Once during such a conversation the lieutenant got up to go and attend church-parade with his company. "Where are you going?" he was asked. "To play the hypocrite," he answered truthfully.
This tone of sincerity sometimes assumed the character of a deep understanding of human nature and the nature of society. One day the company were leaving John's lodgings for the restaurant. It was winter, and Måns, who was generally ill-dressed, had no overcoat. The lieutenant, who wore his uniform, was, it is true, somewhat uneasy, but did not wish to hurt any one's feelings that day. When John opened the door to go out, Måns said, "Go in front; I will come afterwards; I do not want Jean to injure his position by going with me."
John offered to walk with Måns one way while the others should go by another, but Jean exclaimed, "Ah! don't pretend to be noble-minded! you feel as embarrassed at going with Måns as I do."
"True," replied John, "but...."
"Why, then, do you play the hypocrite?"
"I did not play the hypocrite; I only wished to try to be free from prejudice."
"The deuce! what is the good of being free from prejudice when no one else is, and it does you harm? It would really show more freedom from prejudice to tell Måns your mind than to deceive him."
Måns had already departed, and arrived about the same time at the restaurant as they did. He took part in the meal without betraying a trace of ill-humour. "Your health, Måns, because you are a man of sense," said the lieutenant to cheer him up.
The habit of speaking out one's inner thoughts without any regard to current opinion, resulted in the overthrow of all traditional verdicts. The terrible confusion of thought in which men live, since freedom of thought has been fettered by compulsory regulations, has made it possible for antiquated views of men and things to continue. Thus, to-day a number of works of art are considered unsurpassable in spite of the great progress made in technique and artistic conception. John considered that if in the nineteenth century he was to give his views on Shakespeare, he was not at all bound to give the opinion of the eighteenth century, but of his own nineteenth, as it had been modified by new points of view. This aroused a great deal of opposition, perhaps because people fear being regarded as uncultivated a great deal more than they fear being regarded as godless.
Every one attacked Christ, for He was thought to have been overthrown by learned criticism, but they were afraid of attacking Shakespeare. John, however, was not. Thoroughly understanding the works of the poet, whose most important dramas he had read in the original and whose chief commentators he had studied, he criticised the composition and meagre character drawing of Hamlet. It is noteworthy that the Swedish Shakespeare-worshipper, Shuck, through an inconsistency due to the current confusion of thought and compulsory cowardice, made just as severe criticisms of Hamlet regarded as a work of art, though he had previously extolled it above the skies. If John had at that time been able to read the book of Professor Shuck, he would not have needed courage in order to subscribe such criticisms as the following: "Hamlet is the most unsatisfactory of all ... the composition is superficial and incoherent. After the action of the play has reached its climax, it suddenly breaks off. Hamlet is suddenly sent to England, but this journey does not in any way arouse the spectator's interest. Still worse is the management of the catastrophe. It is a mere chance that Hamlet's revenge is executed at all, and a similar caprice of chance causes his overthrow. His killing Claudius just before his own death has more the appearance of revenge for the attempt on his own life, than that of a judgment executed in the name of injured morality."