A Study of Hamlet (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863 Excerpt: ...of reflections arising out of a mind troubled with dreadful suggestions. Some calmness has now succeeded to the excitement and suffering disclosed to us by Ophelia's description of the last interview between them, when neither spoke. But he has been dwelling on the oft-recurring subject of self-destruction; he has considered it in every point of view, --its facility, its prompt relief from all the griefs and shocks that flesh is heir to, but also its possible consequences. The question is still revolving in his troubled mind as a mere question of living and of not living; of existence and the extinction of existence, and of sense and feeling. He is intently occupied, even now, with this important theme, and his words gravely and strongly express his doubts and perplexity, whilst his disposition to evade rather than to overcome difficulties is yet perceptible. It is agreeable to him to think that death is no more formidable than sleep; especially as it ends the heart-ach, and closes the gate on all the natural shocks incidental to life: but, pursuing the analogy of death and sleep, he comes upon the difficulty that in that sleep of death some dreams may come, dreams surpassing in woe or in terror all waking afflictions, and all the ills of life itself. He has conjured up, in his wonted reflective manner, and has passionately recounted, many of life's ordinary grievances, which no one, he thinks, would bear, and which he himself would certainly not bear but for those possible dreams the apprehension of which constitutes the respect That makes calamity of so long life. His thoughts seem to travel from the subject of suicide to his long-promised vengeance, which, as an enterprise of great pith and moment, has too truly had its current turned awry, so that the na..