Shakspeare is the great example of this marvellous power.  Not only is every word which falls from the lips of his various characters true to his first conception of them, so true that we always know how they will act under any given circumstances, and we could substitute no other words than the words used by them without contradicting our first impression of them; but every character with which they come in contact is not only ever true to itself, but is precisely of the nature best fitted to develop the traits, vices, or virtues of the main figure.  So perfect and complete is this lifelike unity, that we can scarcely think of one of his leading characters without recalling all those with whom it is associated.  If we name Juliet, for instance, not only is her idea inseparable from that of Romeo, but the whole train of Montagues and Capulets, Mercutio, Tybalt, the garrulous nurse, the lean apothecary, the lonely friar, sweep by.  What an exquisite trait of the poetic temperament, tenderness, and human sympathies of this same lonely friar is given us in his exclamation: 

  ’Here comes the lady:  O, so light a foot
  Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.’

It also explains to us that it was the good friar’s unconscious affection for Juliet, the pure sympathies of a lonely but loving heart, which so imprudently induced him to unite the unfortunate young lovers.  The men and women of Shakspeare live and love, and we cannot think of them without at the same time thinking of those with whom they lived and whom they loved.  Indeed, when we can wrest any character in a drama from those which surround it, and study it apart, the unity of the whole is but apparent, never vital.  Simplicity, harmony, life, power, truth, and love, are all to be found in any high work of the associative imagination.

We now proceed to characterize the penetrative imagination, ’which analyzes and realizes truths discoverable by no other faculty.’  Of this faculty Shakspeare is also master.  Ruskin, from whom we continue to quote, says:  It never stops at crusts or ashes, or outward images of any kind, but ploughing them all aside, plunges at once into the very central fiery heart; its function and gift are the getting at the root; its nature and dignity depend on its holding things always by the heart.  Take its hand from off the beating of that, and it will prophesy no longer; it looks not into the eyes, it judges not by the voice, it describes not by outward features; all that it affirms, judges, or describes, it affirms from within.  There is no reasoning in it; it works not by algebra nor by integral calculus; it is a piercing Pholas-like mind’s tongue that works and tastes into the very rock-heart; no matter what be the subject submitted to it, substance or spirit, all is alike divided asunder, joint and marrow; whatever utmost truth, life, principle it has laid bare, and that which has no truth, life, nor principle, is dissipated into its original smoke at a touch.  The whispers at men’s ears it lifts into visible angels.  Vials that have lain sealed in the sea a thousand years it unseals, and brings out of them genii.