t, was
to doubt a testimony which to accept was to believe his father in
horrible suffering, his uncle a murderer, his mother at least an
adulteress; to kill his uncle was to set his seal to the whole, and,
besides, to bring his mother into frightful suspicion of complicity in
his father's murder. Ought not the faintest shadow of a doubt, assuaging
ever so little the glare of the hell-sun of such crime, to be welcome to
the tortured heart? Wretched wife and woman as his mother had shown
herself, the Ghost would have him think her far worse--perhaps, even
accessory to her husband's murder! For action he _must_ have proof!

At the same time, what every one knew of his mother, coupled now with
the mere idea of the Ghost's accusation, wrought in him such misery,
roused in him so many torturing and unanswerable questions, so blotted
the face of the universe and withered the heart of hope, that he could
not but doubt whether, in such a world of rogues and false women, it was
worth his while to slay one villain out of the swarm.

Ophelia's behaviour to him, in obedience to her father, of which she
gives him no explanation, has added 'the pangs of disprized love,' and
increased his doubts of woman-kind. 120.

But when his imagination, presenting afresh the awful interview, brings
him more immediately under the influence of the apparition and its
behest, he is for the moment delivered both from the stunning effect of
its communication and his doubt of its truth; forgetting then the
considerations that have wrought in him, he accuses himself of
remissness, blames himself grievously for his delay. Soon, however, his
senses resume their influence, and he doubts again. So goes the
mill-round of his thoughts, with the revolving of many wheels.

His whole conscious nature is frightfully shaken: he would be the poor
creature most of his critics would make of him, were it otherwise; it is
because of his greatness that he suffers so terribly, and doubts so
much. A mother's crime is far more paralyzing than a father's murder is
stimulating; and either he has not set himself in thorough earnest to
find the proof he needs, or he has as yet been unable to think of any
serviceable means to the end, when the half real, half simulated emotion
of the Player yet again rouses in him the sense of remissness, leads him
to accuse himself of forgotten obligation and heartlessness, and
simultaneously suggests a device for putting the Ghost and his w