His noble art refuses to work
upon base matter. He sees at once the capabilities of a tale, but he
will not use it except he may do with it what he pleases.
If we might here offer some assistance to the young student who wants to
help himself, we would suggest that to follow, in a measure, Plutarch's
fashion of comparison, will be the most helpful guide to the
understanding of the poet. Let the reader take any two characters, and
putting them side by side, look first for differences, and then for
resemblances between them, with the causes of each; or let him make a
wider attempt, and setting two plays one over against the other, compare
or contrast them, and see what will be the result. Let him, for
instance, take the two characters _Hamlet_ and _Brutus_, and compare
their beginnings and endings, the resemblances in their characters, the
differences in their conduct, the likeness and unlikeness of what was
required of them, the circumstances in which action was demanded of
each, the helps or hindrances each had to the working out of the problem
of his life, the way in which each encounters the supernatural, or any
other question that may suggest itself in reading either of the plays,
ending off with the main lesson taught in each; and he will be
astonished to find, if he has not already discovered it, what a rich
mine of intellectual and spiritual wealth is laid open to his delighted
eyes.
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