"You are entering on your new career with becoming conscientiousness," said Serlo. "The actor fits himself to his part as he can, and the part to him as it must. But how has Shakspeare drawn his Hamlet? Is he so utterly unlike you?" "In the first place," answered Wilhelm, "he is fair-haired." "That I call far-fetched," observed Aurelia. "How do you infer that?" "As a Dane, as a Northman, he is fair-haired and blue-eyed by descent." "And you think Shakspeare had this in view?" "I do not find it specially expressed; but, by comparison of passages, I think it incontestable. The fencing tires him; the sweat is running from his brow; and the Queen remarks, '_He's fat, and scant of breath._' Can you conceive him to be otherwise than plump and fair-haired? Brown-complexioned people, in their youth, are seldom plump. And does not his wavering melancholy, his soft lamenting, his irresolute activity, accord with such a figure? From a dark-haired young man, you would look for more decision and impetuosity." "You are spoiling my imagination," cried Aurelia: "away with your fat Hamlets! Do not set your well-fed prince before us! Give us rather any _succedaneum_ that will move us, will delight us. The intention of the author is of less importance to us than our own enjoyment, and we need a charm that is adapted for us." CHAPTER VII. One evening a dispute arose among our friends about the novel and the drama, and which of them deserved the preference. Serlo said it was a fruitless and misunderstood debate: both might be superior in their kinds, only each must keep within the limits proper to it. "About their limits and their kinds," said Wilhelm, "I confess myself not altogether clear." "Who _is_ so?" said the other; "and yet perhaps it were worth while to come a little closer to the business." They conversed together long upon the matter; and, in fine, the following was nearly the result of their discussion:-- "In the novel as well as in the drama, it is human nature and human action that we see. The difference between these sorts of fiction lies not merely in their outward form,--not merely in the circumstance that the personages of the one are made to speak, while those of the other have commonly their history narrated. Unfortunately many dramas are but novels, which proceed by dialogue; and it would not be impossible to write a drama in the shape of letters.