Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase--has ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine perfume. In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold--passions became virtues--weeds became exotics from some diviner land--and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian Gods. In his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite--that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and mathematical--dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems. Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner. XII. SHAKESPEARE was the greatest of philosophers. He knew the conditions of success--of happiness--the relations that men sustain to each other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and currents of the heart--the cliffs and caverns of the brain. He knew the weakness of the will, the sophistry of desire--and "That pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than Adders to the voice of any true decision." He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world--that flesh is but a mask, and that "There is no art to find the mind's construction In the face." He knew that courage should be the servant of judgment, and that "When valor preys on reason it eats the sword It fights with." He knew that man is never master of the event, that he is to some extent the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that "In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men." Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen is as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says: "Let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way." Shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. Looking in pity upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and cruelties, the limping travelers on the thorny paths, he was great and good enough to say: "There is no darkness but ignorance." In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This great truth fills the heart with pity. He knew that place and power do not give happiness--that the crowned are subject as the lowest to fate and chance.