1 30 Shakspeare 



in small or in great matters, and more perhaps 

 in small than in great things — for all the world 

 as if they were held back secretly by some in- 

 visible power ; in the end postponing, positively 

 shirking, action until forced to it by necessity, or 

 impelled by an explosive mood emanating from 

 the subconsciously gathering forces of fermenting 

 thoughts and feelings. It requires usually an ex- 

 traordinary stimulus, the excitement of strong 

 feeling, or even an artificial stimulant, to elicit 

 the latent energies of their nervous systems, in 

 which case they show themselves capable of 

 vigorous and effective action. If Shakspeare per- 

 chance had that sort of temperament — Hamlet is 

 proof, anyhow, how well he understood it — it 

 might account for the modest tenour of his life 

 and his carelessness or aversion to push himsell 

 socially in London.* 



Everywhere in his poems we perceive the same- 

 lesson of organic unity with nature. Because lit 

 realized intimately that he was a living part of 

 nature, could have no individuality separate from 

 it, and dimly felt the vast unintelligible mysteries 

 of things, he brings nature and human nature into 

 mysterious, transcendent, almost awful sympathies : 

 raging tempest, thunder-crashes, lightning-flashes 

 to attend Lear's mad ravings ; monstrous prodigies 

 of nature to forbode great Caesar's assassination ; 



* A morbid exaggeration of this incompetence of will charac- 

 terizes a distressing form of mental affliction which grows even 

 sometimes to actual malady. 



