Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/122

 Now are we to believe that Shakspere here anticipates and pokes fun at the speculations of political economy, or that having this group of men upon a desert island he perceives the possibilities of the speculation, and puts into Gonzalo's mouth a translation of words used with another reference by Montaigne?

So with those curious coincidences which are strewn through the dramas. The poet has a trick—say some critics—of putting into the first words of the leading persons a clue to their characters. When Romeo says, "Is the day then so young," we are to see in him the embodiment of youth. It is easy enough to find marvels of this sort in Shakspere—perhaps in every poet. The themes of this same play of Romeo and Juliet may be said to be the conflict of Youth with Age—Age having forgotten what young love is like; and also the conflict of