welfare; and, if her unkindness _is_
the cause of his sad state, they will permit her to restore him by
kindness (III. i. 40). Was she to refuse to play a part just because it
would be painful to her to do so? I find in her joining the 'plot' (as
it is absurdly called) a sign not of weakness, but of unselfishness and
strength.

'But she practised deception; she even told a lie. Hamlet asked her
where her father was, and she said he was at home, when he was really
listening behind a curtain.' Poor Ophelia! It is considered angelic in
Desdemona to say untruly that she killed herself, but most immoral or
pusillanimous in Ophelia to tell _her_ lie. I will not discuss these
casuistical problems; but, if ever an angry lunatic asks me a question
which I cannot answer truly without great danger to him and to one of my
relations, I hope that grace may be given me to imitate Ophelia.
Seriously, at such a terrible moment was it weak, was it not rather
heroic, in a simple girl not to lose her presence of mind and not to
flinch, but to go through her task for Hamlet's sake and her father's?
And, finally, is it really a thing to be taken as matter of course, and
no matter for admiration, in this girl that, from beginning to end, and
after a storm of utterly unjust reproach, not a thought of resentment
should even cross her mind?

Still, we are told, it was ridiculously weak in her to lose her reason.
And here again her critics seem hardly to realise the situation, hardly
to put themselves in the place of a girl whose lover, estranged from
her, goes mad and kills her father. They seem to forget also that
Ophelia must have believed that these frightful calamities were not mere
calamities, but followed from _her_ action in repelling her lover. Nor
do they realise the utter loneliness that must have fallen on her. Of
the three persons who were all the world to her, her father has been
killed, Hamlet has been sent out of the country insane, and her brother
is abroad. Horatio, when her mind gives way, tries to befriend her, but
there is no sign of any previous relation between them, or of Hamlet's
having commended her to his friend's care. What support she can gain
from the Queen we can guess from the Queen's character, and from the
fact that, when Ophelia is most helpless, the Queen shrinks from the
very sight of her (IV. v. 1). She was left, thus, absolutely alone, and
if she looked for her brother's return (as she did, IV. v. 70), she