232 On the Campus 



author. As concerns this last quotation, such is con- 

 fessedly the case ; but the intelligent reader, I think, will 

 find no possible basis for such judgment in our in- 

 terpretation of the other passages we have studied. The 

 poet's words are generally unequivocal. Of course, the 

 language is poetical, metaphoric, but the metaphor has 

 reference to something else; the description is not the 

 metaphor. But, in fact, should we expect in Shake- 

 speare very exact or complete description even ? Yet, as 

 it now appears, the description is often marvelously ex- 

 act; always definite and clear, as far as it goes. Really, 

 the artist has not room for much ; his canvas is too small. 

 He is thus limited to suggestion. His art, indeed, lies 

 precisely there. The deep impressions a man of genius 

 makes upon our minds lie often, if not always, in what 

 he does not say. A word or two and the vision rises, 

 whether in nature or in life, a passion or a landscape. 

 Take the broken phrases of Ophelia depicting her broken 

 heart, her "no more but so"; or the picture of the win- 

 ter woods in Sonnet LXXIII : 



' ' That time of year thou may 'st in me behold 



When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

 Bare ruin 'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. ' 



Does any one pretend that we are reading into the lines 

 when we appreciate the marvelous sorrow of the one pic- 

 ture or the exquisite truthfulness and splendor of the 

 other? 



Shakespeare's natural eye was clear indeed, but none 

 the less he seems to have seen everything with the eye 



