translator points out. In this book "he endeavours in all simplicity
to tell what he sees." He is a Seer.

Maeterlinck's aim is to show that contrary to the usual idea, what we
call Fate, Destiny, is not something apart from ourselves, which
exercises power over us, but is the product of our own souls.

He takes many examples to prove this, of which Hamlet is one. Man,
said Maeterlinck, is his own Fate in an inner sense; he is superior to
all circumstances, when he refuses to be conquered by them. When his
soul is wise and has initiative power, it cannot be conquered by
external events, and happiness is inevitable to such a soul.
Maeterlinck asks: Where do we find the fatality in Hamlet? Would the
evil of Claudius and Queen Gertrude have spread its influence if a
wise man had been in the Palace? If a dominant, all powerful soul--a
Jesus--had been in Hamlet's palace at Elsinore, would the tragedy of
four deaths have happened? Can you conceive any wise man living in 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 revenge never can be a duty. Hamlet thinks much,
continues Maeterlinck, but is by no means wise. Destiny can withstand
lofty thoughts but not simple, good, tender and loyal thoughts. We
only triumph over destiny by doing the reverse of the evil she would
have us commit. _No tragedy is inevitable_. But at Elsinore no one had
vision--no one saw--hence the catastrophe. The soul that saw would
have made others see. Because of Hamlet's pitiful blindness, Laertes,
Ophelia, the King, Queen, and Hamlet die. Was his blindness
inevitable? A single thought had sufficed to arrest all the forces of
murder. Hamlet's ignorance puts the seal on his unhappiness, and his
shadow lay on Horatio, who lacked the courage to shake himself free.