138 Shakspeare 



Evidently, then, Shakspeare was not only 

 esteemed highly for his genius and civil behaviour 

 by men of rank, but well thought of for his gentle 

 demeanour and his upright dealings in business. 

 Certainly he was a good husband of his affairs 

 and looked warily after his own ; no tradesman 

 in Blackfriars probably surpassed him in the 

 watchful care which he bestowed on them, in the 

 rigorous exaction of punctual payment of debts 

 due to him, in the diligent industry with which 

 he steadily added to his growing gains. A con- 

 clusive proof once for all that the highest genius, 

 the flower of human evolution at its best, may go 

 along with — might one not truly say must go 

 along with ? — the capacity of patient attention to 

 the dull routine of common labours and perfect 

 sanity of mind ; a lesson to inferior genius disdain- 

 ing irksome self-discipline that it has no right, 

 just because of its single strain of merit, to wail 

 and rail in puling whine against fate and to call 

 on gods and men to help it ; a warning perhaps 

 to genius of every sort, if it would lay its basis 

 sure, that the fullest and most wholesome mental 

 development can be achieved only by actual work 

 and discipline among men and things in manifold 

 relations and reactions of adaptation to a whole 

 environment, nowise by the forced cultivation of 

 a special strain in the sheltered seclusion of the 

 closet. Excellent as originality and individuality 

 are in their place and proportion to initiate and 

 sustain new thought, provided they be duly 



