| [SHAKESPEARE,] | Frontispiece | |
| [GOETHE,] | to face page | 158 |
| [RAPHAEL’S ‘GALATEA’ IN THE FARNESINO,] | ” | 252 |
A LEAR OF THE STEPPES
Shakespeare
A LEAR OF THE STEPPES
We were a party of six, gathered together one winter evening at the house of an old college friend. The conversation turned on Shakespeare, on his types, and how profoundly and truly they were taken from the very heart of humanity. We admired particularly their truth to life, their actuality. Each of us spoke of the Hamlets, the Othellos, the Falstaffs, even the Richard the Thirds and Macbeths—the two last only potentially, it is true, resembling their prototypes—whom he had happened to come across.