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CHAPTER III.
Seeing the company so favorably disposed, Wilhelm now hoped he might
further have it in his power to converse with them on the poetic merit of the
plays which might come before them. “It is not enough,” said he next day, when
they were all again assembled, “for the actor merely to glance over a dramatic
work, to judge of it by his first impression, and thus, without investigation, to
declare his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it. Such things may be allowed in a
spectator, whose purpose it is rather to be entertained and moved than formally
to criticise. But the actor, on the other hand, should be prepared to give a reason
for his praise or censure; and how shall he do this, if he have not taught himself
to penetrate the sense, the views, and feelings of his author? A common error is,
to form a judgment of a drama from a single part in it, and to look upon this part
itself in an isolated point of view, not in its connection with the whole. I have
noticed this within a few days, so clearly in my own conduct, that I will give you
the account as an example, if you please to hear me patiently.
“You all know Shakspeare’s incomparable ‘Hamlet:’ our public reading of it
at the castle yielded every one of us the greatest satisfaction. On that occasion
we proposed to act the play; and I, not knowing what I undertook, engaged to
play the prince’s part. This I conceived that I was studying, while I began to get
by heart the strongest passages, the soliloquies, and those scenes in which force
of soul, vehemence and elevation of feeling, have the freest scope; where the
agitated heart is allowed to display itself with touching expressiveness.
“I further conceived that I was penetrating quite into the spirit of the character,
while I endeavored, as it were, to take upon myself the load of deep melancholy
under which my prototype was laboring, and in this humor to pursue him
through the strange labyrinths of his caprices and his singularities. Thus
learning, thus practising, I doubted not but I should by and by become one
person with my hero.
“But, the farther I advanced, the more difficult did it become for me to form
any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last it seemed as if
impossible. I next went through the entire piece, without interruption; but here,
too, I found much that I could not away with. At one time the characters, at
another time the manner of displaying them, seemed inconsistent; and I almost
despaired of finding any general tint, in which I might present my whole part
with all its shadings and variations. In such devious paths I toiled, and wandered
long in vain; till at length a hope arose that I might reach my aim in quite a new
way.
“I set about investigating every trace of Hamlet’s character, as it had shown
itself before his father’s death: I endeavored to distinguish what in it was
independent of this mournful event, independent of the terrible events that
followed; and what most probably the young man would have been, had no such
thing occurred.
“Soft, and from a noble stem, this royal flower had sprung up under the
immediate influences of majesty: the idea of moral rectitude with that of princely
elevation, the feeling of the good and dignified with the consciousness of high
birth, had in him been unfolded simultaneously. He was a prince, by birth a
prince; and he wished to reign, only that good men might be good without
obstruction. Pleasing in form, polished by nature, courteous from the heart, he
was meant to be the pattern of youth and the joy of the world.
“Without any prominent passion, his love for Ophelia was a still presentiment
of sweet wants. His zeal in knightly accomplishments was not entirely his own:
it needed to be quickened and inflamed by praise bestowed on others for
excelling in them. Pure in sentiment, he knew the honorable-minded, and could
prize the rest which an upright spirit tastes on the bosom of a friend. To a certain
degree, he had learned to discern and value the good and the beautiful in arts and
sciences; the mean, the vulgar, was offensive to him; and, if hatred could take
root in his tender soul, it was only so far as to make him properly despise the
false and changeful insects of a court, and play with them in easy scorn. He was
calm in his temper, artless in his conduct, neither pleased with idleness, nor too
violently eager for employment. The routine of a university he seemed to
continue when at court. He possessed more mirth of humor than of heart: he was
a good companion, pliant, courteous, discreet, and able to forget and forgive an
injury, yet never able to unite himself with those who overstepped the limits of
the right, the good, and the becoming.
“When we read the piece again, you shall judge whether I am yet on the
proper track. I hope at least to bring forward passages that shall support my
opinion in its main points.”
This delineation was received with warm approval; the company imagined
they foresaw that Hamlet’s manner of proceeding might now be very
satisfactorily explained; they applauded this method of penetrating into the spirit
of a writer. Each of them proposed to himself to take up some piece, and study it
on these principles, and so unfold the author’s meaning.
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