tiveness, a more perfect perception of what was perhaps a shrinking from the brutality of murder. Are Taine and other critics justified in their opinion that the Prince, be cause of the time in which he lived, did not hesitate, or rather was not influenced by any objection to staining his own hands with an other's blood? The priests and scholars, in the darkest ages, were usually men of peace : and the one thing which gives peculiar dis tinction to Hamlet is his superior refinement in morals, and manners as well, to those about him; he despises the coarse revelry of the King; his own assumed coarseness of speech seems forced and unnatural, while to him we may well believe all murder appeared foul until his moral sense was corrupted by his becoming himself a murderer. One thing is certain, whatever may be the reason, all Shakespeare students in their unconsciously sympathetic attitude towards Hamlet, are actuated not simply by pity or admiration but rather by a fellow-feeling which of itself goes far to prove his sanity or their insanity. Again, Hamlet's sanity finds strong proof in his failure to take his own life when so strongly tempted to do so. The world had become to him a stifling prison cell, or worse. No ray of light glimmered through the dark ness of his distraction and uncertainty; the storm of passion raged fiercely in his soul; a way of escape from these present evils oc curred to him, yet he stayed his hand, he took time to think of the hereafter; he re membered that the tenets of his religion in cluded a belief in the sin and eternal clanger of self-destruction. More than that, at this especial time, when all seemed to agree that he was presently to show in his interview with Ophelia a peculiarly "antic disposition," he was indulging his supreme love of con templation; he was able to give his agony some vent in philosophic reasoning; •• Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them."
Would a maniac have acted thus? Would he not rather, having once thought of suicide as a relief from his troubles, become pos sessed of that idea to the exclusion of all others, and have put it into execution at the first favorable opportunity? To pass through this trying ordeal safely required a clear, strong intellect which would keep uppermost the influence of reason, conscience and duty. It was not insanity in Hamlet to think of suicide, it was nature. It was not insanity that forced upon his mind, so opportunely, the deterring influence of his religious scruples, but a clear, ever-present idea of his personal responsibility. It was not insanity that restrained his suicidal impulse by the thought of his father's unrevenged murder, but a firm, strong sense of what he believed to be his duty. The word duty is used here because it was probably in that sense the idea of revenge made its strongest appeal to Ham let. His code of honor, whose unwritten law was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, doubtless held as sacred as the religion which was so little understood at that time, did not make simple revenge seem even ig noble, much less sinful. A third proof of the perfectly normal con dition of Hamlet's intellectual vision lies in his discriminating treatment of the people with whom he came in contact. His secret enmity to Claudius was very near to open warfare. Comprehending not only the King's baseness, but the keenness of his intellect as well, the prince at all times met Claudius as an adversar)'. He pointed every speech with a double meaning and in their various inter views maintained the coolness which a match of wits demands. Although he knew the King to be a dangerous enemy, he did not fear him nor did he exhibit the cunning of a maniac who would probably have sought to conceal his feelings towards one he hated until a fitting opportunity came for him to give them a sudden and violent revelation. Hamlet rather delighted in showing Claudius his hatred; he loved to make the "galled
