God." Her thought and vision wrought out
for her a bodily expression that made her seem celestial to the
beholder, and held him in doubt whether she were goddess or mortal.

In esoteric thought the perfected being must be an equal blending of the
masculine and feminine, which Balzac has so gloriously interpreted in
his "Seraphita." This quality we see in Prospero, the gentle, refined
element of motherhood, blended with sublime dignity and strength. His
child was to him "a cherubim infusing him with fortitude from heaven,"
and he gave to her the richest dower of inheritance--knowledge, with
purity of heart and purpose. With the gentle patience of love he
instructed her in the laws of nature and her being, with divine purity
of thought. For all nature is pure as God himself. Thus Miranda became
the peerless young Eve of blended wisdom and innocence.

After a display of his power, he states, in his address to Ferdinand,
the most abstruse problems of the ideal philosophy.

These ... were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

This sublime inspiration was almost the last outburst of the mighty
genius of Shakspere, and is a fitting crown of glory.

Prospero was fully conscious of his superiority, and with simple but
grandest dignity he claims that practically it was his own power that
worked all the wonders. Most sublimely he expresses this when he calls
before him his invisible helpers:

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; ... by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth