decisively as Othello himself, though probably after a longer and more
anxious deliberation. And therefore the Schlegel-Coleridge view (apart
from its descriptive value) seems to me fatally untrue, for it implies
that Hamlet's procrastination was the normal response of an
over-speculative nature confronted with a difficult practical problem.

On the other hand, under conditions of a peculiar kind, Hamlet's
reflectiveness certainly might prove dangerous to him, and his genius
might even (to exaggerate a little) become his doom. Suppose that
violent shock to his moral being of which I spoke; and suppose that
under this shock, any possible action being denied to him, he began to
sink into melancholy; then, no doubt, his imaginative and generalising
habit of mind might extend the effects of this shock through his whole
being and mental world. And if, the state of melancholy being thus
deepened and fixed, a sudden demand for difficult and decisive action in
a matter connected with the melancholy arose, this state might well have
for one of its symptoms an endless and futile mental dissection of the
required deed. And, finally, the futility of this process, and the shame
of his delay, would further weaken him and enslave him to his melancholy
still more. Thus the speculative habit would be _one_ indirect cause of
the morbid state which hindered action; and it would also reappear in a
degenerate form as one of the _symptoms_ of this morbid state.

* * * * *

Now this is what actually happens in the play. Turn to the first words
Hamlet utters when he is alone; turn, that is to say, to the place where
the author is likely to indicate his meaning most plainly. What do you
hear?