Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son! For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproven. In like manner in the works of art which embrace a wider range, and hold up the mirror to human nature, as in Shakespeare’s plays, and the novels of Walter Scott and other great authors, the interest arises mainly from the polarity of the various characters. We care little for the goody-good heroes or vulgar villains, but we recognise a touch of that nature which makes all the world akin in a Macbeth drawn by metaphysical suggestion to wade through a sea of blood; in Othello’s noble nature caught like a lion in the toils by the net of circumstances woven by a wily hunter; in Falstaff, a rogue, a liar, and a glutton, yet made almost likeable by his ready wit, imperturbable good-humour, and fertile resources. Shakespeare is, in fact, the greatest of artists, because he is the most multipolar. He has poles of sympathy in him which, as the poles of carbon attract so many elements and form so many combinations, enable him to take into his own nature, assimilate, and reproduce every varied shade of character from a Miranda to a Caliban, from an Imogen to a Lady Macbeth, from a Falstaff to an Othello. Sir Walter Scott and all our great novelists have the same faculty, though in a less degree, and are great in exact proportion as they have many poles in their nature, and as those are poles of powerful polarity. The characters and incidents which affect us strongly and dwell in the memory are those in which the clash and conflict of opposites are most vividly represented. We feel infinite pity for a Maggie Tulliver dashing her young life, like a prisoned wild bird, against the bars of trivial and prosaic environment which hem her in; or for a Colonel Newcome opposing the patience of a gentle nature to the buffets of such a fate as meets us in the everyday world of modern life, the failure of his bank and the naggings of the Old Campaigner. On a higher level of art we sympathise with a Lancelot and a Guinevere because they are types of what we may meet in many a London drawing-room, noble natures drawn by some fatal fairy fascination into ignoble acts, but still retaining something of their original nobility, and while Their honour rooted in dishonour stands, appearing to ordinary mortals little less than ‘archangels ruined.’ Or even if we descend to the lowest level of the penny dreadful or suburban drama, we find that the polarity between vice and virtue, however coarsely delineated, is that which mostly fascinates the uncultured mind.