sorrow of Hamlet are shadowed in the lives of Fortinbras and Ophelia and Laertes, whose fathers, too, have been killed. It is so in all the plays, or in all but all, and very commonly the sub-plot is the main plot working itself out in more ordinary men and women, and so doubly calling up before us the image of multitude. Ibsen and Maeterlinck have on the other hand created a new form, for they get multitude from the Wild Duck in the Attic, or from the Crown at the bottom of the Fountain, vague symbols that set the mind wandering from idea to idea, emotion to emotion. Indeed all the great Masters have understood, that there cannot be great art without the little limited life of the fable, which is always the better the simpler it is, and the rich, far-wandering, many-imaged life of the half-seen world beyond it. There are some who understand that the simple unmysterious things living as in a clear noonlight are of the nature of the sun, and that vague, many-imaged things have in them the strength of the moon. Did not the Egyptian carve it on emerald that all living things have the sun for father and the moon for mother, and has it not been said that a man of genius takes the most after his mother? 1903. _Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at The Shakespeare Head Press, Stratford-on-Avon._ * * * * * Transcriber’s Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 33, “spirit” changed to “spirits” (spirits did not and) Page 39, “battle-fielde” changed to “battle-fields” (studies and battle-fields) Page 139, “difcult” changed to “difficult” (have not been difficult) Page 246, “Shakepearian” changed to “Shakespearian” (best in the Shakespearian) End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Vol. 6 (of 8), by William Butler Yeats