Ruskin
finds Shakspere to have returned. Man is no longer "a pipe for fortune's
fingers to sound what stop she please." The evil elements still exist in
the world, and are numerous and formidable; but man, by nobleness of
life and word, by patience and self-mastery, can master them, bring them
into subjection, and make them tend to eventual good. Caliban, the
gross, sensual, earthly element--though somewhat raised--would run riot,
and is therefore compelled to menial service. The brute force of
Stephano and Trinculo is vanquished by mental superiority. Even the
supermundane spirits, now no longer thirsting for the destruction of
body and soul, are bound down to the work of carrying out the decrees of
truth and justice. Man is no longer the plaything, but the master of his
fate; and he, seeing now the possible triumph of good over evil, and his
duty to do his best in aid of this triumph, has no more fear of the
dreams--the something after death. Our little life is still rounded by a
sleep, but the thought which terrifies Hamlet has no power to affright
Prospero. The hereafter is still a mystery, it is true; he has tried to
see into it, and has found it impenetrable. But revelation has come like
an angel, with peace upon its wings, in another and an unexpected way.
Duty lies here, in and around him in this world. Here he can right
wrong, succour the weak, abase the proud, do something to make the world
better than he found it; and in the performance of this he finds a
holier calm than the vain strivings after the unknowable could ever
afford.
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