But it really means (or at least its author really thought) that art is nothing if not artificial.

Realists, like other barbarians, really _believe_ the mirror; and therefore break the mirror.

Also they leave out the phrase "as 'twere," which must be read into every remark of Shakespeare, and especially every remark of Hamlet.

What I mean by believing the mirror, and breaking it, can be recorded in one case I remember; in which a realistic critic quoted German authorities to prove that Hamlet had a particular psycho-pathological abnormality, which is admittedly nowhere mentioned in the play.

The critic was bewitched; he was thinking of Hamlet as a real man, with a background behind him three dimensions deep--which does not exist in a looking-glass.