efforts to fulfil this duty, his unconscious self-excuses and unavailing
self-reproaches, and the tragic results of his delay.


4

'Melancholy,' I said, not dejection, nor yet insanity. That Hamlet was
not far from insanity is very probable. His adoption of the pretence of
madness may well have been due in part to fear of the reality; to an
instinct of self-preservation, a fore-feeling that the pretence would
enable him to give some utterance to the load that pressed on his heart
and brain, and a fear that he would be unable altogether to repress such
utterance. And if the pathologist calls his state melancholia, and even
proceeds to determine its species, I see nothing to object to in that; I
am grateful to him for emphasising the fact that Hamlet's melancholy was
no mere common depression of spirits; and I have no doubt that many
readers of the play would understand it better if they read an account
of melancholia in a work on mental diseases. If we like to use the word
'disease' loosely, Hamlet's condition may truly be called diseased. No
exertion of will could have dispelled it. Even if he had been able at
once to do the bidding of the Ghost he would doubtless have still
remained for some time under the cloud. It would be absurdly unjust to
call _Hamlet_ a study of melancholy, but it contains such a study.

But this melancholy is something very different from insanity, in
anything like the usual meaning of that word. No doubt it might develop
into insanity. The longing for death might become an irresistible
impulse to self-destruction; the disorder of feeling and will might
extend to sense and intellect; delusions might arise; and the man might
become, as we say, incapable and irresponsible. But Hamlet's melancholy