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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: undoubtedly sentimental in his expressions of devotion to Mr W. H.
even to a point which nowadays makes both ridiculous, he was not
sycophantic if Mr W. H. was really attractive and promising, and
Shakespear deeply attached to him. A sycophant does not tell his
patron that his fame will survive, not in the renown of his own
actions, but in the sonnets of his sycophant. A sycophant, when his
patron cuts him out in a love affair, does not tell his patron exactly
what he thinks of him. Above all, a sycophant does not write to his
patron precisely as he feels on all occasions; and this rare kind of
sincerity is all over the sonnets. Shakespear, we are told, was "a
very civil gentleman." This must mean that his desire to please
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