ercome destiny; for
against these destiny can oppose thoughts that are loftier still; but
what destiny has ever withstood thoughts that are simple and good,
thoughts that are tender and loyal? We can triumph over destiny only by
doing the very reverse of the evil she fain would have us commit. For
no tragedy can be inevitable. At Elsinore there is not a soul but
refuses to see, and hence the catastrophe; but a soul that is quick
with life will compel those around it to open their eyes. Where was it
written that Laertes, Ophelia, Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, should
die--where, save in Hamlet's pitiful blindness? But was this blindness
inevitable? Why speak of destiny when a simple thought had sufficed to
arrest all the forces of murder? The empire of destiny is surely
sufficiently vast. I acknowledge her might when a wall crashes down on
my head, when the storm drives a ship on the rocks, when disease
attacks those whom I love; but into man's soul she never will come,
uncalled. Hamlet is unhappy because he moves in unnatural darkness; and
his ignorance puts the seal upon his unhappiness. We have but to issue
commands and fate will obey--there is nothing in the world that will
offer such long and patient submission. Horatio, up to the last, could
have issued commands; but his master's shadow lay on him, and he lacked
the courage to shake himself free. Had there been but one soul
courageous enough to cry out the truth, then had the history of
Elsinore not been shrouded in tears of hatred and horror. But
misfortune, that bends beneath the fingers of wisdom like the cane that
we cut from the tree, becomes iron, and murderously rigid, in the hand
of unconsciousness. Once again, all depended here, not on destiny, but
on the wisdom of the wisest, and this Hamlet was; therefore did he, by
his presence, become the centre of the drama of Elsinore; and on
himself only did the wisdom of Hamlet depend.

18. And if you look distrustfully on imaginary tragedies, you have only
to investigate some of the greatest dramas of authentic history to find
that in these too the destinies of men are no different: that their
ways are the same, and their petulance, their revolt and submission.
You will discover that there too it is a force of man's own creating
that plays the most active part in what if pleases us to term
"fatality." This fatality, it is true, is enormous, but rarely
irresistible. It does not leap forth at a given moment from an
in