ubt, is the
avowal of change. When the ties of habit and tradition are inwardly
outgrown, we bend and intend with our whole being in a new direction
without the purpose or even the desire to move. So Hamlet silently
evades the obligation he so readily undertakes, and sinks back into that
more powerful interest that almost at once regains possession of his
mind. Still, before he quits the scene of this ghastly disclosure, he
resolves to counterfeit madness--and this for two reasons: he will seem
(to himself) to be conspiring, and he will gain a license to speak his
mind without offence. This is the only use to which he puts this mask of
madness, as Coleridge has remarked. But why should he instinctively seek
to gain more latitude of speech? Because since the marriage of his
mother he had suffered from an enforced silence with regard to the
proceedings of the Court, as he distinctly tells us in the first
soliloquy--

"But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!"

From his first utterances after he had left the platform, we at once
infer that the mission of the Ghost had failed. There is nothing that
Hamlet would sooner part with "than his life." There is, therefore, no
prospect before his mind, no awakening energy, no latent enterprise.
With what relief, on the contrary, does he turn from the real to the
ideal world! How cordially does he welcome the players, and how
gracefully, so that we seem for the first time to make acquaintance with
his natural tone and manner. Here at least is man's world, whose reality
can never be undermined. He plies them with questions, indulges in
literary criticism, and asks for a recitation. Suddenly he sees tears
in the actors' eyes. He hurries them away, and when he is alone breaks
out--

"Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!"

He is jealous of the players' tears. Here again is no debate, but simply
surprise at his own apathy. He tries to lash himself to fury but fails,
and falls back on the practical test he is about to apply to the guilt
of the king which he must appear to doubt, or this pseudo-activity
would be too obviously superfluous.

In the interval between the instruction to the players and the play,
Hamlet's mind, unless absorbed by some strong preoccupation, would
naturally turn to the issue of the plot; and he would reveal, if he
admitted us to the secret workings of his mind, if not resolution, at
least irresolution, something to mark the vacillation of whi