Of course, a reaction would follow the first red lust for denunciation and for revenge of the deep damnation of the taking off of the helpless victim. One would be continually paralyzed in the very act of vengeance by the remembrance that one had no better authority than a dream for proof of crime in those one had always loved and trusted. The thing would seem so incredible, and yet the dream would explain all the puzzling facts so clearly. To a young and noble mind, evil in those one loves appears impossible. One would be always fighting the thought--which pulled the very ground of confidence from under one's feet--and yet always laying traps to prove one's suspicions true, as the jealous notoriously do; wishing yet fearing to know the truth. Hamlet's varying fits of violence and indecision seem natural enough under the circumstances, and not a sign of madness nor of eccentricity of character. He is called the "Melancholy Dane," but to a young confiding heart the first revelation of the possibility of filth and criminality in those near in blood and love causes distrust of all the world; arouses a mad desire for escape out of a cruel existence where such spiritual squalour is possible. If one will bring the situation home to one's self in this way--vivifying it with one's own heart--Hamlet no longer seems a strange and alien soul, but one's very own self caught in a web of horrid circumstance, and doing and being just what one's self would do and be in like case. Temptation to suicide, murder, "unpacking one's heart with words," bitterness to, and distrust of, the innocent Ophelia, treachery, doubt, indecision,--all are inevitable temptations. Looked at in this way, there is no mystery at all in the play if one reads it straight and simply, and from the human point of view--which view was always Shakespeare's, I think.
The R----s are home this week from California, and full of a surprising tale of their experience in renting and trying to live in a haunted house. They had no idea of its unpleasant character when they took it. Indeed they decided upon it principally because of the sunniness of the rooms and its generally cheerful character. The only suspicious feature was the very moderate price; but that appears to have aroused only gratitude instead of suspicion in their minds.