uses to be conquered by them. When his
soul is wise and has initiative power, it cannot be conquered by
external events, and happiness is inevitable to such a soul.
Maeterlinck asks: Where do we find the fatality in Hamlet? Would the
evil of Claudius and Queen Gertrude have spread its influence if a
wise man had been in the Palace? If a dominant, all powerful soul--a
Jesus--had been in Hamlet's palace at Elsinore, would the tragedy of
four deaths have happened? Can you conceive any wise man living in the
unnatural gloom that overhung Elsinore? Is not every action of Hamlet
induced by a fanatical impulse, which tells him that duty consists in
revenge alone? And revenge never can be a duty. Hamlet thinks much,
continues Maeterlinck, but is by no means wise. Destiny can withstand
lofty thoughts but not simple, good, tender and loyal thoughts. We
only triumph over destiny by doing the reverse of the evil she would
have us commit. _No tragedy is inevitable_. But at Elsinore no one had
vision--no one saw--hence the catastrophe. The soul that saw would
have made others see. Because of Hamlet's pitiful blindness, Laertes,
Ophelia, the King, Queen, and Hamlet die. Was his blindness
inevitable? A single thought had sufficed to arrest all the forces of
murder. Hamlet's ignorance puts the seal on his unhappiness, and his
shadow lay on Horatio, who lacked the courage to shake himself free.
Had there been one brave soul to cry out the truth, the history of
Elsinore had not been shrouded in horror. All depended not on destiny,
but on the wisdom of the wisest, and this Hamlet was; therefore he was
the centre of the drama of Elsinore, for he had no one wiser than
himself on whom to depend.

Maeterlinck's doctrine of the soul and its power over Destiny is very
captivating, but it is doubtful if he was fortunate in his choice of
Hamlet as an example of ignorance and blindness, and of failure to
conquer fate, through lack of soul-power.

How Hamlet should have acted is not told us, but that it was his duty
to have given up revenge is clearly suggested. We might, perhaps, sum
up Hamlet's right course, from the hints Maeterlinck has given us, in
a sentence. Had he relinquished all idea of revenge and forgiven his
uncle and mother, he would have ennobled his soul, gained inward
happiness, spread a gracious calm around and have so deeply influenced
his wicked relations, that they would have become repentant and
reformed. Thus his evil Destin