and stare at it, and cannot see round it. They will not believe
that art is a light and slight thing--a feather, even if it be from an
angelic wing. Only the slime is at the bottom of a pool; the sky is on
the surface. We see this in that very typical process, the Germanising
of Shakespeare. I do not complain of the Germans forgetting that
Shakespeare was an Englishman. I complain of their forgetting that
Shakespeare was a man; that he had moods, that he made mistakes, and,
above all, that he knew his art was an art and not an attribute of
deity. That is what is the matter with the Germans; they cannot "ring
fancy's knell"; their knells have no gaiety. The phrase of Hamlet about
"holding the mirror up to nature" is always quoted by such earnest
critics as meaning that art is nothing if not realistic. But it really
means (or at least its author really thought) that art is nothing if not
artificial. Realists, like other barbarians, really _believe_ the
mirror; and therefore break the mirror. Also they leave out the phrase
"as 'twere," which must be read into every remark of Shakespeare, and
especially every remark of Hamlet. What I mean by believing the mirror,
and breaking it, can be recorded in one case I remember; in which a
realistic critic quoted German authorities to prove that Hamlet had a
particular psycho-pathological abnormality, which is admittedly nowhere
mentioned in the play. The critic was bewitched; he was thinking of
Hamlet as a real man, with a background behind him three dimensions
deep--which does not exist in a looking-glass. "The best in this kind
are but shadows." No German commentator has ever made an adequate note
on that. Nevertheless, Shakespeare was an Englishman; he was nowhere
more English than in his blunders; but he was nowhere more successful
than in the description of very English types of character. And if
anything is to be said about Hamlet, beyond what Shakespeare has said
about him, I should say that Hamlet was an Englishman too. He was as
much an Englishman as he was a gentleman, and he had the very grave
weaknesses of both characters. The chief English fault, especially in
the nineteenth century, has been lack of decision, not only lack of
decision in action, but lack of the equally essential decision in
thought--which some call dogma. And in the politics of the last century,
this English Hamlet, as we shall see, played a great part, or rather
refused to play it.

There were, then,