Universality.--Shakespeare's sympathy might have been broad enough to include all the people of his own time and their peculiar interests, but might have lacked the power to project itself into the universal heart of humanity. Sometimes a writer voices the ideals and aspirations of his own day so effectively that he is called the spokesman of his age, but he makes slight appeal to future generations. Shakespeare was the spokesman of his own time, but he had the genius also to speak to all ages. He loved to present the eternal truths of the human heart and to invest them with such a touch of nature as to reveal the kinship of the entire world. His contemporary, the dramatist, Ben Jonson, had the penetration to say of Shakespeare:-- "He was not of an age but for all time." He meant that Shakespeare does not exhibit some popular conceit, folly, or phase of thought, which is merely the fashion of the hour and for which succeeding generations would care nothing; but that he voices those truths which appeal to the people of all ages. The grief of Lear over the dead Cordelia, the ambition of Lady Macbeth, the loves of Rosalind and Juliet, the questionings of Hamlet, interest us as much today as they did the Elizabethans. Fashions in literature may come and go, but Shakespeare's work remains. [Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH. _From the painting by Sargent_.] Humor.--Shakespeare had the most comprehensive sense of humor of any of the world's great writers,--a humor that was closely related to his sympathy. It has been said that he saved his tragedies from the fatal disease of absurdity, by inoculating them with his comic virus, and that his sense of humor kept him from ever becoming shrill. This faculty enabled him to detect incongruity, to keep from overstressing a situation, to enter into the personality of others, to recover quickly from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and in one of his last plays, _The Tempest_, to welcome the "brave young world" as if he would like to play the game of life again. It was largely because of his humor that the tragedies and pain of life did not sour and subdue Shakespeare. He soon wearies of a vacant laugh. He has only one strictly farcical play, _The Comedy of Errors_. There are few intellects keen enough to extract all the humor from Shakespeare. For literal minds the full comprehension of even a slight display of his humor, such as the following dialogue affords, is better exercise than the solution of an algebraic problem. Dogberry, a constable in _Much Ado About Nothing_, thus instructs the Watch:-- "_Dogberry_. You shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand in the prince's name. "_Watch_. How if a' will not stand? "_Dogberry_. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave."