The Man had told me the week before that what he would tell me to-day was of much importance--that I need not write it down at once for I could not forget. Naturally I was somewhat expectant. “You have read Shakespeare some of course,” he began. “Yes, I know, at school, and then you have seen his plays. This has given you a glimpse of his mind; but one could study years, certainly much longer than it took him to write them, and then not get the full import of Shakespeare’s words. Still, the difference between your mind and that of Shakespeare is not so great as one might at first imagine. You yourself think great thoughts--they come to you at times in great waves, almost threatening to engulf you; high and holy aspirations; sublime impulses, that you dare not attempt to put in words for mortal ear, for you doubt your own strength, and also fear you will be misunderstood. So your best thought is never expressed, for there is no receptacle where you can pour it out--you feel that you go through life alone, so the thought goes through your brain in the twinkling of a second and is gone forever. “All persons think great thoughts--few have the power to seize the electric spark and clothe it in words. Now just to that extent that you understand Shakespeare, are you his equal. If you see a beautiful thought recorded and detect its beauty, it was already yours or you would not have recognized it. It was yours before, but you never claimed your heritage. That same thought had gone floating through your brain, either in this life or a former one, but you failed to hold it fast; but when it comes back from the lips of the preacher, or is whispered to you from out pages of a great writer you say, ‘Ah yes, how true! I have thought the same thing myself.’ “Now Shakespeare had the faculty (and a more or less mechanical one it is) of seizing with a grasp as strong as iron and as soft as silken cord, every sublime thought that passed through his mind. Your troop of fancies run wild over the prairies of imagination, mine and Shakespeare’s are harnessed and bridled. We guide or lead them where we will; we master them, not they us. The beautiful thought you rode on like a whirlwind yesterday, where is it now? You strive to recall it--but no, all is dark, misty, and obscure. It has gone! “Now under right conditions you can call up these glowing, prancing thoughts at will, orderly, one at a time, clean and complete as race horses where each is led before you by a competent groom; not in a wild rush of frenzy that leaves you afterward depleted and depressed, but gently, surely, firmly--_but the conditions must be right_. Now what are these conditions, you ask. Well, if I describe to you the conditions that surrounded Shakespeare from the year 1585 when he went to London, to 1615 when he returned to Stratford, you will then know what are the right conditions for mental growth.