not dreamed of by the Horatios of his time.

Hamlet was lost in wonder at himself. The lower forces of his nature
along the old inherited lines of thought, coming in contact with the
higher thought-currents, newly created, caused the blended stream to
"turn awry and lose the name of action," termed by the unseeing world
lack of courage and will-power. Even he could not understand but that in
some inexplicable way he _must_ be a coward, because he could not
perceive the _why_ of his delaying vengeance. Yet he knew he was brave
to the core of his being. When his military friends, "distilled almost
to jelly with the act of fear," would have restrained him from following
the spirit of his father, he cries out:

Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
and for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as
itself? ... My fate cries out, and makes each petty artery in this
body as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.

He was strong of will and resolute of purpose, but had reached the plane
of development where his higher nature would not permit him to commit
murder. Yet the strong current of popular opinion, as well as all
hereditary and sub-conscious influences in himself, were ever impelling
him to do the deed. In his soul-growth, Hamlet had passed the plane of
revenge as a passion, but had not reached the divine heights of
forgiveness. To avenge the murder of his father was to him a sacred
command and duty coming in conflict with another equally sacred duty
voiced by his higher self, and the mighty meeting of these two
soul-forces always resulted in inaction. This moral battleground is the
pivotal point of the drama, indirectly putting in motion all the forces
which terminate in the final catastrophe.

In his thoughtful moods his disposition was ever shaken with "thoughts
beyond the reaches of our souls," saying, "Why is this? wherefore? what
should we do?" It was the unlaid ghost of his higher self that
propounded these queries to the apparition. The birth-throes of thought
were giving him entrance into a new world where he began to see "What a
piece of work is man! how _infinite_ in faculty! in action how like an
angel! in apprehension how like a God!"

The thoughts that Hamlet voices had passed through Shakspere's brain,
and the wonderful powers manifested by Prospero had been apprehended by
his own prophetic vision. Hamlet might have moved along on the lower
p