood! But the faculty which enables

him to discern the inner heart of things, and the harmony that dwells there
(for whatsoever exists has a harmony in the heart of it, or it would not

hold together and exist), is not the result of habits or accidents, but the
gift of Nature herself; the primaryoutfit for a Heroic Man in what sort

soever. To the Poet, as to every other, we say first of all, _See_. If
you cannot do that, it is of no use to keep stringing rhymes together,

jingling sensibilities against each other, and _name_ yourself a Poet;
there is no hope for you. If you can, there is, in prose or verse, in

action or speculation, all manner of hope. The crabbed old Schoolmaster
used to ask, when they brought him a new pupil, "But are ye sure he's _not

a dunce_?" Why, really one might ask the same thing, in regard to every
man proposed for whatsoeverfunction; and consider it as the one inquiry

needful: Are ye sure he's not a dunce? There is, in this world, no other
entirely fatal person.

For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct
measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty, I should say

superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under that. What
indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were distinct,

things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he
has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of

a man's "intellectual nature," and of his "moral nature," as if these again
were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of language do perhaps

prescribe such forms of utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way,
if we are to speak at all. But words ought not to harden into things for

us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for most part,
radically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever

in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but _names_; that man's
spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one

and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and
so forth, are but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all

indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically related" target="_blank" title="a.叙述的；有联系的">related; that if
we knew one of them, we might know all of them. Morality itself, what we

call the moral quality of a man, what is this but another _side_ of the one
vital Force whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiognomical

of him. You may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings;
his courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the

opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is _one_;
and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.

Without hands a man might have feet, and could still walk: but, consider
it,--without morality, intellect were impossible for him; a thoroughly

immoral _man_ could not know anything at all! To know a thing, what we can
call knowing, a man must first _love_ the thing, sympathize with it: that

is, be _virtuously_ related" target="_blank" title="a.叙述的；有联系的">related to it. If he have not the justice to put down
his own selfishness" target="_blank" title="n.自私；不顾别人">selfishness at every turn, the courage to stand by the

dangerous-true at every turn, how shall he know? His virtues, all of them,
will lie recorded in his knowledge. Nature, with her truth, remains to the

bad, to the selfish and the pusillanimous forever a sealed book: what such
can know of Nature is mean, superficial, small; for the uses of the day

merely.--But does not the very Fox know something of Nature? Exactly so:
it knows where the geese lodge! The human Reynard, very frequent

everywhere in the world, what more does he know but this and the like of
this? Nay, it should be considered too, that if the Fox had not a certain

vulpine _morality_, he could not even know where the geese were, or get at
the geese! If he spent his time in splenetic atrabiliar reflections on his

own misery, his ill usage by Nature, Fortune and other Foxes, and so forth;
and had not courage, promptitude, practicality, and other suitable vulpine

gifts and graces, he would catch no geese. We may say of the Fox too, that
his morality and insight are of the same dimensions; different faces of the

same internal unity of vulpine life!--These things are worth stating; for
the contrary of them acts with manifold very baleful perversion, in this

time: what limitations, modifications they require, your own candor will
supply.

If I say, therefore, that Shakspeare is the greatest of Intellects, I have
said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakspeare's intellect than

we have yet seen. It is what I call an conscious" target="_blank" title="a.无意识的；不觉察的">unconsciousintellect; there is
more virtue in it than he himself is aware of. Novalis beautifully remarks

of him, that those Dramas of his are Products of Nature too, deep as Nature
herself. I find a great truth in this saying. Shakspeare's Art is not

Artifice; the noblest worth of it is not there by plan or precontrivance.
It grows up from the deeps of Nature, through this noble sincere soul, who

is a voice of Nature. The latest generations of men will find new meanings
in Shakspeare, new elucidations of their own human being; "new harmonies

with the infinitestructure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas,
affinities with the higher powers and senses of man." This well deserves

meditating. It is Nature's highest reward to a true simple great soul,
that he get thus to be _a part of herself_. Such a man's works, whatsoever

he with utmostconsciousexertion and forethought shall accomplish, grow up
withalconscious" target="_blank" title="a.无意识的；不觉察的">unconsciously, from the unknown deeps in him;--as the oak-tree grows

from the Earth's bosom, as the mountains and waters shape themselves; with
a symmetry grounded on Nature's own laws, conformable to all Truth

whatsoever. How much in Shakspeare lies hid; his sorrows, his silent
struggles known to himself; much that was not known at all, not speakable

at all: like _roots_, like sap and forces working underground! Speech is
great; but Silence is greater.

Withal the joyful tranquillity of this man is notable. I will not blame
Dante for his misery: it is as battle without victory; but true

battle,--the first, indispensable thing. Yet I call Shakspeare greater
than Dante, in that he fought truly, and did conquer. Doubt it not, he had

his own sorrows: those _Sonnets_ of his will even testifyexpressly in
what deep waters he had waded, and swum struggling for his life;--as what

man like him ever failed to have to do? It seems to me a heedless notion,