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SHAKESPEARE AS A MAN
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may be totally unable to describe him in such a way as to enable a detective to pick him out of a crowd. I can say that he is six feet high and has a red beard, but I cannot give the finer marks which distinguish tall red-bearded men from each other. So I can often divine instinctively what my friend will say and do and think on a given occasion; and yet be quite unable to give the reasons for my expectation. If I am not a trained psychologist, I shall not have the proper terms, or shall confuse different terms; and if I am a trained psychologist, I may too probably be misled by my own theories, and I shall certainly find that all the common phrases by which we describe character are too vague and shifting to reflect the vast variety of delicate shades of emotional temperament which we can yet recognise in observation. Does not every critic of poetry claim such a knowledge—vivid and yet difficult to grasp and analyse? He professes to recognise Shakespeare's style; he can tell you confidently which plays are Shakespeare's own, and which he produced in collaboration with others; he can point out the scene and even the particular speech at which Shakespeare dropped the pen and Fletcher took it up. Part of this knowledge is derived, it is true,