Thus fanned, the weak flame of his life wasted quickly and
guttered out. It is all comprehensible enough, and more than likely,
that the greatest man in the world, after the boredom of solitary years
spent in Stratford, died through a merry meeting with his friends; in
his joy and excitement he drank a glass or so of wine, which brought on
a fever. It is all true, true to character, and pitiful beyond words.
Shakespeare to me is the perfect type of the artist, and the artist is
gradually coming to his proper place in the world's esteem. In the
introduction to one of his "Lives," Plutarch apologizes for writing
about a painter, a mere artist, instead of about some statesman or
general, who would be a worthy object of ambition for a well-born youth.
But since Plutarch's time our view of the relative merits of men has
changed and developed: to-day we put the artist higher even than the
saint. Indeed, it seems to us that the hero or statesman, or saint, only
ranks in proportion to the artist-faculty he may possess.
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