Bing begins by defining two kinds of writers.  First, those whose power is their keen observation.  They see things accurately and they secure their effects by recording just what they see.  Second, those writers who do not merely see external phenomena with the external eye, but who, through a miraculous intuition, go deeper into the soul of man.  Moliere is the classical example of the first type; Shakespeare of the second.  To him a chance utterance reveals feelings, passions, whole lives—­though he probably never developed the consequences of a chance remark to their logical conclusion without first applying to them close and searching rational processes.  But it is clear that if a critic is to analyze a character of Shakespeare’s, he must not be content merely to observe.  He must feel with it, live with it.  He must do so with special sympathy in the case of Ophelia.

The common characteristic of Shakespeare’s women is their devotion to the man of their choice and their confidence that this choice is wise and happy.  The tragedy of Ophelia lies in the fact that outward evidence is constantly shocking that faith.  Laertes, in his worldly-wise fashion, first warns her.  She cries out from a broken heart though she promises to heed the warning.  Then comes Polonius with his cunning wisdom.  But Ophelia’s faith is still unshaken.  She promises her father, however, to be careful, and her caution, in turn, arouses the suspicion of Hamlet.  Even after his wild outburst against her he still loves her.  He begs her to believe in him and to remember him in her prayers.  But suspicion goes on.  Ophelia is caught between devotion and duty, and the grim events that crowd upon her plunge her to sweet, tragic death.  Nothing could be more revealing than our last glimpse of her.  Shakespeare’s intuitive knowledge of the soul was sure.  The determining fact of her life was her love for Hamlet:  it is significant that when we see her insane not a mention of it crosses her lips.

Hamlet and Ophelia are the delicate victims of a tragic necessity.  They are undone because they lose confidence in those to whom they cling with all the abandon of deep, spiritual souls.  Hamlet is at last aroused to desperation; Ophelia is helplessly crushed.  She is the finest woman of Shakespeare’s imagination, and perhaps for that reason the most difficult to understand and the one least often appreciated.

The next chapter in Norwegian Shakespeareana is a dull, unprofitable one—­a series of articles on the Baconian theory appearing irregularly in the monthly magazine, Kringsjaa.  The first article appeared in the second volume (1894) and is merely a review of a strong pro-Bacon outburst in the American Arena.  It is not worth criticising.  Similar articles appeared in Kringsjaa in 1895, the material this time being taken from the Deutsche Revue.  It is the old ghost, the cipher in the first folio, though not Ignatius Donnelly’s cryptogram.  Finally, in 1898, a new editor, Chr.  Brinckmann, printed[13] a crushing reply to all these cryptogram fantasies.  And that is all that was ever published in Norway on a foolish controversy.