One waking in the morning sometimes sees at the foot of his bed a strange figure—it may be of an ancient lady with cap and ruffles and with the expression of garrulous and fussy old age—but when the light gets stronger, the figure gradually changes and he sees a few clothes on a chair.
The dramatist lives the lives of others, and in order to delineate character must not only have imagination but sympathy with the character delineated. The great dramatist thinks of a character as an entirety, as an individual.
I once had a dream, and in this dream I was discussing a subject with another man. It occurred to me that I was dreaming, and I then said to myself: If this is a dream, I am doing the talking for both sides—consequently I ought to know in advance what the other man is going to say. In my dream I tried the experiment. I then asked the other man a question, and before he answered made up my mind what the answer was to be. To my surprise, the man did not say what I expected he would, and so great was my astonishment that I awoke.
It then occurred to me that I had discovered the secret of Shakespeare. He did, when awake, what I did when asleep—that is, he threw off a character so perfect that it acted independently of him.
In the delineation of character Shakespeare has no rivals. He creates no monsters. His characters do not act without reason, without motive.
Iago had his reasons. In Caliban, nature was not destroyed—and Lady Macbeth certifies that the woman still was in her heart, by saying:
"Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it."
Shakespeare's characters act from within. They are centres of energy. They are not pushed by unseen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. They have objects, desires. They are persons—real, living beings.
Few dramatists succeed in getting their characters loose from the canvas—their backs stick to the wall—they do not have free and independent action—they have no background, no unexpressed motives—no untold desires. They lack the complexity of the real.
Shakespeare makes the character true to itself. Christopher Sly, surrounded by the luxuries of a lord, true to his station, calls for a pot of the smallest ale.