to him and come nobly and
spontaneously--and so spontaneous is his touch--so completely is he
absorbed in, and one with his characters--that it makes our rush of
sympathy as spontaneous as his own.

We feel the Identification of Shakespeare with Othello--with
Iago--with Desdemona He _is_ them _all_. _He_, William Shakespeare, is
"the will-less--time-less--subject of knowledge," living in "pure
knowing" and absorbed in the creations that represent his varied and
his intuitive knowledge of the great Idea of Life. And he excites and
suggests in us the same absorption in his creations--that is, if we
have the capacity to feel it.

It is a land of marvel and of mystery when all personal interests and
all consciousness of individual temperaments are lost, fall off from
us, and nothing remains, nothing exists to us but the love, the
betrayal, the agony, and the struggles of the noble nature, that "dies
upon a kiss." We are so much part of it, we become so possessed by it,
that we do not even know or feel that we are knowing or feeling.
Shakespeare _is_ Othello--and so are we, for the time being.
Shakespeare had the insight and power of genius, and so could retain
and reproduce his vision into the inner life. We alas! often cannot;
when the play is over we become again, a link in the chain that binds
us to the ordinary world of consciousness; the veil of illusion has
fallen again between us and real vision, we are again among the
shadows, with some general impressions more or less blurred, but the
vivid vision of the Poet which made us feel in the manifestations he
created, the very Idea of Life itself--has faded from us, we are no
longer in the Ideal world which is the real world.

We will take one other example, not of a play, but of a picture. The
Ascending Christ for instance at the Pitti Palace, Florence, by Fra
Bartolomeo.

It is well enough known, with the rapt faces of the four evangelists,
two on either side, gazing at their Master, with more of love for Him
than of understanding even then, in their expression. And the two
lovely little angels beneath, oblivious of everything but the
medallion they are holding, as is the way with old Masters. It is the
Christ alone that rivets our attention. The majestic, noble form, and
the sad, grave, beautiful eyes, revealing the Victor over Life and
Death, as He leaves the earth, triumphant indeed, but with the
solitariness of triumph of the Divine Man, Who knows now the awfu