If we would learn something of the effect of art on the soul, and understand the secrets of its power, we should go to a representation of one of Shakspeare's tragedies, and mark the attentive crowd silently contemplating the high scenes which the poet unrolls before them. Immersed in poverty and suffering as they may themselves be, we will see that at the words 'glory, honor, liberty, patriotism, love'; at the sight of the courageous struggle of the just against the unjust; at the fall of the wicked, the triumph of the innocent,--the furrowed and rugged faces glow with sympathy, all hearts proclaim the loveliness of virtue, or are unanimous in the condemnation of vice. Full of just indignation against the aggressor, of generous sympathy with the oppressed, shall the palpitating throng stay the quick throbbing of their hearts to inquire of the men of the senses if they may _admire_, or of the critics and schoolmen if they may _approve_? Their intuitions have already decided the question for them. Why do the masses always accord in their estimation of the just and unjust? why do they always agree about glory and shame, vice and virtue, courage and cowardice? why do they always find Beauty in the success of suffering virtue, the triumph of oppressed innocence, the rescue of the wronged and helpless? The answer throws its light over the whole world of art: Because God's justice, even when it condemns themselves, is one of the Divine attributes for whose enjoyment they were created; because it stands pledged that whatever may be the disorder visible upon earth, it will rule in awful majesty over the final ordering of all things. The soul, urged on by an unconscious yet imperative thirst for the Absolute, having in vain tried to find its realization in a world furrowed by vanities and scared by vices, takes its flight to the clime of the ideal, to find there the growth of eternal realities. The poet builds ideal worlds in which he strives to find the absolute, adorning them with all the beauties for which the human heart pines: heroism, patriotism, devotion, love, take form and find appropriate expression; for all is wisdom, power, liberty, and harmony in the artistic realms. Art is a celestial vision which God sends to his exiled children, to give them news of the invisible world for which they were created, to soothe their sorrows, to turn their thoughts and affections to their true centre. Art is the transient realization, the momentary possession of the desires of the soul!