ow."

"I wish," said Wilhelm, "I could but disclose to you all that is going
on within me even now. All the anticipations I have ever had regarding
man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upwards often
unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare's
writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us,
though we cannot say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men
appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most
mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as if
they were watches, whose dial-plates and cases were of crystal, which
pointed out according to their use the course of the hours and minutes;
while at the same time you could discern the combination of wheels and
springs that turn them. The few glances I have cast over Shakespeare's
world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken my footsteps
forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of destinies that
is suspended over it; and at length, if I shall prosper, to draw a few
cups from the great ocean of true nature, and to distribute them from
off the stage among the thirsting people of my native land."

WILHELM MEISTER'S ANALYSIS OF HAMLET

From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'

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 pieces 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
criticize. 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 Shakespeare's incomparable 'Hamlet': our public reading o