er--is
he wise? Is the elevation sufficient wherefrom he looks down on the
crimes of Elsinore? He seems to regard them from the loftiest heights
of his intellect; but in the light-clad mountain range of wisdom there
are other peaks that tower far above the heights of the intellect--the
peaks of goodness and confidence, of indulgence and love. If he could
have surveyed the misdeeds of Elsinore from the eminence whence Marcus
Aurelius or Fenelon, for instance, had surely surveyed them, what would
have resulted then? And, first of all, does it not often happen that a
crime which is suddenly conscious of the gaze of a mightier soul will
pause, and halt, and at last crawl back to its lair; even as bees cease
from labour when a gleam of sunshine steals into the hive?

The real destiny, the inner destiny would in any event have followed
its course in the souls of Claudius and Gertrude; for these sinful ones
had delivered themselves into its hands, as must needs be the case with
those whose ways are evil; but would it have dared to spread its
influence abroad if one of those sages had been in the palace? Would it
have dared to overstep the shining, denouncing barrier that his
presence would have imposed, and maintained, in front of the palace
gates? When the sage's destiny blends with that of men of inferior
wisdom, the sage raises them to his level, but himself will rarely
descend. Neither on earth nor in the domain of fatality do rivers flow
back to their source. But to return: let us imagine a sovereign,
all-powerful soul--that of Jesus, in Hamlet's place at Elsinore; would
the tragedy then have flown on till it reached the four deaths at the
end? Is that conceivable? A crime may be never so skilfully
planned--when the eyes of deep wisdom rest on it, it becomes like a
trivial show that we offer to very small children at nightfall: some
magic-lantern performance, whose tawdry imposture a last gleam of
sunshine lays bare. Can you conceive Jesus Christ--nay, any wise man
you have happened to meet--in the midst of 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 does
it need superhuman effort to recognise that revenge never can be a
duty? I say again that Hamlet thinks much, but that he is by no means
wise. He cannot conceive where to look for the weak spot in destiny's
armour. Lofty thoughts suffice not always to ov