ARIEL

                        I

On that evening the venerable old master whom we used to call Prospero, after the wise sage of Shakespeare's Tempest," was bidding good-bye to his young scholars, met about him for the last time after a long year of task work.

They had come to the lofty hall of study, where a taste at once refined and austere sought to do honour to the noble presence of books, Prospero's faithful companions. But the leading note of the hall —like a divinity, serene in its nimbus— was a finely wrought bronze, representing Ariel in "The Tempest.". It was the manner of the Master to sit close by this bronze statue; and that was why he was called by the name of the magician who in the play is loved and served by the spirit of fancy that the sculptor had sought to embody. But perhaps, as well in the manner of his teaching, or in his character, there were a reason for the nickname, in profounder sense.

Ariel, genius of the Air, represents, in the symbolism of Shakespeare, the noble part — the spirit with wings... For Ariel embodies the mastery of reason and of sentiment over the baser impulses of unreason. He is the generous zeal, the lofty and disinterested motive in action, the spirituality of civilization, and the vivacity and grace of the intelligence; — the ideal end to which human selection aspires; that superman in whom has disappeared, under the persistent chisel of life, the last stubborn trace of the Caliban, symbol of sensuality and stupidity.

The little statue, a real work of art, reproduced the Spirit of the Air at the moment where, freed by the magic of Prospero, he is about to soar into the sky, there to vanish in a lightning flash. With spread-out wings, in a loose and floating garment which the caress of the light upon the bronze damascened into gold, his broad forehead lifted up, his lips just opening with a tranquil smile, all of Ariel's attitude most admirably showed that gracious moment just preceding flight; and, with happy inspiration, the same art which had given the image its sculptured limbs had succeeded in preserving in his face that look of the seraph and the lightness of the ideal.

Prospero passed his hand, thoughtfully, over the head of the little statue; then, gathering a group of young men about him, with a firm voice — the voice of the Master, which, to pass its ideas and grave them deeply in the minds of the disciples, can employ either the clear penetration of a ray of light or the sharp blow of a chisel on the marble, the stroke of the painter's brush on canvas or the touch of the wave upon the sands to be read in fossils by future generations of men — the Master, as his scholars waited with affectionate attention, began to speak...