," I find that in the English historical plays the
manly characters, Hotspur, Harry V., the great Bastard, and Richard
III., are all taken from tradition or from old plays, and Shakespeare
did nothing more than copy the traits which were given to him; on the
other hand, the weak, irresolute, gentle, melancholy characters are his
own, and he shows extraordinary resource in revealing the secret
workings of their souls. Even in early manhood, and when handling
histories and men of action, Shakespeare cannot conceal his want of
sympathy for the practical leaders of men; he neither understands them
deeply nor loves them; but in portraying the girlish Arthur and the
Hamlet-like Richard II., and in drawing forth the pathos of their
weakness, he is already without a rival or second in all literature.
I am anxious not to deform the truth by exaggeration; a caricature of
Shakespeare would offend me as a sacrilege, even though the caricature
were characteristic, and when I find him even in youth one-sided, a poet
and dreamer, I am minded to tell less than the truth rather than more.
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