in books of this class is largely due to the unconscious element which
plays so great a part in them: the element of universal experience, in
which every man shares in the exact degree in which, in mind and
heart, he approaches greatness. It is idle to attempt to separate
arbitrarily in Shakespeare, for instance, those elements in the poet's
work which were deliberately introduced from those which went into it
by the unconscious action of his whole nature; but no one can study
the plays intelligently without becoming more and more clearly aware
of those depths of life which moved in the poet before they moved in
his work; which enlarged, enriched, and silently reorganised his view
of life and his power of translating life out of individual into
universal terms. It would be impossible, for instance, to write such a
play as "The Tempest" by sheer force of intellect; in the creation of
such a work there is involved, beyond literary skill, calculation, and
deep study of the relation of thought to form, a ripeness of spirit, a
clearness of insight, a richness of imagination, which are so much
part of the very soul of the poet that he does not separate them in
thought, and cannot consciously balance, adjust, and employ them. They
are quite beyond his immediate control, as they are beyond all
attempts to imitate them.

Cleverness may learn all the forms and methods, but it is powerless to
imitate greatness; it can simulate the conscious, dexterous side of
greatness, but it cannot simulate the unconscious, vital side. The
moment a man like Voltaire attempts to deal with such a character as
Joan of Arc, his spiritual and artistic limitations become painfully
apparent; of cleverness there is no lack, but of reverence, insight,
depth of feeling, the affinity of the great imagination for the great
nature or deed, there is no sign. The man is entirely and hopelessly
incapacitated for the work by virtue of certain limitations in his own