the deed intervening between the outburst of
passion and the relapse into melancholy.[48] But this melancholy is
perfectly consistent also with that incessant dissection of the task
assigned, of which the Schlegel-Coleridge theory makes so much. For
those endless questions (as we may imagine them), 'Was I deceived by the
Ghost? How am I to do the deed? When? Where? What will be the
consequence of attempting it--success, my death, utter misunderstanding,
mere mischief to the State? Can it be right to do it, or noble to kill a
defenceless man? What is the good of doing it in such a world as
this?'--all this, and whatever else passed in a sickening round through
Hamlet's mind, was not the healthy and right deliberation of a man with
such a task, but otiose thinking hardly deserving the name of thought,
an unconscious weaving of pretexts for inaction, aimless tossings on a
sick bed, symptoms of melancholy which only increased it by deepening
self-contempt.

Again, (_a_) this state accounts for Hamlet's energy as well as for his
lassitude, those quick decided actions of his being the outcome of a
nature normally far from passive, now suddenly stimulated, and producing
healthy impulses which work themselves out before they have time to
subside. (_b_) It accounts for the evidently keen satisfaction which
some of these actions give to him. He arranges the play-scene with
lively interest, and exults in its success, not really because it brings
him nearer to his goal, but partly because it has hurt his enemy and
partly because it has demonstrated his own skill (III. ii.
286-304). He looks forward almost with glee to countermining the King's
designs in sending him away (III. iv. 209), and looks back with
obvious satisfaction, even with pride, to the address and vigour he
displayed on the voyage (V. ii. 1-55). These were not _the_
action on which his morbid self-feeling had centred; he feels in them
his old force, and escapes in them from his disgust. (_c_) It accounts
for the pleasure with which he meets old acquaintances, like his
'school-fellows' or the actors. The former observed (and we can observe)
in him a 'kind of joy' at first, though it is followed by 'much forcing
of his disposition' as he attempts to keep this joy and his courtesy
alive in spite of the misery which so soon returns upon him and the
suspicion he is forced to feel. (_d_) It accounts no less for the
painful features of his character as seen in the play, hi