Believe things certain.

One brilliant morning, the sky cloudless and the sea singing under a
freshening wind, we sat under a great tree, with a bit of soft sward
before us, and talked of Prospero. In that place the master presence
was always with us; there was never an hour in which we did not feel
the spell of his creative spirit. We were always secretly hoping that
we should come upon him in some secluded place, his staff unbroken, and
his book undrowned. But what need had we of sight while the island
encompassed us and the multitudinous music filled the air?

On that fair morning the magical beauty of the world possessed us, and
our talk, blending unconsciously with the music of the invisible choir,
was broken by long pauses. The Poet was saying that the world thought
of Prospero as a magician, a wonder-worker, whose thought borrowed the
fleetness of Ariel, whose staff unleashed the tempest and sent it back
to its hiding-place when its work was done, and in whose book were
written all manner of charms and incantations. This was the Prospero
whom Caliban knew, and this is the Prospero whom the world remembers.
"For myself," said he, "I often try to forget the miracles, so stained
and defiled seem the great artists by this homage which is only another
form of materialism. The search for signs and wonders is always
vulgar; it defiles every great spirit who compromises with it, because
it puts the miracle in place of the truth. That which gives a wonder
its only dignity and significance is the spiritual power which it
evidences and the spiritual knowledge which it conveys. To the
greatest of teachers this hunger for miracles was a bitter experience;
he who came with the mystery of the heavenly love in his soul must have
felt defiled by the homage rendered as to a necromancer, a doer of
strange things. The curiosity which draws men to the masters of the
arts has no real honour in it; the only recognition which is real and
lasting is that which springs from the perception of truth and beauty
disclosed anew in some noble form. Prospero was a magician, but he was
much more and much greater than a wonder-worker; not Caliban, but
Ferdinand and Miranda and Gonzalo, are the true judges of his power.
Prospero was the master spirit of the world which moved about him. He
alone knew its secret and used its forces; on him alone rested the
government of this marvellous realm. His command had stirred the seas
and sent