I have also said that Mr. Watson knows his own strength and his limitations. Let me conclude by quoting a passage from his _Apologia_, the very style of which will be in itself the justification of the man whom it argues to justify:-- ... Because I have full oft In singers' selves found me a theme of song, Holding these also to be very part Of Nature's greatness.... * * * * * And though I be to these but as a knoll About the feet of the high mountains, scarce Remarked at all, save when a valley cloud Holds the high mountains hidden, and the knoll Against the clouds shows briefly eminent; Yet, ev'n as they, I, too, with constant heart, And with no light or careless ministry, Have served what seemed the voice; and unprofane Have dedicated to melodious ends All of myself that least ignoble was. For though of faulty and of erring walk, I have not suffered aught in me of frail To blur my song; I have not paid the world The evil and the insolent courtesy Of offering it my baseness for a gift. And unto such as think all Art is cold, All music unimpassioned, if it breathe An ardour not of Eros' lips, and glow With fire not caught from Aphrodite's breast, Be it enough to say, that in Man's life Is room for great emotions unbegot Of dalliance and embracement, unbegot Even of the purer nuptials of the soul; And one not pale of blood, to human touch Not tardily responsive, yet may know A deeper transport and a mightier thrill Than comes of commerce with mortality, When, rapt from all relation with his kind, All temporal and immediate circumstance, In silence, in the visionary mood That, flashing light on the dark deep, perceives Order beyond this coil and errancy; Isled from the fretful hour he stands alone, And hears the eternal movement, and beholds Above him and around and at his feet, In million-billowed consentaneousness, The flowing, flowing, flowing of the world. The Making of a Shakespeare