THE MIND OF SHAKESPERE
to the purchase of New Place and the return to Stratford, he was a man of action fully occupied with affairs. Professor Wallace's recent contributions to our knowledge of his life in London, set him still more clearly in this light. But his writing might teach us as much without the help of the biographers. Great energy, strong interest, whether a man be very happy or very angry, results in vividness of imagination and felicity of speech. Shakspere's writing further reminds us that it is too much to expect even him to live invariably in a tense, reacting frame of mind, wherein life is observed and created with infallible energy. Many a dull and self-conscious passage—if we may be forgiven for observing them!—is witness to his relaxed moments. Yet it would not be difficult to argue that his best work was done in his busiest years. That he mingled with
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