a reading of the
riddle ought to have been evident even without this episodical stroke of
illustration. In any case it should be plain to any reader that the
signal characteristic of Hamlet's inmost nature is by no means
irresolution or hesitation or any form of weakness, but rather the strong
conflux of contending forces. That during four whole acts Hamlet cannot
or does not make up his mind to any direct and deliberate action against
his uncle is true enough; true, also, we may say, that Hamlet had
somewhat more of mind than another man to make up, and might properly
want somewhat more time than might another man to do it in; but not, I
venture to say in spite of Goethe, through innate inadequacy to his task
and unconquerable weakness of the will; not, I venture to think in spite
of Hugo, through immedicable scepticism of the spirit and irremediable
propensity to nebulous intellectual refinement. One practical point in
the action of the play precludes us from accepting so ready a solution of
the riddle as is suggested either by the simple theory of
half-heartedness or by the simple hypothesis of doubt. There is
absolutely no other reason, we might say there was no other excuse, for
the introduction or intrusion of an else superfluous episode into a play
which was already, and which remains even after all possible excisions,
one of the longest plays on record. The compulsory expedition of Hamlet
to England, his discovery by the way of the plot laid against his life,
his interception of the King's letter and his forgery of a substitute for
it against the lives of the King's agents, the ensuing adventure of the
sea-fight, with Hamlet's daring act of hot-headed personal intrepidity,
his capture and subsequent release on terms giving no less patent proof
of his cool-headed and ready-witted courage and resource than the attack
had afforded of his physically impulsive and even impetuous hardihood--all
this serves no purpose whatever but that of exhibiting the instant and
almost unscrupulous resolution of Hamlet's character in time of practical
need. But for all that he or Hamlet has got by it, Shakespeare might too
evidently have spared his pains; and for all this voice as of one crying
in a wilderness, Hamlet will too surely remain to the majority of
students, not less than to all actors and all editors and all critics,
the standing type and embodied emblem of irresolution, half-heartedness,
and doubt.

That Hamlet s