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 inexorable, inaccessible, unfathomable abyss. It is build up of
the energy, the desires and suffering, the thoughts and passions of
our brothers; and these passions should be well known to us, for
they differ not from our own. In our most inexplicable moments, in
our most mysterious, unexpected misfortunes, we rarely find
ourselves struggling with an invisible enemy, or one that is
entirely foreign to us. Why strive of our own free will to enlarge
the domain of the inevitable? They who are truly strong are aware
that among the forces that oppose their schemes there are some that
they know not; but against such as they do know they fight on as
bravely as though no others existed; and these men will be often