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 Destiny would have been averted and we should
have had no tragedy of Hamlet. This explanation sounds rather
conventional and tract-like put into ordinary language, but, indeed,
Maeterlinck's doctrine might be compressed into a syllogism:--
All the wise are serene,
Hamlet was not serene,
Hamlet was not wise.
That is the simple syllogism by which Maeterlinck tests human nature.
But Hamlet's nature cannot be packed into a syllogism. A Theorist, who
tries to fit into his theory a peculiar nature cannot always afford to
understand that nature. The external event that froze Hamlet's soul
with horror, and deprived it of "transforming power" was a
supernatural event, not "disease, accident, or sudden death!" The
mandate laid on his soul was a supernatural mandate, and as Judge Webb
said in a suggestive and interesting paper: "The Genuine text of
Shakespeare," October number of the "National Review, 1903," "it was
utterly impossible for that soul to perform it," or it might be added,
to cast it aside.
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