"Genius" often formed the subject of their discussions. Their teacher used to say "Geniuses" ranked above all else, like "Excellencies." John thought much about this, and believed that it was possible without high birth, without money, and without a career to get on the same level as Excellencies. But what a genius was he did not know. Once in a weak moment he said to his lady friend that he would rather be a genius than a child of God, and received a sharp reproof from her. Another time he told Fritz that he would like to be a professor, as they can dress like scarecrows and behave as they like without losing respect. But when someone else asked him what he wished to be, he said, "A clergyman"; for all peasants' sons can be that, and it seemed a suitable calling for him also. After he had become a free-thinker, he wished to take a university degree. But he did not wish to be a teacher on any account.

In the theatre Hamlet made a deeper impression on him than Offenbach's operas, which were then being acted. Who is this Hamlet who first saw the footlights in the era of John III., and has still remained fresh? He is a figure which has been much exploited and used for many purposes. John forthwith determined to use him for his own.

The curtain rises to the sound of cheerful music, showing the king and his court in glittering array. Then there enters the pale youth in mourning garb and opposes his step-father. Ah! he has a step-father. "That is as bad as having a stepmother," thought John. "That's the man for me!" And then they try to oppress him and squeeze sympathy out of him for the tyrant. The youth's ego revolts, but his will is paralysed; he threatens, but he cannot strike.

Anyhow, he chastises his mother—a pity that it was not his step-father. But now he goes about with pangs of conscience. Good! Good! He is sick with too much thought, he gropes in his in-side, inspects his actions till they dissolve into nothing. And he loves another's betrothed; that resembles John's life completely. He begins to doubt whether he is an exception after all. That, then, is a common story in life! Very well! He did not need then to worry about himself, but he had lost his consciousness of originality. The conclusion, which had been mangled, was unimpressive, but was partly redeemed by the fine speech of Horatio. John did not observe the unpardonable mistake of the adapter in omitting the part of Fortinbras, but Horatio, who was intended to form a contrast to Hamlet, was no contrast. He is as great a coward as the latter, and says only "yes" and "no." Fortinbras was the man of action, the conqueror, the claimant to the throne, but he does not appear, and the play ends in gloom and desolation.

But it is fine to lament one's destiny, and to see it lamented. At first Hamlet was only the step-son; later on he becomes the introspective brooder, and lastly the son, the sacrifice to family tyranny. Schwarz had represented him as the visionary and idealist who could not reconcile himself to reality, and satisfied contemporary taste accordingly. A future matter-of-fact generation, to whom the romantic appears simply ridiculous, may very likely see the part of Hamlet, like that of Don Quixote, taken by a comic actor. Youths like Hamlet have been for a long time the subject of ridicule, for a new generation has secretly sprung up, a generation which thinks without seeing visions, and acts accordingly. The neutral territory of belles-lettres and the theatre, where morality has nothing to say, and the unrealities of the drama with its reconstruction of a better world than the present, were taken by John as something more than mere imagination. He confused poetry and reality, while he fancied that life outside his parent's house was ideal and that the future was a garden of Eden.