In that place the master presence was always with us; there was never an hour in which we did not feel the spell of his creative spirit.

We were always secretly hoping that we should come upon him in some secluded place, his staff unbroken, and his book undrowned.

But what need had we of sight while the island encompassed us and the multitudinous music filled the air?
On that fair morning the magical beauty of the world possessed us, and our talk, blending unconsciously with the music of the invisible choir, was broken by long pauses.

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.