lacked vision for the Meanings. I found him then less than
Shakespeare: whose clear knowledge of human personalities--
ability to draw living men--was but incidental and an instrument;
who but took the tragedy of life by the way, as he went to set
forth the whole story of the soul; never losing sight of Karma,
and that man is his own adverse destiny; finishing all with the
triumph of the soul, the Magician, in _The Tempest._ And I count
him less than that Blind Titan in Bardism, who, setting out to
justify the ways of God to men, did verily justify the ways of
fate to the Soul; and showed the old, old truth, so dear to the
Celtic bards, that in the very depths of hell the Soul has not
yet lost all her original brightness; but is mightily superior
to hell, death, fate, sorrow and the whole pack of them;--I count
him less than the "Evening Dragon" of _Samson Agonistes,_ whose
last word to us is

"Nothing is here for tears; nothing to wail
Or knock the breast; no weakness or contempt."

And I found him less that One with the grand tragic visage, whose
words so often quiver with unshed tears, who went forth upon his
journey

.... _pei dolci pomi
Promessi a me per lo verace Duca;
Ma fino al centro pria convien ch'io tomi:_--

"to obtain those sweet apples (of Paradise) promised me by my
true Leader; but first is"--convien--how shall you translate the
pride and resignation of that word?--"it behoves," we must say,