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possible doubt about it. Would that it had been twice as long! On arrival at our quarters I found my horses very well. They are looking perfectly beautiful just now, their coats shining, smooth and glossy like silk. My big one really blazes on a sunny day, and my cob is not far behind him. I shall have a very busy time in the next ten days, arranging for a supply of about 30 tons a week of green fodder to be purchased in weekly instalments in the neighbouring countryside. All the troops are going to bivouac in the fields shortly, as they always do this time of the year, remaining under canvas until September, or even October if the weather permits. _May 18th, 1916._ Thanks so much for the "Shakespeare"; it was exactly what I wanted. I am making a careful study of the Bard's works again, and with an enthusiasm that has not one whit abated; rather it has augmented. I only wish it had been possible to see some of his plays whilst on leave. What a superman Shakespeare was! The interest of his plays is absolutely perennial. Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of his work is the astonishing consistency of the characters in his _dramatis personae_. His characters invariably behave exactly as people of that type would and do behave in real life. Thus we have the illusion that the characters conceived by his mighty imagination are themselves real. He has hit with marvellous accuracy on the points in human nature that are common to almost all ages, and, _mutatis mutandis_, his plays could be staged in the nineteenth or twentieth century without losing any of their power. Men of the type of Hamlet are doubtless rare, yet we all know the sort of genius who is so much a genius that he is incapable of action and does nothing but reflect. Hamlet seems meant to show how vain it is to be merely a philosopher in this world. Hamlet is always pondering, thinking of the abstract rights and wrongs of the case. In the result, though he does eventually avenge his father's murder, his introspection and vacillation have led to the death of himself and no fewer than three other innocent persons--Ophelia, Polonius and Laertes. Yet Hamlet was at least twice as brainy as the rest of them, and he was also
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