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.
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