When ten years ago I was of the contrary opinion, and made more than one attempt to select only the particularly effective parts of Shakespeare’s plays, rejecting the disturbing and the diffuse, I was quite right, as director of the theatre, in doing so. For I had had experience in tormenting myself and the actors for the space of a month, and of finally putting on a production which indeed entertained and aroused admiration, but which on account of conditions hardly possible to fulfil more than once, could not maintain its place in the repertory. Still I am perfectly willing that such attempts should here and there be made, for, on the whole, failure does no harm. Since men are not to get rid of longing and aspiration, it is salutary for them to direct their unsatisfied idealism towards some definite object, to work, for instance, towards depicting a mighty though vanished past seriously and worthily in the present. Now actors as well as poets and readers have the opportunity to study and see Shakespeare, and, through their endeavors to attain the unattainable, disclose the true inner capabilities and potentialities of their own nature. Though in these respects I completely approve of the valuable efforts of my old co-worker, I must confess that I differ from him in some of his utterances; as, for instance, that “Lady Macbeth is a tender, loving soul, and as such should be played.” I do not consider such remarks to be really the author’s opinion, but rather paradoxes, which in view of the weighty authority of our author can only work great harm. It is in the nature of the case, and Tieck himself has presented significant illustrations of the fact, that an actor who does not feel himself to be quite in agreement with the conventional portrayal, may in clever fashion modify and adjust it to himself and his own nature, and fit the new interpretation so well as to provide, as it were, a new and brilliant creation, and indemnify us for the clever fiction with unexpected and delightful new grounds of comparison and contrast. This we must admit as valid; but we cannot approve the case where the theorist makes certain intimations to the actor, whereby the latter is led astray to portray the rôle in a new manner and style against the obvious intention of the poet. From many viewpoints such an undertaking is questionable. The public is looking for authority always; and it is right. For do we not act similarly in taking counsel in joy and sorrow with those who are well versed in the wisdom of art and of life? Whoever then has acquired any legitimate authority in any field should strive, by continual assiduity in holding close to the line of the true and the right, to preserve that authority in inviolable sanctity.