Hamlet's madness, but of its cause (II.
ii. 49). That, it would seem, was the effect Hamlet aimed at in his
interview. I may add that Ophelia's description of his intent
examination of her face suggests doubt rather as to her 'honesty' or
sincerity than as to her strength of mind. I cannot believe that he ever
dreamed of confiding his secret to her.]

[Footnote 74: If this _is_ an allusion to his own love, the adjective
'despised' is significant. But I doubt the allusion. The other
calamities mentioned by Hamlet, 'the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's
contumely, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that
patient merit of the unworthy takes,' are not at all specially his own.]

[Footnote 75: It should be noticed that it was not apparently of long
standing. See the words 'of late' in I. iii. 91, 99.]

[Footnote 76: This, I think, may be said on almost any sane view of
Hamlet's love.]

[Footnote 77: Polonius says so, and it _may_ be true.]

[Footnote 78: I have heard an actress in this part utter such a cry as
is described above, but there is absolutely nothing in the text to
justify her rendering. Even the exclamation 'O, ho!' found in the
Quartos at IV. v. 33, but omitted in the Folios and by almost all modern
editors, coming as it does after the stanza, 'He is dead and gone,
lady,' evidently expresses grief, not terror.]

[Footnote 79: In the remarks above I have not attempted, of course, a
complete view of the character, which has often been well described; but
I cannot forbear a reference to one point which I do not remember to
have seen noticed. In the Nunnery-scene Ophelia's first words
pathetically betray her own feeling:

Good my lord,
How does your honour _for this many a day_?

She then offers to return Hamlet's presents. This has not been suggested
to her by her father: it is her own thought. And the next lines, in
which she refers to the sweet words which accompanied those gifts, and
to the unkindness which has succeeded that kindness, imply a reproach.
So again do those most touching little speeches:

_Hamlet._ ... I did love you once.

_Ophelia._ Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

_Hamlet._ You should not have believed me ... I loved you not.

_Ophelia._ I was the more deceived.

Now the obvious surface fact was not that Hamlet had forsaken her, but
that _she_ had repulsed _him_; and here, with his usual unobtrus